[WikiEN-l] on consensus (was: Is NPOV non-negotiable?)

[Steve Summit]

Zoney wrote:
> I think it's more down to the issue of "what is consensus". As usual it's a
> myth that these issues are being decided by consensus on Wikipedia, as there
> are two camps, even if one is far larger than the other.

And of course, the larger camp doesn't always "win".

An outstanding feature of on-line communities is that there are
relatively few enforcement mechanisms, and thus relatively higher
levels of anarchy.  Back in the glory days of Usenet, people
often asked, "What am I allowed to post?", and my answer was
always, "You can post whatever you can get away with."
And much the same applies to Wikipedia.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  We even enshrine the notion,
in a way, by having an actual policy saying it's okay to Ignore
All Rules.

But this does certainly mean that it's sometimes possible to make
large, significant, and sometimes sweeping changes that don't
have consensus.  My favorite example is the way spoiler warnings
got purged a few months back, not because (it seemed to me) there
was consensus for their removal, but simply because removing them
was technically easy, and few people complained too much.  (But
I mention this only for purposes of example; I am not trying to
reopen that debate here, now.)

If on Wikipedia you can make whatever edit you can get away with,
and if this applies to policy pages as well as article pages,
it's a miracle our policies have evolved as cleanly and
consistently as they have.

I would encourage anyone who is being bold, and perhaps ignoring
some rule, and perhaps flouting the wishes of some large and
perhaps consensual group of opposing editors, to carefully
question what your real motives are.  If you're doing something
*you* want, or you *think* some large group of editors want,
or you *think* is good for the project, you're at some risk of
deluding yourself.  If you've got a handful of other editors who
agree with you, but people keep accusing you of being part of
some cabal, it might just be because you're acting like one.