On 29/06/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
My basic view of how wikis work can be condensed into "We all try to nail jelly to the wall and keep the stuff that sticks." All editors with a pragmatic, realistic view of how things work can accept that they won't always get a solution they're completely happy with.
The flaw in that rationale is that decision making on Wikipedia does not exclusively involve only editors with a pragmatic realistic view of how things work (indeed can one tie down "how things work" on Wikipedia? It's as much in flux as heavily edited articles are). Considering how the editors that one could under this rationale classify as "unrealistic" are not in agreement with the rest of those involved in discussion leading to a decision, I still do not see why we should call it "consensus". Consensus among one group of like-minded (at least perhaps in approach) editors perhaps - that's something else entirely.
What about the situations where one lot of people just want their way and bully opponents into submission? (perhaps classifying them as "unrealistic", trolls, biased, un-wiki, whatever) Indeed perhaps where those responsible for changing things or maintaining the status quo are just are more persistent (or have more time to devote to Wikipedia) than others.
This isn't even beginning to get to the cases where most people *are* in consensus, but the stubborn few are those who are actually in the right (you know, the cases where people post indignantly to the mailing list - "how can this be permitted on Wikipedia?").
Sorry if I'm labouring the point, but I did in the past admire Wikipedia, and I'd like to be in a situation where it doesn't now seem so irretrievably broken to me. While it does seem so, I can't so much justify to myself spending my time, talents and energy on it.
Zoney