Fred Bauder wrote:
-----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.