on 4/10/07 2:15 PM, Zoney at zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
Consensus is just a weasel word on Wikipedia that at various times allows people to either a) ignore majority, often even significant majority votes "we don't have consensus" and at other times b) ignore minority objections, sometimes significant minorities "too bad you object - we have consensus".
In all cases, those who are persistent, or more agressive Wikipedians commanding more authority for themselves, get their own way.
Wikipedia is not a democracy, and it is not anything else sensible instead. People are deluding themselves if they think there's a consistent process for decision making from everything to RFA, policy, deletions, article content, heck - even NPOV is acheived by a mish-mash of votes/debate/looking for "consensus" - of course the result usually is just whatever group shouts loudest. It does work a lot of the time because often the majority of those involved will carry the decision despite the "Wikipedia is not a democracy" line, but really there isn't even a broken decision-making mechanism. There's usually no consistent mechanism at all.
Very well put, Zoney & right on! You are presenting to an aspect of the very culture of Wikipedia. But the issue of Wikipedia culture seems to be radioactive here: nobody seems to want to touch it.
Marc Riddell