[WikiEN-l] "Consensus" and decision making on Wikipedia

[Marc Riddell]

on 6/26/07 6:01 PM, Zoney at zoney.ie at gmail.com wrote:

> 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

Zoney,

Yes, there is hope; if we can put our individual egos and emotions aside -
and start using our heads in a responsible way.

Marc Riddell