On 5/3/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu May 3 12:32:31 UTC 2007 Anthony wrote:
Ah yes, now I remember that. I've long been a believer though, that for many rules, consistency is more important than correctness. In fact, for many rules there is no correct answer, so long as one is picked. If we all stopped at green lights and went at red lights, the world would still work just fine. I think that analogy follows to some of the examples in [[WP:POINT]], especially the ones dealing with AfD. Anthony
Ha. I agree with you that consistency often has value. .. and I think that the inability to achieve real consistency and the constant bickering over inconsequential decisions are among the worst problems with Enwiki's anti-authoritarian governance model.
That said, I don't agree that there are all that many things where "any consistent solution" is okay. What is actually needed is "any reasonably smart consistent solution". We just can't pick at random. .. and to achieve that you need actual authority and judgement, and not just a random number generator.
Your example is perfect for demonstrating this...
If every person went on red and stopped on green but we failed to change the firing sequence of the lights... Cars would hit each other during signaling patterns like "one direction left turn" which display three red sides and one green.
It's not enough that behavior be consistent.. it must be considered, intelligent, and generally 'good enough' as well. It doesn't need to be perfect, or even the favorite of the majority in many cases.
I agree with all that, actually. Consistency isn't sufficient, but it's more important than many of the lesser details. Applying it to AfD, I don't think it really matters in the long run whether or not we have articles on, say, elementary schools. I think it's better if we do, but if we have consistent somewhat objective criteria of what elementary schools are in and what is out it's better than a situation where we just guess. Things seem to be somewhat better today than they were a year or two ago when WP:POINT was written, at least there is now a standard guideline for notability, though it isn't always followed.
I had a sentence in WP:POINT on this which was quickly removed: "On the other hand, once a consensus on an issue has been established, it's perfectly acceptable to take that consensus to its logical conclusion. To do otherwise would make Wikipedia rather inconsistent." I suppose the phrasing could be tweaked, but I think that's an important thing for us to remember. Too many times I've seen people accused of violating WP:POINT when the truth is they were either convinced by the majority that they were wrong, or else they had given up and come to accept the view of the majority even though they thought their idea was better.
Anthony