Kelly Martin (kelly.lynn.martin(a)gmail.com) [060302 10:54]:
Robert was surely aware of the early evolutionary
development of
parliamentary procedure in the English House of Lords resulting in a
movement from "consensus," in its original sense of unanimous
agreement, toward a decision by majority vote as we know it today.
This evolution came about from a recognition that a requirement of
unanimity or near unanimity can become a form of tyranny in itself. In
an assembly that tries to make such a requirement the norm, a variety
of misguided feelings--reluctance to be seen as opposing the
leadership, a notion that causing controversy will be frowned upon,
fear of seeming an obstacle to unity--can easily lead to decisions
being taken with a psuedoconsensus which in reality implies elements
of default, which satisfies no one, and for which no one really
assumes responsibility.
This paragraph really describes what I think is going on at Wikipedia.
I think it's time we reconsider whether "consensus" is a valid
principle of governance in as large and contentious a community as
this one has become, and whether we need to make more of an effort to
move to parliamentarianism as a method of governance.
I'd question this given Kim and Gmaxwell's numbers showing almost all
articles on Wikipedia aren't contentious at all and consensus works fine.
The pathological articles are the bits you hear about, not the majority.
We must take care not to fuck up the good bits to deal with the broken
bits.
- d.