geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Your opinion, while interesting, is kind of notable for utterly contradicting what Jimbo has said repeatedly about the community, and the fact that we are not a democracy.
-Snowspinner
I try to be a realist. The current size of the project means that we know have people or even groups of people who will never agree on anything ever. The time needed to carry out the length of debate needed to get anything close to consensus is now so long that if we want a result withing a decade we have to use supermajority rather than consensus. No amout of jumping up and down saying wikipedia is not a democracy is going to change that.
Fortunetly when it comes to individual articles the number of people involved is small enough that consensus is still posible in a large number of cases.
By presuming that there can be no easy agreement you don't give it a chance to happen. If is takes a little longer that's far more acceptable than the confrontational approach that has been prevailing lately. You would be surprised by the positive resultes you would get by showing a little good faith.
Ec