Wikipedia talk:Consensus can change

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents


this needs a tag - is it a policy, guideline, edict or something else? Thryduulf 20:39, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I think a great many of the old grandees of Wikipedia (and no, I'm not including myself in that category - I'm far too new around here - though I would, also) would say that it has, indeed, been policy right from the start. "Edict" sounds like it comes from on-high, which is the wrong idea; it's more of a backbone of the social contract of Wikipedia, I would say.
James F. (talk) 22:04, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Disagreed. The picture I'm getting is that Wikipedia is evolving into an environment where the community votes on everything procedural.  Denelson83  23:19, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I would use the term "mutating" rather than "evolving". It is not a welcome change, and it is not a change for the better, and it is a change.
James F. (talk) 00:22, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

This can't be a policy since it's simply not accurate. If binding polls were not permitted, neither RFA nor any of the deletion pages would exist. If a complete absence of voting is desirable (on which the community is far from unanimous), we've got a lot of reform to do. — Dan | Talk 23:26, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

They're not binding polls. The closing admin (or bureaucrat) evaluates using their intelligence to gauge consensus. The distinction may appear slight, but it's important.
James F. (talk) 00:22, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough; however, this distinction should be made very clear, and I've attempted to make it so. — Dan | Talk 01:02, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Just wanted to say thanks for putting the clarification in, even though I've already thanked you in IRC. :-)
James F. (talk) 01:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Voting is not banned

Voting is not banned. What do you think happened during the Elections? How do you think arbitration cases are determined? The policy has always been Don't vote on everything, not don't vote at all. Angela. 03:06, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the page from Wikipedia:Voting is banned to Wikipedia:Don't vote on everything to reflect this. Angela.
Elections are not part of the Wikipedia process. Neither are Arbitration cases. Feel free to bring up an actual example of something to do with Wikipedia, as opposed to Wikimedia in general. Otherwise, this should be moved back.
James F. (talk) 09:27, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Of course arbitration cases are part of the Wikipedia process. After all, their outcome is actively enforced.--Eloquence* 12:15, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
How Arbitration cases are handled internally is irrelevent to the community's use of our decisions, however. The Committee's internal workings are not a community process, and we're talking about that here.
James F. (talk) 14:36, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus on voting :-)

It appears to me that some of those who are so heavily advocating consensus are at the same time trying to steamroll over those who feel that voting[*] is legitimate under certain circumstances. I hope that I'm mistaken. Titles such as "Voting is banned" are certainly not likely to engender productive discourse, so I'd like to thank Angela for moving the page to a more appropriate title. I have attempted to rewrite the page to reflect the actual policies and practices on the English Wikipedia and the beliefs of its inhabitants.

[*] Before you bring up a vote/poll distinction: Please look at the dictionary definitions for both words. [1] [2] Neither word automatically implies that the result is "binding", or that a particular process is to be used.--Eloquence* 04:10, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Before you quote a dictionary at us, remember that we have dozens of terms of art and distinctions of this kind on Wikipedia. "Poll" and "vote" do not mean the same thing on Wikipedia (much as "ban" and "block" have very different meaning).
James F. (talk) 12:15, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
These definitions, to my knowledge, have never been laid out, and we cannot expect any reader to understand an idiosyncratic usage of the terms "vote" and "polls". So let's be clear about what exactly is allowable and what not.--Eloquence* 12:36, September 1, 2005 (UTC)


Community knowledge is very rarely laid out; that's why we're only creating this page now, 4 years after it has been use. But you want definitions; very well, here you go:
Poll
n., system whereby people simplistically but clearly list opinions on each of the sides of a debate in a helpful manner to ease understanding of community consensus.
Vote
n., aka "binding poll", poll (q.v.) system wherein instead of community consensus being allowed to be evaluated, a rigid system which violates the Wikipedia principles of flexibility and open-ness is used where the community is forced to be bound.
James F. (talk) 14:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Voting is not banned, but binding voting might be

Following discussion with James F. about this, it seems the main issue is the binding aspect of a poll or vote rather than the occurrence of such a method itself. Therefore, I've moved the page to Wikipedia:No binding decisions since it isn't only polls/votes that shouldn't be binding, but the result of any decision making process. I feel polls can be a valid decision making process if used correctly, and if they are not binding, they can not be accused of undermining consensus. Angela. 13:17, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that straw polling can indeed be helpful. I'm happy with the current title, and the current wording too.
Others?
James F. (talk) 14:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Sure; looks OK from here. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:36, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
As the one who was initially responsible for the original title (I suggested Kim write it on IRC), I am perfectly happy with this. May I suggest that meta is a better place for this? [[smoddy]] 17:27, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
The problem with putting things on meta is that people immediately say that they don't apply to the English Wikipedia.
*sighs*
James F. (talk) 10:17, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Which proves our main problem: people are stupid. [[smoddy]] 16:07, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

No binding decisions eh? Does that include the decision for the policy "No binding decisions"? :) --WikiSlasher 09:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Precedent should matter

While I understand what this is trying to say, I think it almost comes across as an endorsement of arbitrary decision-making. I think it's especially important in AfD debates to look at the outcome of recent debates and the presence of similar, long-established articles. Consensus may change, but change will probably take some time, and when it happens, it should be reflected consistently in the treatment of different articles. I've seen the NBD policy used to justify multiple AfD nominations in a short period of time, which I think reflects a misunderstanding of what it's trying to say. --Cheapestcostavoider 20:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

If there's no consensus to delete, how do you think re-polling will change that consensus?
Right! It won't.
A poll measures current consensus, it doesn't nescesarily change it. No matter how often you measure, the outcome will always be similar! :-)
(it won't be exactly the same, because consensus is constantly slowly shifting, and a poll only samples that consensus at at a single point in time)
Kim Bruning 11:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

Isn't this kind of a contradiction? Wikipedia has no binding decisions. Except the decision that we have no binding decisions. That's binding. :-) --W.marsh 00:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a fundamental property of the wiki concept. Any software that implements a wiki will tend to enforce it by default. There is no contradiction with policy and guidelines, as those are made up by users of the sofware, and looked after by hand.
This page happens to also be an example of the kind of knowledge was taken for granted in the first few years of wikipedia. I've been pushing old users to actually write down that knowledge; before they leave, and their knowlege and skills are lost to the communuity.
Kim Bruning 09:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verification Needed for Assertion of Policy Status

JA: I have requested verification of the claim asserted by the 02 Sept 2005 insertion of the {policy} template that "This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors". Until somebody provides adequate evidence to support this claim, the template is invalid and unverified and can be removed with impunity at any time by any user. Jon Awbrey 12:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

That's not how things work. I've removed the tag, please don't put it back. (note however, that it might be interesting to find verifiability rules for guidelines... that might be a great way to cut down on the mess). Note that this particular rule is a logical consequence of how a wiki works, so there's not much we can do about it. That and it's the only way to ensure that wikipedia will be around for ~100 years. You need to be able to get out if you accidentally paint yourself into a corner. Kim Bruning 15:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Hoping that Wikipedia will be around for an entire century is a bit ambitious. Copies of it will probably still exist, but let's hope that by 2106 there'll be something even better than this. And then I mean, something better than the world wide web. --Thunderhead 16:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
You can hope, but in the mean time, this is what we have. It's doable and definately worth going for, even though I know it runs a bit counter to the current-day western psyche. It's still much less ambitious than long now ;-P Kim Bruning 16:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: IC, so U do recognize the distinction between a policy and a principle after all. Thanks, I needed that. Jon Awbrey 20:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BRD shortcut

Jon Awbrey, it's great that you're re-inventing bold revert discuss, but I've already done the reverting. Could we get to the next step? Kim Bruning 17:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Binding decisions

We already have a method of making binding decisions, in one small case: the deletion of redirects. WP:CSD G4 permits speedy deletion of recreated pages which are substantially identical to the deleted page; and in general that's a good thing. If someone wants to reopen the discussion on whether to have an article, he need merely write a new article on the topic, and it will be taken to AfD.

But if a redirect is ever deleted, that's permanent. There's only one way to make a redirect from A to B, so anybody, any time, who makes the same redirect will find it speedied. (This is already happening with cross-namespace redirects.) Septentrionalis 18:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History and status of this project

This project page was declared to be a "WikiPedia Policy" by User:Jdforrester on 02 Sept 2005, when that user posted the {{policy|[[WP:NBD]]}} template on the project page, as evidenced by the following history link:

The claims asserted by means of this device, specifically:

  1. "This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia", and
  2. "It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow",

are in dispute and should be regarded as the personal opinions of the small number of Wikipedia users who actually support them.

JA: Under Extreme Protest, moving the above from main to talk.

JA: Wikipedia broke down for a couple of hours when I tried to post the above. I hope it wasn't something I said. Jon Awbrey 20:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: 21 Aug 2006. I tagged this project page as Proposed, and Kim Bruning reverted it:

JA: I do understand the English sentence that asserts of this project page that "It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow". There are three problems with this statement:

  1. There is no evidence given to support it.
  2. There is no reason given to believe that it's true.
  3. There is no source given to say by whom it "is considered a standard that all users should follow".

JA: That sort of claim is inveighed against in WP articles — I cannot imagine why it should be permitted in WP policies. Jon Awbrey 17:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia guidelines are odd, relative to the rest of the encyclopedia, since we need to do our own research for them. There's no choice in this. There is no scientific document or engineering procedure that can explain how this particular system can be run at this scale, so we need to design our own, and that's what we've been doing in the past 5 years.
This particular guideline is somewhat stranger, since it's basically a primary source even! A group of old experienced wikipedians was asked to write down one of the design principles of the wiki.
It actually states one of the design principles behind the wiki-engine, especially the way it allows editing (and reverting). So you can say that the actual php code has been written based on this rule, and it sets the framework within which we work.
No matter how you mark this page, or how you edit it, the php code will still enforce the framework. (A rose by any other name ... ) .
Now if you change the php code, then things would change. However, the end result would no longer be called a wiki.
Kim Bruning 17:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: 21 Aug 2006. According to my scan of the edit history, subject to correction, there have been a total of 15 editors on the main page, a total of 14 editors on the talk page, and a total of 21 editors all together on this project since its inception, namely:

Main Page Participants

  1. 81.xxx.xxx.xxx
  2. Angela
  3. Denelson83
  4. Eloquence
  5. Encephalon
  6. Jdforrester
  7. Jon Awbrey
  8. Kim Bruning
  9. KimvdLinde
  10. Radiant!
  11. Rdsmith4
  12. Sam Korn
  13. Sean Black
  14. Stevage
  15. TheDJ

Talk Page Participants

  1. Angela
  2. Cheapestcostavoider
  3. Denelson83
  4. Eloquence
  5. Jdforrester
  6. Jon Awbrey
  7. Kim Bruning
  8. Mindspillage
  9. Pmanderson
  10. Rdsmith4
  11. Sam Korn
  12. Thryduulf
  13. Thunderhead
  14. W.marsh

Combined List

  1. 81.xxx.xxx.xxx
  2. Angela
  3. Cheapestcostavoider
  4. Denelson83
  5. Eloquence
  6. Encephalon
  7. Jdforrester
  8. Jon Awbrey
  9. Kim Bruning
  10. KimvdLinde
  11. Mindspillage
  12. Pmanderson
  13. Radiant!
  14. Rdsmith4
  15. Sam Korn
  16. Sean Black
  17. Stevage
  18. TheDJ
  19. Thryduulf
  20. Thunderhead
  21. W.marsh

JA: That does not warrant claims of "wide acceptance among editors", even if all 21 editors agreed about every issue among themselves, which I know for a fact that they do not. Jon Awbrey 18:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

With that, you are (partially) answering a point I made a couple of days ago, not the point I made today. Kim Bruning 18:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Right. Would you care to answer the point I'm making now? In a sense you're forgetting to mention Ward Cunningham, I think ;-) Any idea why I think you're forgetting him? Kim Bruning 20:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: I just munged the edit histories into a table and sorted — if I missed an edit line please supply. Thanks, Jon Awbrey 20:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It's nice that you're doing this work, but you're not addressing my current point yet. If you'd like to continue on the previous point though, perhaps you'd like to talk with each of these people? Especially James Forrester might be handy. Kim Bruning 20:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: As to the point that you are trying to make, I quite frankly hesitate to articulate it, and apparently so do you. So I can but wonder why is that? Jon Awbrey 20:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: what you may be missing is that Wikipedia, and wiki communities in general, are not empirical. Wide acceptance may be asserted of anything which is widely practiced, without need to justify this with a poll of the community. It's rather like saying lawns of grass are widely accepted; it's not universal, it may be virulently opposed by a segment of the population, yet any reasonable survey of lawns will find the vast majority have grass as a consituent element. - Amgine 20:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

My point was [3]. Kim Bruning 21:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Point, Counterpoint — and Fugue

JA: I was afraid of that. And my point is that no amount of techno-mumbo-jumbo is an excuse for making false or misleading statements on a content, policy, guideline, or project page. Software is made to serve society. Society is not made to serve software. Let's call it "Simple Rule Number 1". Jon Awbrey 21:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Darn, we can't work with those definitions. Please see Social software as a start. But ...there's more to it than that. Kim Bruning 22:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Please try to understand, I did not come here to join some kind of Borg Religious Order (BRO), or fade and dissolve my storm-tossed exhile of selfhood in a mystical etherium of wiki-karmic-goo. I came here to write high quality encyclopedia articles on subjects that I have invested a lifetime getting more or less adequate in. There are all sorts of wikis in space(.com) that have no other purpose but to preserve the cultivation of their lotuses (loti?) by providing their "users" with a Feel God experience, but that's not what WikiPedia claims to be. If the software does not serve the espoused objective well enough, then those of us who really share that objective will find some other tool to that purpose. The software is not a replacement for society. The software is a tool of human purposes that antedate it by many, many evolutionary cycles. Jon Awbrey 02:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Good. That means we're both pragmatic. Now let's discuss how an amalgamation of software and social systems can allow you to write your high quality encyclopedia articles, and also how -without adequate constraint- they can conspire to prevent you from doing so. (see also: Cybernetics, Systems theory, Game theory, Nomic) Kim Bruning 09:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Our Pragma are as Manifold as our Sinns. There are many forms of pragmatism, pragmaticism, mea maxima pragmata. The most pressing problem at the moment is that there is a false or misleading statement at the top of the project page that you have resisted correcting or removing for reasons that you have yet to articulate fully, much less render in the least bit convincing with regard to ordinary standards of acceptability. And that is normally considered a bad thing. When we have dealt with that tiny dust bunny, then we can can think about the next task on the list. Jon Awbrey 13:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I will not be drawn into a philosophical discussion. I have neither the time nor the inclination at the moment, sorry.
This page is policy. I have stated why, you reject my premise. Fine. But since the wiki design leans on that same premise (among several others), you automatically reject the existence of wikis. Oops.
But that's your problem. Resolve it for yourself. Come back when your philosophy and reality are back in the same ballpark. I'm always willing to talk, as you know :-)
Kim Bruning 15:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the problem is that we're not quite speaking the same language, even though we both *appear* to be using english. Consider yourself a stranger in a strange land. It would be polite and handy to learn (parts of) our language, especially if your own language lacks words for snow.  ;-) At the same time, I might take some trouble to learn yours? In the mean time, we'll get into big conflicts if we keep up like this. Could we call an editing truce? :-) Kim Bruning 15:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello Jon. If I am reading you right, you have three issues:

  1. The coherence of the rule itself: objection based on self-reference
  2. The status of the rule: doubt that this is actually "policy"
  3. The meta-text of the rule: the specific claims of the box with the green ticky mark in it, even if it is "policy".

I hope I have not omitted anything, or mischaracterized you on anything I have included. My responses are:

  1. No comment at this time. Let us get the meta-argument resolved first, and see if there is still an argument left over.
  2. The policy tag adds it to a particular category. I infer either support, or at least lack of objection, from everyone who would have noticed such a thing over the past 11 and a half months. This should not be underestimated.
  3. I think it is a bit misleading to suggest "wide support" among editors, when the overwhelming majority probably rarely visit meta-space at all. But it occurs on many policy pages, and has its roots in the need for people to put ticky boxes on things, which is an issue much broader than this particular page. It may be best discussed for the template in general.

Cheers. -anon 16:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hypocrisy & Misrepresentation Breed Cynicism & Mistrust

JA: 'Nuff said. Jon Awbrey 16:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes they do. :-) Kim Bruning 21:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: I'm beginning to see the sand this castle is made on — and I see that you people need some serious help rationalizing your policies. I'm not even sure you want them to be rational. Doesn't matter, the rest of the world — and Oh Yes, Virgilia, the Sandy Claws of Reality will Catch your Act in the Vth — will demand rational justification for what you say and do. I will think on it a while, but right now I desperately need to go work on some genuine articles before I go bats. In the meantime, I would like KB to quit confusing my WikiPedia birthdate with my RealWorld birthdate — I wasn't born yesterday, or late last December. At any rate, back to the grinstone for a now. Jon Awbrey 12:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The empirical justification is that it has worked, and outperformed all other known rulesets for the past 5 years, including at least one ruleset used by the same project under a different name, and one ruleset used by a different project with the same objectives. Kim Bruning 13:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Not Entirely Non Sequitur. I used to think I was the Artful Dodger, but I see now that I've got a lot to learn about the Art of the Non-Sequitur. The best I can do for now is to share the following story, based on true life events, if not exactly ripped from today's headlines.

JA: Every Spring we hang a clear red plastic globe — shaped and colored vaguely reminiscent of a large translucent strawberry, with yellow plastic flower-portals on a subtended green plastic calyx — on a cast-iron scrollwork post in our rose garden, and we fill it full of sugar water on a biweekly basis. Now, the instincts of hummingbirds are clearly plastic enough that they go right to it and sup the refined sugar nectar from where it wells up in the faux-flower ports. But the funniest thing, and it cracks us up all Summer long into Fall as we peek through the bay window that peeps out over the roses, is this — there's more sugar water in a single filling of that globe than the whole gang of hummers in the 'hood could possibly consume in a month, and yet their instincts are not so plastic that they'll ever leave off blustering and dogfighting and just plain enjoy the mix. Moral of the Story? Ay, there's the rub.

JA: Still, I wonder, what your plans are for refactoring that ruleset, or have you even noticed it yet, with all your idees fixed on that rube mechanical bit? Jon Awbrey 05:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a continuum. In my career I've found that some some things that looked like social problems could more easily be fixed by software engineering, and some things that looked like software problems could more easily be fixed by "social engineering". I could tell you lots of fun stories about this :-)
Once I was working in a team with one programmer and one social engineer. One day I was sitting next to the programmer, and we'd determined that our problem would take 3 days to solve, if we didn't want to get in everyone elses way. The social engineer went around and talked with several people and asked them if it was ok if we stomped on their areas for a bit. The problem was solved in 3 hours. :-)
On the other side of the coin, there exists a famous program called bittorrent, which uses clever codified social rules to prevent defection (called leeching). By clever enforcement of these social rules on its users, bittorrent allows unprecedented data traffic between machines, and in fact the bittorrent protocol is currently a very significant percentage of all internet traffic. (Use of) Bittorrent has also had several social consequences, most famously leading to the creation and increased popularity of a political party in sweden (!)
So the first thing to understand is not to make arbitrary distinctions between social and software, since they are very much a continuum; in fact I'd consider software to be a subset of social behaviour. If you don't take the entire continuum into account, you will be blindsided. Badly. Mediawiki people have been accused of (deliberately) blindsiding people in the past, for precisely this reason Kim Bruning 13:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Thank you. This has been very liberating. Naturally, I don't believe you folks for a second. But still, even a bit of foma can be freeing. Jon Awbrey 21:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This reminds me of a discussion at the start of a book ... (I think it was Thomas More's Utopia, but don't pin me on that). In one scene, a monk sets out to philosophically prove that the Americas couldn't possibly exist... to a member of Amerigo Vespuccis expedition, who had just returned from there ;-) Kim Bruning 01:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Dear B, I hope you don't think I was being sarcastic. I genuinely experienced a moment of satori and immediately went off and spent a blissflow day in several creative endeavors here and there about WikiParadiso. My sideswipe of suspended belief is merely the escape pause that reflects long experience, and warns against the perils of Icharus. Jon Awbrey 20:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aware, Bware, Cware

JA: Making this new section to continue a previous discussion in a slightly different light. Jon Awbrey 21:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This needs a rename

...because the title is misleading, and this has been confusing new users. An important purpose of policy/guideline pages is to instruct new users, and because of cognitive laziness they don't always read past the first few lines. The point of this page is not that we make no binding decisions (indeed, that would imply a loner can ignore a consensual discussion entirely). The point of this page, rather, is that consensus can change, and that any consensual decision can later be overturned by consensus (but not by a lone editor who didn't like it). >Radiant< 16:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Got a suggestion? Maybe Wikipedia:Consensus can change, which differentiates top-down decisions and the five pillars? Wikipedia:No stone tablets has appeal too... -- nae'blis 15:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Good idea, and done. >Radiant< 20:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Query

"Why on earth would you ask about a specific article content issue on Village Pump before on the talk page? that's what talk pages are for, to discuss articles" -- Derex (talk • contribs)

  • Because this page is about how "Consensus can change". If consensus has been demonstrated a few months ago on an article talk page, asking "is this consensus still valid" on that talk page is very unlikely to get you a meaningful response. Hence, if you wish to demonstrate that consensus has changed, you need to get feedback in a more public spot. >Radiant< 14:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/o/n/Wikipedia_talk%7EConsensus_can_change_a954.html"