I wish we'd done a vote on a wiki page, it's much lighter on traffic -- this list has generated 100 (!!!!) emails overnight.

The Cunctator wrote: "consensus" doesn't mean the same as "unanimous consent". If everybody on the list agrees except for TC, then that is consensus. (I don't want to get into a discussion of whether this has ever happened, but it certainly could.) There's even room for voting in some consensus decision making processes: We discuss the idea for a while, making up new ideas and hashing out old ones. Eventually, it becomes clear what most people think the right idea is. Then somebody announces <OK, this is the consensus, so I'll do it.>. At that point, anybody who thinks <Hold on! that is *not* the consensus!> is the person that should call a vote in order to prove that no such consensus exists -- not to *make* a decision but to *stop* one. Voting for survey purposes is a fine idea as well, as when elian didn't want to keep working on something with no hope, as long as we don't intend to let a 51% majority "win" the vote. In this case, it seems (without counting, this is just an impression) that the portal has received a majority vote, but it's pretty close. Conclusion: elian can work on a portal without wasting his time, but nobody could possibly claim that any consensus has been reached, hence no decision yet (which is good, since new ideas are still coming). I do think that this has definitely been the case in some situations. But I would also argue that that's exactly what should happen in most such situations. Votes that are used to make decisions should be reserved only for times when a decision *must* be made now. -- Toby

Anthere wrote: That depends on exactly what you mean by "consensus". The word does not, inherently, mean a lack of dissent. (For example, the "Washington Consensus" in favour of neoliberal economic policies in Latin America is now breaking down and can no longer be regarded as a consensus. But even in its most successful era, it was dissented to by some people in every country, and by one Latin American country in particular.) There actually might be a US/UK English distinction here. The OED says that consensus requires unanimity, while Webster's describes "public opinion" (never unanimous) as a potential source of consensus, thus agreeing with me. I have no idea what differences there may be in French ^_^. And other people here will leave if decisions are never made. Let me make a request now for people to say so if they would leave if TC were really able to veto every decision ever made about Wikipedia. I'll bet that this request gets a response ^_^. The point is, we shouldn't try to please everybody; that's not the only goal of consensus decisions, and not a realistic goal in groups of this size. The goal that *I* prize is that everybody continues to have ample opportunity to speak their opinion until such time that everybody has made up their minds -- at which point, there is usually a consensus. We also get the bonus that we're less likely to make decisions at all, given that most decisions do not, in fact, have to be made. For example, we have made no decision on English spelling systems (American vs the rest of the English speaking world), and I sincerely hope that we never do. We could easily make such a decision if we voted on it, but we never could if we waited for a consensus. (The decision under discussion now probably does have to be made, although if it were delayed until PediaWiki 4.0 links the different languages together better -- at which time consensus will in fact be easier to reach -- then that wouldn't be such a bad thing, even though I would not wait if it were up to just me.) I agree. Why enter into a "number" process? If I honestly think that there is a consensus, then I'm going to go ahead and implement that consensus. It is a subjective decision, I admit. But since I have very little power compared to everybody else (even though I have as much power as almost anybody else), I can't get away with it if I'm wrong and there's no consensus. I *can* get away with it if, say, TC is the only dissenter. This is one step removed from just doing what I think is right, which is what I do for *most* decisions that I make on a wiki. (OTOH, for the really important stuff, we may first have to come to a consensus on whether or not there's a consensus ^_^.) For example, when I first arrived on the mailing list, there was a discussion about naming conventions for city names. That discussion did not IMO reach a consensus, but somebody thought that it did and wrote up a policy page. Then I said that I didn't think that any consensus had been reached, and a bunch of people agreed with me, so obviously it hadn't. This generated further discussion (on the talk page, not the list), and the policy was ultimately changed, for the better IMO. (This is not the best example of how things should work, unfortunately, because the discussion eventually degenerated into voting. It is only an example of how the fact that consensus doesn't exist will cause people to be unable to get away with claiming that it does; but it's not an example of consensus decision making in all its glory.) -- Toby

Imran Ghory wrote: I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I haven't yet reached the point where I trust Wikipedia over a good dictionary to accurately describe the precise meanings of words. But there is still nice info in that article. That's a good point, although I don't think that it's very clear either way. Well in any case, with Webster's (1913) offering a quotation that becomes quite implausible if consensus requires unanimity, with Wikipedia explicitly stating that there is no such requirement, and with the OED now proved at worst a little wishy washy, clearly a single person cannot (necessarily) veto a consensus decision. Although Anthere seemed to regard such veto power as a *good* thing, its lack should make the vote supporters happier about consensus. (Not that we couldn't invent a thing-like-consensus-except-that-it- -doesn't-have-to-be-unanimous if the dictionaries had gone the other way, but it's nice to know that people have discussed your idea beforehand, to the point of giving it a name. It's not such an unknown forbidding new territory ^_^.) -- Toby