Wikipedia talk:Consensus/Archive 2

Now outmoded

This whole concept is entirely outmoded. Is there a template for policies we used to believe in but have now been trashed? Grace Note 04:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Without examples you're not going to get very far. And I still see consensus is hard at work on FAC. Johnleemk | Talk 13:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

A comment on the concept of consensus as a governing principle

Robert was surely aware of the early evolutionary development of parliamentary procedure in the English House of Lords resulting in a movement from "consensus," in its original sense of unanimous agreement, toward a decision by majority vote as we know it today. This evolution came about from a recognition that a requirement of unanimity or near unanimity can become a form of tyranny in itself. In an assembly that tries to make such a requirement the norm, a variety of misguided feelings--reluctance to be seen as opposing the leadership, a notion that causing controversy will be frowned upon, fear of seeming an obstacle to unity--can easily lead to decisions being taken with a psuedoconsensus which in reality implies elements of default, which satisfies no one, and for which no one really assumes responsibility.

Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th edition, pp. xliv-xlv.

For your contemplation. Kelly Martin (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Kelly, but the question then is: is pretending that we do things by consensus the best way of resolving that problem? Or is allowing the empowered to make unilateral choices, so long as they are willing to be "responsible" for them better? What form would "responsibility" take? I'm guessing you don't believe your "constituency" should be allowed to disapprove your actions, so how do you see it?Grace Note 00:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Consensus in science

There appears to be an assumption in the Wikipedia consensus policy that science is democratic. Conclusions reached in science are not democratic. Scientific conclusions stem from independent evidence, often unpleasant evidence. A Wiki publication seems to be accepted by final consensus approval of a panel of editors. Thus in the 17th century the Wikipedia encyclopedia would probably have banned any article that would have suggested that the earth travelled around the sun, in conflict with the consensus belief of the time that the world was geocentric.

If Galileo would have been the author of the article he would have been banned on the ground of breaking the NOR rule.

This rule seems to favour a more popular and conservative point of view.

Perhaps the rule should be changed to acceptance of articles if they adhere simply to the rules of Scientific Method.Jurplesman 02:27, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Scientific papers do not, and should not, follow several of the rules of Wikipedia. This is because there are many papers on a given subject, and only one WP article.

In scholarly journals, good OR will be accepted in the field, bad OR will be ignored and forgotten. Advocacy articles are fine; they will be answered by another article, sometimes in the same journal, and the better will be cited and the worse ignored, or cited less. Wikipedia is smaller than the republic of letters, and does not have these options. Septentrionalis 02:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Please remember that wikipedia, like most encyclopedias, is a tertiary source. It reflects the common knowledge as it is today, the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not fact. It is not meant to put forward any new ideas or original thinking. HighInBC 01:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Consensus vs Supermajority

I have seen an increasing amount of people writing that Consensus in wikipedia means over 80% majority. As far as I can tell when reading this article, this is not the meaning of the word here, nor in the article on consensus, and I would like to have this clarified in the article so that "Consensus vs Supermajority" is not mis-interpreted as "Consensus=Supermajority". Originally, the word meant unanimity. The evolvement of the word in modern meaning has been expanded to encompass the process to reach or approach unamity, but only here in wikipedia have I seen people trying to change the meaning by diluting it into something else. You may change the policy if you like, but changing the meaning of the word is a very bad idea. I am going to leave this thought for comments for a week, and if there are no protests, I shall try to clarify this in this article.DanielDemaret 22:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As a clarification, Definition 1a in Mirriam-Webster's clearly includes unanimity as a requirement for the meaning of the word. There are secondary meanings, but these are expansions of the original meaning, not replacements.DanielDemaret 22:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Modern decision-making theory is a bit more nuanced than Webster's. In models used in Change Management studies, there is a spectrum for group decision-making modes. (I'm sorry, but I can't remember the author of the original article describing this model right now.)

• Unanimity - Everyone agrees that X is the right thing to do and will actively support it.
• Consensus - Everyone has been heard and everyone can live with the result. Dissenters may not actively support but they will not actively block the decision.
• Supermajority - If X gets enough votes, that's what happens regardless of how strongly the minority opposes.
• Majority - If X gets more than half the votes, that's what happens.
• Plurality - If X gets the most votes, that's what happens regardless how many other things were proposed or how strongly the action is opposed.
• Authoritarian - Jimbo decides.

Consensus has been described as a "lack of disagreement" which is distinctly different from "unanimous agreement".

Academic theory aside, the important thing to remember is that we do not seek perfect consensus. Several studies have shown that unanimity and even perfect consensus are impossible standards to achieve in any group above a certain critical mass and diversity level. They are too susceptible to the "tyranny of the minority". That's even more serious in a wiki where the very openness of the processes makes the project vulnerable to abuse by trolls and fringe minorities if we try to live up to purist definitions.

As a practical matter, we merely seek rough consensus. In a rough consensus, everyone still has to be heard and if more than a fringe continue to raise strong and principled objections, the discussion continues (or the decision defaults to the status quo). That is a considerably higher standard than a mere supermajority because we require ourselves to take into account the strength and source of the objections.

I think the confusion arises because the identification of "fringe objections" are deliberately left as matters of judgment and discretion. Generally, we informally weight the strength of the objections by the user's perceived alignment with our collective objective of writing a truly great encyclopedia.

I completely agree with you that "consensus ≠ supermajority". Users who say so should be politely invited to reread the guideline. But it's not exactly accurate to say that "consensus = unanimity", either. "Consensus" is still a closer description of our aspirations than any of the other decision-making modes. Rossami (talk) 01:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Happily, this is the same that we had to read in politics and management in the 70's, so we are in complete agreement there. I feel relieved that the meaning of the word has not changed to what we used to call supermajority. This needs to be clarified in the article since people are belliggerently bullying people who deny that ">80% === supermajority" in the discussions around wikipedia.DanielDemaret 06:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I would still use Westminster Cabinet Government as an example of "consensus", which is somewhere between Unanimity and the Consensus definitions given earlier in this section. For my education please could you provide some examples of where people have been "writing that Consensus in Wikipedia means over 80% majority", because I think that the context of such statements is important. Also I think it is important that numbers stay on this page (as it helps to level the playing field for new editors), but by all means describe what a Wikipedia rough consensus is. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

An example for you Philip may be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy/Arguments/Image-Display

and search for the "consensus" on Wikipedia means "more than 80% agreement"

The same thing, phrased variously, has been stated by various people at least since February in a range of articles connected to... well, anything remotely to do with Islam, I suppose one could say.

I think the Cabinet example is a good one of a modern type of consensus. I just want to point out that an increasing number of people seem to interpret it differently than Rossami, Philip Baird Shearer and I do here in the domain of wikipedia, and that I think it may therefore be necessary to make some statement in this article that will dispel this particular fast spreading misunderstanding, since they often refer to this article to support the view that "consensus= >80% " DanielDemaret 12:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

((Incidentally, I have no more interest in what happens to any cartoon, I was simply saddened that the discussions there so often seems to refer to wikipedia policies to claim things that are not in the policies, as for example when using NPA to support why personal attacks on other editors are a good idea. That particular editor has been repeatedly blocked for other things, but he still seems to believe that NPA means "attack other editors".))DanielDemaret 13:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Biased writing, enforced by a majority

In several of the articles touching on biology's Theory of Evolution, a team of contributors has managed to push their own POV (rather than conforming to Wikipedia:NPOV, which is also a violation of the Wikipedia:Consensus guideline:

At times, a group of editors may be able to, through persistence, numbers, and organization, overwhelm well-meaning editors and generate widespread support among the editors of a given article for a version of the article that is inaccurate, libelous, or not neutral, e.g. giving undue weight to a specific point of view. This is not a consensus.

They told me that it was "consensus" and teamed up to revert any changes I made to articles like Intelligent design, using edit summaries like rv to consensus. They insisted that any changes I made be discussed and get their approval first.

I mistakenly thought that by undoing their unexplained, undiscussed and anti-NPOV reversions (up to 3 times per day) I might achieve a breakthrough, but this failed for two reasons:

1. I'm too sloppy to keep count, and I unwittingly violated 3RR.
2. You can't fight fire with fire.

I'd like to see some discussion on the concept of group ownership of articles (which I think would be bad policy) vs. the idea of requiring neutrality even when a supermajority wants to use an article to make their favored viewpoint look good and keep out any information which disparages that viewpoint or favors another one. --Uncle Ed 13:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• You should remind them that articles are never locked from change, that even consensus can change over time (and usually does with controversial articles). Instead of reverting, debate it out on the talk page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-13 14:46

WP:CON never trumps WP:NPOV, but the fact is Ed, you were pushing a pro-ID pov there. You failed on talk page each time because your notions could not overcome verifiable facts. FeloniousMonk 15:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

CON doesn't trump NPOV. The consensus Ed chose to ignore at the ID page is a carefully constructed agreement which takes into account criticisms from both sides of the issue and tried to balance these opinions within the rules of policy. In a blizzard of edits Ed introduced material that not only took the articles away from NPOV, in many cases they included factually inaccurate information which flatly contradicted information elsewhere on the page. And as for talk pages - you need to discuss the content of your change, not simply use them to complain about tactics. Guettarda 15:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Funny, but Ed rarely seems to tell the whole story -- but that's been part of his m.o. at least in the time since I joined Wikipedia. Also, for someone who used to be an admin, it's odd how he's seems to not comprehend the rules...ah, but "seems" is the key word. It's all just a charade of course...Ed plays the "nice old uncle", tries to float stuff he knows has no bouyancy, then gets mad when it's reverted. Now I can understand getting mad when something gets reverted, but rather than sulk, debate the content of the edit, explain why you felt it was a good edit. Is that what the good uncle does? Nay, he proceeds to write pitiable faux cris-de-coeur that essentially boil down to, "Poor, poor me, I am the Poor destested uncle". But then, what do I know, I'm a "reality-based-thinker". •Jim62sch• 20:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

An apropos classic from 2001 "I try to remove "bias" from Wikipedia articles on controversies dear to me, but I recognize that what I call "bias" may merely be ideas I misunderstand. I may in some cases also fail to distinguish between personal belief and documented fact, whether through wishful thinking or sheer sloppiness. Feel free to set me straight at any time. When I feel I've absorbed the lesson, I'll add it to my /Learning page"[1] •Jim62sch• 21:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

What if you reach a consensus and there's nobody there?

I organised a poll on renaming Munich massacre to Munich Olympics massacre which attracted only 4 commenters, basically 2.5-1 in favour of a move. After the move, another (fifth) editor moved it back claiming "lack of consensus". I'm not particularly bothered either way about the name, but I put some effort into organising the poll and I'm a bit peeved it was changed back unilaterally. I was surprised so few people bothered to participate, especially when 2 more supporters of the original name arrived after the vote. Perhaps this might have been avoided if discussion had been left open for more than the prescribed 5 days, to establish a clearer mandate for change; but the move back did not occur for another 2 weeks. Or is 2.5-1 too small a mandate for change? It's my impression that most Wikipedia polls involve very small numbers of participants. jnestorius^(talk) 17:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Voting is not consensus. Read Wikipedia:Consensus. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-14 17:31
• Thanks, I had done, but an article can have only one name. I said "basically" 2.5-1, but in fact nobody actually opposed the new name in the vote. Are you saying: "Consensus cannot apply to the question of what to name an article, but only to its content: other means are required to decide the naming question: take your problem elsewhere, this page cannot help you"? jnestorius^(talk) 17:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
  • No, I am saying you cannot throw out a vote as a means toward consensus. Consensus has nothing to do with voting. You discuss a change; you don't vote on it. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-14 18:08
• Does consensus only comes into play if there is a dispute? Both the admin who moved the page and the user who moved it back used the word "consensus". Is there a difference between consensus and unanimity? At what point can one take action? Regarding discussion, I had raised the issue several months earlier in a non-voting context and got zero responses. I thought calling a vote might get more of a response. It did, but the move was what really made people sit up and notice. jnestorius^(talk) 18:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Consensus is unhelpful

Is it just me or does this article seem vague to the point of being un-useful? It doesn't say what "consensus" means for wikipedia guideline except to say that it is similar to a supermajority which also is undefined in the article, but just linked. Shouldn't there at least be some % guideline? --Fandyllic 6:48 AM PDT 12 Aug 2006

No, consensus is not %. Kim Bruning 15:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Policy is descriptive

Fixed some misunderstandings. Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Policy is determined by consensus of course, not the other way around.

How do you think we got policy in the first place? Immaculate conception? ;-)

There's still lots of misunderstandings about supermajority and polling in this article, but that's for another day. Kim Bruning 15:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Neither extreme is an accurate description of policy at Wikipedia. Most of the policy used here is developed through consensus. Some policy is imposed on us as a condition of participating in the project. Jimbo's decrees on NPOV come to mind. The choice to use consensus as our primary decision-making process is another. I know that sounds like a quibble but it's important to be precise on questions like this. Rossami (talk) 22:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

In fact most of this page is currently about other stuff. That other stuff has pages of it's own, we don't need to explain it here.

This page is about how we arrive at our descisions and make our guidelines. NPOV was arrived at by consensus on a wiki as well. (On wikiwikiweb, meatball, and very early wikipedia).

I'm trying to clean up this page a bit to meet that standard. Can you give me a hand on that?

Kim Bruning 09:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Good advice?

I see Kim Bruning has deleted an extensive section including:

At times, a group of editors may be able to, through persistence, numbers, and organization, overwhelm well-meaning editors and claim widespread support among the editors of a given article for a version of the article that is inaccurate, libelous, or not neutral, e.g. giving undue weight to a specific point of view. This is not a consensus.

The preferred way to deal with this problem is to draw the attention of other editors to the issue by one of the methods of dispute resolution, such as consulting a third party, filing a request for comment (on the article in question), and requesting mediation. Enlarging the pool will prevent the railroading of articles by a dedicated few. Those who find that their facts and point of view are being excluded by a large group of editors should at least consider that they may be mistaken.

I have adapted the deleted text slightly. I still think this is good advice (I admit I wrote some of it). This section does not mention "policy", so I wonder if it is objectionable in itself. Septentrionalis 20:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, well check context and put it back then! Sheesh! :-) Kim Bruning 20:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought this page might as well be edited by consensus. ;-> Septentrionalis 20:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and this involves ignoring all rules and being bold in editing the page; though not to the point of being a dick, of course. The (3) wiki process will then ensue, with other people editing or reverting, leading to a form of consensus in the medium to long term (days to weeks). Incidentally, do try to be as neutral as possible, as that makes gaining consensus easier. :-) Kim Bruning 09:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah! Kim's comment directly above is really the sort of description of consensus that needs to be outlined in the article. It is one thing to talk about consensus in the abstract, but it is much harder to understand the reality of how it works on a wiki. So there is the process that Kim mentions, and that works just fine until there is a disagreement and that hopefully can be resolved on the talk page, and if not, there are other mechanisms. Perhaps we should spell this out in more detail so people have a road map of the process. I'm not talking about an abstract proscriptive practice, but a description of what really happens when consensus is working well, and suggestions of what to do when it isn't. This might be very helpful, especially for newcomers. -- Samuel Wantman 09:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Consensus polling

"Consensus is a partnership between interested parties working positively for a common goal." -- Jimmy Wales

Consensus can sometimes be hard to achieve in practice, and often harder to measure. Consensus polling is a method of adducing consensus for a given proposal, using a structured polling method which can easily indicate how many people are in support of a proposal, and how many people are not yet in support of a proposal.

A consensus poll is unlike traditional (evil) votes, which produce winners and losers; in a consensus poll there is only one proposal, which can be edited by the participants in the poll. This method aims to help people achieve a high level of consensus, rather than a low level of consensus (such as a mere majority or supermajority). Having only a single proposal aims to ensure that participants do actually work together to achieve a result which pleases as many people as possible, rather than encouraging them to compete against each other in order for their own proposal to succeed.

More information about consensus polling can be found at consensuspolling.org, and at the MeatballWiki. I encourage people who are interested in this method to try it out; the proposal page already contains a full set of instructions for setting up a new poll. I also encourage people to leave their comments at the talk page. --bainer (talk) 14:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Aren't we supposed to be using consensus polling for Requests for Adminship and Articles for Deletion already?

This page is currently anti-consensus

At least by percentage, I think this page actually describes every WP:BEANS opposition to consensus there is, written by opponents, with practically no text from proponents :-) Kim Bruning 10:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

lol, that's kind of ironic.... Just H 02:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Groupthink

Consensus shouldn't degenerate into groupthink where it means following the party line. This process shouldn't have winners or losers, and consensus building means involving those editors who have divergent opinions.

Only having one privileged POV weakens the Wikipedia project and reduces it to a partisan exercise. That's not consensus. I suggest adding an aspect to the rule that bars editors and administrators from gathering other editors and admins to build a cabal in favor of a certain POV. Such individuals--groups--make a mockery out the NPOV rule because they reinterpret it to suit their needs.

Consensus means developing a synthesis of varying POVs to create the strongest possible result, not the polemics that seem to have taken over articles in the areas of politics, sociology and religion.

If I could write a rule, "Consensus shall be null and void if it can be demonstrated by editing patterns, or other evidence that an editor or administrator relies upon the same group of individuals to enforce his or her POV.

In the interest of developing the best possible product on Wikipedia, all efforts shall be undertaken to involve opposing parties in the editing and consensus-making process. WP:NPOV is best served by creating a synthesis of opposing views, and consensus based upon groupthink or cabals undermines that rule."--68.45.161.241 17:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem facing Wikipedia consensus at the moment is pretty much what 68 says above. But it goes deeper than people simply trying to push a POV. I don't think many people in this world understand what a non-partisan stance is. So many times I've seen members of a discussion form ranks in a US style "us and them" shouting match. Almost no where do I see people willing to have a reasoned argument, willing to be swayed by rhetoric or willing to argue the points without logical falacies. I blame society ;) it is the way of the World these days. --Monotonehell 03:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I want a rule banning editorial cabals that work together from case to case and who strive to get those they disagree with kicked off Wikipedia.

"Any person or group of persons who consistently squats on any particular article or category of articles with the aim of WP:OWN shall face consquences up to and including banning, and any administrator who orchestrates or consistently participates in such cabals shall face having their adminship revoked."

It's a serious threat to Wikipedia's ethics and prized NPOV rule and ultimately to the project itself. It's one thing to develop consensus with people who randomly find their way onto particular articles. It's quite another when the "consensus" is formed in advance. Editing cliques have to go. Here's a scholarly citation of just what I mean.

www.matei.org/ithink/papers/ambiguity-conflict-wikipedia/

Oops, I forgot to sign. Well, it's late.--Pravknight 05:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a fair comment, however that kind of policy is in danger of abuse. There's many people who watch articles in their field or interest, and they pick up a lot of the vandalism that goes on here. Such a policy could be used as a weapon by those intent on disrupting serious editors. I'm part of a group a regular watchers of several pages that attract both plain vandals and those who are trying to insert their POV into the articles. But the difference is in our "cabal" we all have different views and opinions, but we leave those at the door.

For example there was one disruptive editor earlier this year who was bold and moved a page to a different title. Fair enough, when everyone recovered from the shock we had a discussion on the talk page, consensus was reached to revert completely but to move to a third title that took on board the concerns of the disruptive editor but made much more sense from a policy and logical standing. This single editor was not happy with the consensus and set about triggering any and every SpeedyD, RfD and other dispute resolution proceedure they could find to make a point. Luckilly our proceedures are constructed to recognise such disruption and the deleted pages were soon recovered. But this illustrates how such things need to be thought through. --Monotonehell 09:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have seen good-faith editors treated as though they were disruptive by groups of editors and admins seeking to defend their turf. Of course, there needs to be exceptions to the rules WP:IAR. I'm talking about those individuals who can be demonstrated to travel in editing packs from place to place. We need to prevent admins/editors from using the same friends to control certain pages in the project. If I named names, I likely would be cited as WP:NPA.

In any case, the current consensus-development process needs to emphasize cooperation and synthesis of varying opinions.

Who knows, maybe making the minority editors feel like a part of the process could reduce the number of edit wars. I studied psychology in grad school, and one thing that constantly was emphasized was the importance of making everyone on your team feel a sense of belonging.

(UTC)--Pravknight 14:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes that's totaly right, giving everyone a sense of ownership is a very important part of any group process. (Does anyone see the irony of that and WP:OWN? lol) The weapon thing can work both ways.

Like I said above, it seems a product of the time that people form these lobby groups, power in numbers, instead of keeping an open mind and trying to come to a consensus. --Monotonehell 16:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"Consensus shall be null and void if it can be demonstrated by editing patterns, or other evidence that an editor or administrator relies upon the same group of individuals to enforce his or her POV." Hmmm, goes against the very foundation of what makes wikis work- trust among established, credible contributors. Considering this suggestion's source, 68.45.161.241 (talk · contribs)/Pravknight (talk · contribs) has an extensive history of disrupting the project promoting a personal pov, as documented here Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Pravknight, this appears as one more chapter to promote [2] his campaign to weaken the project's prohibitions on biased editing. FeloniousMonk 18:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I want to strengthen the projects prohibitions against biased editing, and it seems that FeloniousMonk refuses to look in the mirror when it comes to his accusations. I called him out on what I perceived was his biased editing, and now he seems to want to crucify me for it.

Let's stop the personal attacks FeloniousMonk. Stop disrupting the pages and deal with the meat of my comment.

To insert my personal POV as fact in an article would be unprofessional, and I write and edit for a living. Simply, let's not trust those who abuse their power or who engage in vendettas against those who threaten them.

who threaten their power. There needs to be checks and balances, and as Lord Acton once said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

This night alone FeloniousMonk has engaged in a campaign of harrassment against me on the talk pages of WP:NPOV, WP:V and here. This personal war has to end. Let's ignore this personal attack against me and continue to do the work of improving Wikipedia's overall credibility.

If anyone thinks I'm not above criticizing people I agree with read this article I wrote in ::::today's Daily Local News about a personal friend of ::::mine.[3]

I don't want any slant in any Wikipedia articles, period. For FeloniousMonk to say otherwise is slanderous.--Pravknight 23:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Tyranny of the minority

It's my opinion that we need some sort of addition to the page, to address those "tyranny of the minority" situations which block constructive action. For example, I'm dealing with a situation right now in a set of articles, where there are a large group of editors involved, but there are two or three who always seem to consistently disagree with the majority. They're not crackpots -- they're hard workers, generally good editors, and are civil in discussions. But they're stubborn and want their way, and this frequently causes problems. An issue will come up, the community as a whole will discuss it, a consensus (or what I regard as a consensus) will emerge among the majority, and then the naysayer minority group digs their heels in and won't go along. They're polite about it, but they're firm that they disagree, and then we get stuck. The naysayers say that as long as they disagree, that there is not a "consensus," and so the issue cannot be addressed. When straw polls are held to show that the majority agree with a certain course of action, sometimes 3:1 or 4:1 in favor, the minority speaks up and says that numbers don't matter, since it still isn't a "consensus" as long as they disagree. These kinds of stalemates can drag on for months, and are frustrating to all involved. Has anyone dealt with situations like this? What is recommended? Sometimes it seems that the only course of action is for the majority to simply ignore the minority and move forward.

Perhaps it might be useful to follow the lead of AfD discussions? For example, an article is nominated for deletion, the community discusses it, sometimes there are strong opinions on both sides of the issue, and then an uninvolved admin simply has to come in and make a decision, even if that means going against the opinion of a few well-meaning people in the minority. Is that "consensus"? Perhaps we may want to add some technique like this to this page? The idea of bringing in an uninvolved admin to review a discussion, and make a decision, one way or the other? --Elonka 04:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ununtelligible guideline

Under the subtitle "Reasonable consensus building", the guideline says: "With respect to good faith, no amount of emphasized assertions that one is editing according to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view while engaging in biased editing will serve to paper over the nature of one's activities."

What the heck does all this mean??! The whole guideline is full of complicated sentences and obscure idioms. I am a proficient English speaker yet I have trouble understanding it, let alone the millions of poor English speakers! Please clarify and shorten the sentence and the guideline. -Pgan002 05:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I've clarified that sentence; I think we should add another reminder that, unfortunately, many of those who engage in biased editing are doing so in good faith, to defend (their private version of) The Truth. Septentrionalis 23:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I liked the changes, and have also taken a stab at clarifying some other sentences which might have been confusing. --Elonka 02:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It is a widely admitted factoid that to state information simply is difficult and not easy. Professionals spend hours attempting to state an idea in an easy-to-understand, difficult-to-misunderstand simplicity. The guideline is not stated simply. This takes some work, but is worth the effort. I "simplified" two paragraphs. Concensus shall be reached or you will be assimilated ! heh Terryeo 18:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that consensus can only work among reasonable editors.. Is simply a false statement here on Wikipedia. It is more of a warning than a guideline. It is not a helpful statement. It tells an editor there may be unreasonable editors. And different editors will have different ideas of what unreasonable is. We don't need a warning, we want a guideline. We don't care whether or not consensus can only work among reasonable editors because we have various enforcements for unreasonable editors. A guideline about concensus shouldn't talk about note ! where consensus can't happen. Those situations are handled by 3RR, RfC, etc. Terryeo 15:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It also creates a situation where certain cliques/factions can self-righteously declare themselves reasonable and anyone who disagrees with them unreasonable. The guideline should be how we can develop a healthy consensus, not impose a party line and that's that.

A consensus involving different POVs should be encouraged because that kind of consensus ensures that NPOV is maintained and that Wikipedia doesn't remain/become a one-sided operation. Alloys consisting of different metals always are stronger than steel/iron alone. Differing opoinions should be encouraged, not discouraged. Let's make Wikipedia into an alloy of ideas and not just wrought iron.

The days of clique editing must end and end now.--Pravknight 15:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Follow the rules

An anon made this edit, which may be summarized thus:

Don't say "I think..." so-and-so; go look up the proper rules: For units, go to BIPM and use SI; for other norms, consult ISO, the Academy of Sciences, and so forth.

For the record, I think this is wrong. The English language has always done without an Academy; usage is determined by the whole body of speakers, and learned societies are only advisory. Consensus of anglophone Wikipedians is as close as we can get to the actual authority on these subjects - although we should look at and consider the opinions of standard-making bodies. Septentrionalis 20:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

For including in an article, you just state facts: "according to SI rules, this unit is expressed as whatever". For how we use things, you use our WP:Manual of Style, which is decided on consensus, but usually follows standards and generally-accepted rules. — Omegatron 16:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Evidence based voting and Consensus

It seems strange to me that an encyclopedia that insists articles must be based on evidence allows a voting system based on prejudice (more predi-juice). At the very least anyone voting should state whether they know anything about the subject or whether e.g. they have checked the internet/books etc.

Even one person saying to keep based on evidence should outweigh any number of people simply expressing their opinion. --Mike 09:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It wouldn't surprise me if many editors both had those concerns when they begin editing, and still, to some small extent, hold those concerns. Its practically intuitive to be concerned in that area (I think). But it does seem to mostly work without too many feathers being ruffled. Terryeo 14:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Definition of consensus

I changed the intro wording to:

"Wikipedia works by building consensus. This is done through polite discussion and negotiation, in an attempt to develop a consensus something that everyone can agree with."

Matt Crypto reverted with summary "I thought consensus was understood to be different from unanimity?"

The article currently says:

"In disputes, the term consensus is often used as if it means anything from genuine consensus to my position; it is not uncommon to see both sides in an edit war claiming a consensus for its version of the article."

I think we need to define the word "consensus" here, so that people can't bend the word to mean something else. Currently the intro effectively says "A consensus is formed when people discuss something and reach a consensus". A circular definition. No wonder. So what is the actual definition of a consensus in the real world (as opposed to how it is used here)?

Our definition:

Consensus has two common meanings. One is a general agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action. The other is as a theory and practice of getting such agreements (for information on the practice of achieving formal consensus, see Consensus decision-making).

Wiktionary definition:

1. General agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action.
2. A specific method of community decision making where agreement by all parties is required, and one party can block the decision
3. Average projected value, as in the finance term consensus forecast

Answers.com definitions (from various sources):

• 1. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole: “Among political women . . . there is a clear consensus about the problems women candidates have traditionally faced” (Wendy Kaminer). See Usage Note at redundancy.
  2. General agreement or accord: government by consensus.
• The quality or condition of being in complete agreement or harmony: unanimity, unanimousness.
• general agreement
• agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief

I don't see what was wrong with my edit. — Omegatron 00:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

See my comment above at #Consensus vs Supermajority on the interpretation of "consensus" for our purposes. (apologies for the length of that comment.) The relevant definition for the purposes of our page is "consensus" in the context of consensus decision-making. In that context, consensus explicitly is not unanimity. Your change could have been misunderstood as implying more unanimity than we can realistically achieve. Especially since our standard isn't really even "consensus" - for most decisions it's only "rough consensus".

We always aspire to consensus but we have to recognize that we may not always be able to achieve it. The encyclopedia can no more be held hostage to the tyranny of the minority than it can to the tyranny of the majority.

Your concern seems to be that the sentence was a circular definition. I personally never felt so because the link in the word "consensus" provided the way out of that circle. Perhaps the opening section could be clarified but I do not think that we want to establish a hard rule such as "unanimity" or even "unanimity - x". Any hard definition will be too easy for the wikilawyers to twist. Rossami (talk) 01:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

See my comment above at #Consensus vs Supermajority on the interpretation of "consensus" for our purposes. (apologies for the length of that comment.)

That's great, but none of it's in the guideline.

The relevant definition for the purposes of our page is "consensus" in the context of consensus decision-making.

Wouldn't it be better to link to that article, then?

In that context, consensus explicitly is not unanimity. Your change could have been misunderstood as implying more unanimity than we can realistically achieve.

But it's the ideal of what we would like to achieve. When we can't, we degrade to a "rough consensus". When we can't do that, we degrade to supermajority rule.

We always aspire to consensus but we have to recognize that we may not always be able to achieve it.

Exactly. ;-)

The encyclopedia can no more be held hostage to the tyranny of the minority than it can to the tyranny of the majority.

The phrase "tyranny of the minority" is especially not in this guideline (by which I mean "it really needs to be").

Your concern seems to be that the sentence was a circular definition.

It is. Your clarifications seem fine, now that I know that they exist, but none of this appears anywhere in the guideline.

Any hard definition will be too easy for the wikilawyers to twist.

Not defining our most important dispute-related term causes much more wikilawyering harm than overdefining it would. It's so bad the guideline has a note about it. — Omegatron 03:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

When I wrote earlier (starting this section), I was thinking "It would be great if we had some kind of... 'Consensus Process' that we could use to channel our energies into a consensus decision instead of stupid back and forth repeated arguments. Kind of like when people take a straw poll and leave a comments section at the end, but better; everyone states their case first, and then the back and forth is confined to its own section. A process." Now that I have read Consensus decision-making, especially the examples, I feel enlightened. This has already been developed in depth. How do we apply it here? I'm sick of the fighting and tremendous inefficiency of Wikipedia "discussion" pages. Everyone claims to be striving for Consensus, but none of us really know what it is or how to reach it quickly. I can't believe that this is one of our most fundamental concepts and it's not defined anywhere in our guideline/policy pages (is this page a carryover from meatballwiki or something?). — Omegatron 04:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Concensus is rare and the need for dispute resolution is frequent

This article presents concensus as common and the need for dispute resolution as rare. My experience is the opposite. I have filed dozens of Requests for comments and I will file dozens more. Can we change the guideline accordingly? If not, then please explain me how this guideline is not naive and unrealistic. Andries 20:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Very true!--Darrendeng 13:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Consensus, like NPOV, is one of the goals we strive for even if we don't always reach it in practice. In my experience, the need for dispute resolution is both frequent (in that it happens many times a week) and rare (in that it happens in a small minority of cases). We do have quite a lot of cases on RFC and RFM, but in contrast with the sheer amount of users and articles on Wikipedia, it's not quite as bad as it seems. (Radiant) 16:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

small groups vs. larger groups

Added a paragraph on this; please comment or copyedit. (Radiant) 16:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the text, and am re-copying it here for discussion. Radiant, this wording seems pretty clearly-targeted towards the dispute that you were involved with (and is still ongoing, and seems headed for ArbCom) at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television). It would be better to get some neutral opinions on this first. --Elonka 03:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

== Small groups vs. Larger groups ==

It stands to reason that the consensus in a small group is not, at least not necessarily, representative of the consensus in a larger group, or in Wikipedia as a whole. It is perfectly fine for a small group of editors to reach a consensual decision about an article or group of articles, but if these articles gain more attention from Wikipedia as a whole it is then possible, if unlikely, that the larger consensus differs from the smaller consensus, and that the decision will be overturned. The small group of editors does not get any special privilege simply because they were editing the articles earlier, nor do they have "jurisdiction" over the article since the concept of jurisdiction does not exist on Wikipedia.

• As you well know I was an outsider to that dispute and gave neutral comments by your own request. I believe that such disputes could be avoided in the future by making this clarification here. This is not a major change, just a clarification. Do you have any comments on the wording of this addition? Do you believe that a small group of people should be able to make decisions that are binding on a larger group, or on the community as a whole? Do you believe people who have edited an article substantially have jurisdiction over it? (Radiant) 09:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I am not familiar with the dispute you both mention. Looking only at the wording on the page, I agree with the basic principle but have been chewing over whether it could/would have unintended consequences. Would this be seen, for example, as grounds for endless reviews and re-reviews of deletion discussions? What about policy decisions? What group is large enough to speak for Wikipedia as a whole? Does the added text increase or decrease the likelihood of wikilawyering? I'm just not sure yet... Rossami (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    • That dispute is a rather long story, but it boils down to the question of whether a WikiProject can set standards for "their" articles even if these standards run counter to accepted standard everywhere else on Wikipedia, and if a (smaller) group of people from a project can keep these standards if a (larger) group of people outside the project weigh in and disagree with it.
    • A related example is about the CVU; several months ago there was a debate mostly participated in by CVU members, that came to the consensual conclusion that removing warnings from your talk page is vandalism and a blockable offense, and added this to the policy page. Eventually, more people became involved in the issue and it slowly became clear that while the CVU had consensus on this, the community as a whole had not, and hence it was once more stricken from policy. (Radiant) 12:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue about WikiProject consensus has now gone to ArbCom, so we should probably hold off on any controversial changes to Wikipedia:Consensus for now.

To answer Radiant's questions: No, I don't think that a small group should "overrule" a large group, but I think we also need to be careful about issues with vote-stacking. For example, suppose there are a group of 5 or 6 editors who deal with, say, the Thailand pages, and they're in dispute about the correct name for some monuments somewhere. After a long debate, that group of editors comes up with a compromise consensus on naming, and life goes on. Then, someone from outside the discussion comes in and decides to disagree, thereby kicking over the hornet's nest again, especially if they drag in some of their wiki-friends to agree with them. With a "voting block" of a half-dozen editors, they could easily attack 90% of the pages on Wikipedia in this fashion, and overrule any consensus that was made by the good faith editors who actually cared about the page, especially if the voting block is comprised of editors who are "living" on Wikipedia and posting multiple times per day, if they're arguing with editors who are less frequent posters. In such a situation, to an outside observer who's just scanning quantity of posts, it could look like consensus goes to those who post more often. But, in that kind of a case, even though an outside voting block might have a "larger" group than the existing Thailand editors, I'd personally be more inclined to listen to the regular editors of a set of pages, even if they were in the minority.

On the other hand, just because someone is a regular editor, doesn't give them ownership of that page, and in most cases, especially when there is controversy involved, it can be helpful to get outside opinions on the matter. The difference between these two situations (good faith neutral outside opinion, vs. bad faith disruptive behavior) is highly subjective, and to an outside observer can be very difficult to ascertain, because they won't have any prior knowledge of who the good guys are or the bad guys, they'll just see a bunch of people arguing with each other. But this ties right in to the phrasing that's already on the page about how one group of editors can overwhelm another -- which isn't consensus. --Elonka 23:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Just so we're clear, Elonka, are you accusing those participating in the TV-NAME discussion of votestacking? --Milo H Minderbinder 13:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Elonka - your argument is based on the assumption that consensus is demonstrated through a vote; however, this assumption is incorrect. Consensus is not supermajority. (Radiant) 15:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• That it's now on ArbCom is irrelevant, since (1) the arbcom doesn't set policy, and (2) the case appearst to focus on the behavior of the involved users. You bring up vote-stacking, but that is not really a relevant argument since consensus is not a vote. I fail to see how it makes a difference how often users edit Wikipedia; certainly we cannot prohibit prolific editors from being prolific because others happen not to be. A group of editors "overwhelming" another group does not indicate consensus for the former, but it does indicate that the latter didn't have the consensus they thought they had. (Radiant) 10:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I share Rossami's concerns about "what group is large enough to speak for Wikipedia as a whole, then?" Many XfD discussions get less than 10 voices; are we going to start seeing deletion reviews that cite number of participants? In real-world consensus, "those who show up are the right people to make the decision" is a fairly common principle I believe. But here on Wikipedia, that doesn't always scale. I don't know what the answer is, and it's probably related to your paragraph, but I'm not sure we're there yet. Have to think on it some more... -- nae'blis 21:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

A decision can be made by any group of any size, or even a single individual if nobody else is around when the decision is made. The point is that if, later on, the issue becomes more widely known and more editors become involved, that decision may be reconsidered and even reversed. While I agree with the notion of "those who show up", people often don't know that a decision is being made in a particular place and don't know to show up. I don't think it applies that much to things like AfD or RM since those are listed publically, it's more about "rules" set by groups of editors in a secluded corner of their favorite topic who get upset when someone comes along and doesn't agree with them. It basically addresses "The twenty of you can't change this...the five of us already have consensus!" And it goes back to WP:OWN and WP:CCC. I think this guideline could stand to have some mention of this concept, but I'm guessing it will likely get delayed until the naming convention AfD is over. --Milo H Minderbinder 21:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• New attempt with better wording based on the above remarks. Please reword as necessary; the principle seems well-established but we should have a good wording for it. (Radiant) 15:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I've removed the latest wording from the guideline page. Please, I would feel better about this if we discussed wording here on the talkpage first, rather than trying to put something straight into the live guideline. Especially because most of the people involved in this discussion (including both myself and Radiant) are parties in an open ArbCom case which has as is one of its core elements, the definition of consensus. Particularly consensus of "small groups", such as WikiProjects. As such, I think it would be improper for anyone involved in that case (including myself) to be making major changes to the consensus guideline right now. I have listed the latest proposed wording below. --Elonka 20:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

== Consensus can change ==

Once established, consensus is not immutable. It is reasonably for the community to change its mind at times. It is perfectly fine for a small group of editors to reach a consensual decision about an article or group of articles, but if these articles gain more attention from Wikipedia as a whole it is then possible that more people come in that disagree with the initial decision, thus in effect changing the consensus. The original group should not block further discussion on grounds that they already have made the decision.

Elonka, what specifically do you disagree with, and what would you propose as an alternative? Or do you disagree with CCC itself? --Milo H Minderbinder 20:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Her words are false. First, I am not involved in that ArbCom case. Second, I made that second wording after discussing it here on this very talk page. And third, this is hardly a major change, just a clarification. The claim that a marginally related guideline page might not be edited while an ArbCom case is ongoing is, of course, unfounded, since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. (Radiant) 22:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, there's a whole section about Radiant in that case. But getting back to the actual guideline, here is the wording that I recommend:

===Consensus can change===

Once established, consensus is not necessarily permanent. The community may change its mind, new sources may become available, new editors may join a discussion, or editors from an older discussion may eventually leave the project. If there are continuing objections to a course of action or a section of an article, it is reasonable to revisit an issue from time to time to ensure that consensus still exists. For more information, see Wikipedia:Consensus can change.

--Elonka 20:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the "continuing objections" part is in the spirit of CCC. It makes it sound like it's OK to just keep arguing about something forever (sounds familiar), instead of making a decision and taking action...and then re-examining it later if people change their minds or the body of editors changes. This wording seems like it would encourage those who don't get their way to run "consensus checks" as often as they could get away with it. --Milo H Minderbinder 20:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Indeed, this appears to be worded to encourage or allow filibustering. Bad idea. (Radiant) 09:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)