-----Original Message-----
From: Zoney [mailto:zoney.ie@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 04:01 PM
To: 'English Wikipedia'
Subject: [WikiEN-l] "Consensus" and decision making on Wikipedia
Consensus is a favorite word on Wikipedia, pulled out on all occasions
whether on AfD, policy decisions, or simple article content matters. Going
by the dictionary definition of "consensus" (e.g. on Wiktionary) or our own
encyclopaedia article on consensus, can we really claim that decision-making
on Wikipedia is by consensus?
Historically many decisions seemed to mostly go by majority (of small group
of debate/vote participants) or large majority for change. Now, partly on
the basis of "voting is evil", there seems to be more and more decisions
made after "debate", where realistically, the action taken afterwards (or
during) is either arbitrary, majority wish (going by comment
counting/argument weighting rather than vote counting), or simply rule by
the strong-minded who just do what they wish when they've at least some
people to back them up (indeed perhaps not even that). I would suggest few
decisions are made from truly forming consensus between debate participants,
let alone considering the wider community.
Really - is there any hope of having a fixed method of decision-making on
Wikipedia, rather than a shambolic pretence of achieving consensus that just
allows groups to make decisions in different circumstances according to
different methods as it suits them?
Zoney
Consensus, like neutral point of view, has its mythic side, but making it work depends on
participating in the process and learning how to make it work. We may eventually get good
at it.
Fred
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I really don't think we're all that bad at it to begin with. Generally,
what I've seen is that strongarm tactics work for a while, maybe. But
eventually, enough people start to see it for what it is that they say
"No, this actually -isn't- the way we want to do this." That's how
consensus asserts itself even in the face of force-you knock a bunch of
people over on your way to something, a lot of them are going to get
back up mad.
Of course, the ideal scenario is to have a decent discussion -first-,
avoiding such nastiness. But strongarming just can't overpower a genuine
consensus against whatever's being done forever.