MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I never understood why so many people oppose votes. It's an easy way to see how the land lies and what the general opinion is. In my opinion that's helpful.
A lot of people, including me, would draw a distinction between a "vote" and a "poll". A "vote" is generally considered to be binding in some fashion, whereas a "poll" is a means of generating consensus because as you put it so well, it helps us to "see how the land lies and what the general opinion is".
Erik's proposal to have a binding community vote to determine what articles should say is one which I will never support.
That is not to say that polls/votes can't play any role in the process, nor is it to say that we don't need to advance the state of the art in dealing with such cases. But introducing binding votes destroys some of what is most essential about the interaction between the wiki process and the generation of high quality neutral content.
--Jimbo