Jimmy Wales wrote:
Having said all of this, I think that I would find very useful a way that I could formulate alternatives and have people formally register preferences, with the understanding that it's an experiment. A tool for more formally recognizing consensus. And then that tool might eventually (with experience and changes as necessary) be more formalized.
OK. Proposal (probably number 10^10, but anyway): * Have a special page (or another project?) for "consensus management" ;-) * Logged-in people only (just for ease of reading; user names are free...) * Anyone can create a topic that needs a consensus decision * Anyone can add solution proposals, as a wikipedia (meta) link, like "Difficult topic (proposal Magnus)" * Everyone can add (and remove) himself to the"decision finding" on any topic * Options on a topic are all proposals, "I don't like any of this", and "I don't know yet", the latter being the default * Anyone can change his vote (sorry: opinion) on the topic any time, and give a reason for prefering that option * For a topic, anyone can mark a checkbox "I think we should get this done now" * When some criteria are met (example: topic exists for 1 week, more than 5 people are signed up, more than 70% think it's done now), consensus is declared.
It has some voting elements (like actually deciding at one point), but also the "flow" of consensus making. And, we know where the participants stand at any moment.
Magnus