Talk:Consensus decision-making

Untitled Archives

1 2

Template:Inherent POV?

Is there such a thing? "This article may have trouble representing an objective point of view, since significant contribution to Wikipedia assumes certain positions on the issue, which may not be otherwise common". Maybe there should be. I could think of a couple more articles that could need it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.1.73.1 (talk) 13:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Relation to consensus article

There is a separate, short, article on consensus to contain definitions of consensus from computer science, and give a short overview with examples to those not interested in the decision making implications. If that structure is clunky, then the title 'consensus' should be used for all of this material, resulting in a very long article that would have to cover both technical and poltical uses of the term. probably undesirable. A proposal to merge the two articles was discussed in May 2006 (see Archive 1). The result was No merge.

History

Historical Roots

I have heard that the more modern concept for the idea of consensus decision-making came from radical feminist groups operating in the 70's. I have also heard that it is a technique that came out of Quaker meetings. I have also heard that it is something that came out of Anti-MNuke groups in the 70's and 80's. I came to wikipedia to discover the answer. Alas, there is no history section. Anyone care to tackle a section stub for this that will get hashed out? --Rico (talk) 20:21, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

But there is a history section, currently under the title Historical examples. Granted, it doesn't give a definitive answer to your question, but I suspect this has more to do with the lack of a definitive answer in primary sources than any failing on the part of the editors here. I think we should remove the tag telling us that the article "lacks historical information". -- SgtSchumann (talk) 23:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The Term "consensus decision-making"

I thought 1981 sounded recent, so I went to Google Books and searched for it.

So far found:

• Title of an essay published in 1968, in "Man: A Novel" by Irving Wallace: [1]
• In "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", published 1946: [2]
• Tennessee Historical Quartery, published 1942, refers to an article on "consensus decision making in the quaker tradition" written in 1815: [3]

So even with relatively little effort invested, this term seems to be at least 190 years old. Neologism it surely isn't... --Alvestrand 20:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like this to remain its own section - the history of the term might actually want to go into the article at some point, while the AfD discussion has little interest once it's over. --Alvestrand 21:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The admin closing the AfD, which is clearly going to fail, should place a tag on this page pointing back to the AfD discussion so that, if anyone has an idea to nominate this article again, the history will be easy to find. If it doesn't appear, I'll add it myself. Oh, and thanks for the excellent research! —Travis^talk 22:00, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Kick

Kicks the article. Wake up. No talk for five months... I think we have a duty to bring the article up-to-date i.e. documenting our own situation wouldn't be too naval-gazing would it? There is no mention of Wikipedia within this article, which essentially, imho, defines our own approach to rule.Wjhonson (talk) 16:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Consensus vs. "Majority Voting"

I'd like to update the section "Consensus as an alternative to majority voting". Presumably, the debate isn't between consensus decision-making and voting but between consensus decision-making and other decision-making procedures, so I think using the term majoritarian decision-making procedures makes more sense.

The section is also very one-sided. I'd like to add claims by experts who see majority rule as a component to deliberative democracy -- a component to be preferred over unanimity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SgtSchumann (talk • contribs) 04:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure it could be better worded. Your point about deliberative democracy is an interesting but should only be mentioned in brief in this article. It seems to me that the comparison between consensus decision-making and majority rule is meant to apply primarily to either small groups or groups with a clearly specified product and goal. Beyond a certain scale, the larger the group, the harder consensus is to maintain (e.g., Wikipedia). Sunray (talk) 23:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm about to make changes along the lines of what I proposed several months ago. I'm making these changes according to three motivations: First, the article contains improper comparisons between decision-making procedures and voting systems (especially majority rule). Second, the article contains improper comparisons between decision rules and seat allocations rules. Third, as I noted before, the article is very one-sided. A little about some of the specific changes I'm making:

• I'm changing the initial contrast between consensus decision-making and majority rule to a contrast between consensus decision-making and parliamentary procedure. If anyone decides to revert this, I recommend that you at the very least remove the link to majoritarian for the reasons I give below.
• I'm removing all mention of Lijphart's distinction between majoritarian and consensual electoral systems here, because there are at least two problems with introducting the distinction to this context. First, as Anthony McGann points out, one thing that can be said about each of the "consensual" democracies that they are run by a parliament that operates by and larged by unchecked majority rule. (Yes, Belgium is a federalism, but it still puts fewer checks and balances on its majority-rule-using legislature than most other democracies.) So why not just note this? Well, the second problem is that the "majoritarian" democracies aren't called such because their legislatures use majority rule in their decision-making processes, rather they're called such because of the seat allocation rule they use. And that seat allocation rule is not even majority rule -- it's plurality. In short Lijphart's distinction here is confusing. If someone wants to include mention of it here, I recommend that they include an explanation of why it's relevant to the text of the article, rather than taking it for granted that the reader will understand.
• I'm trying to provide some balance to the section that concerns consensus and majority rule, citing two works by McGann.
• I'm removing the claim that consensus is the "option which enjoys the highest average preference". No one has been able to provide a citation of this since November 2007, and I don't think they ever will, because I doubt anything like this has ever been proven. However, in 1977 Straffin did show that majority rule is the decision rule that maximizes responsiveness to individual preferences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SgtSchumann (talk • contribs) 17:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality, Factual Accuracy, and Self-published Sources

This article suffers from serious problems. Perhaps the biggest is that it rests on a package deal. Namely, it fails to distinguish among the following:

• consensus decision-making
• consensus (as an outcome)
• good deliberation practice

Here are some of the unfortunate consequences of this:

• The section "What is consensus decision-making?" doesn't tell us what consensus decision-making is. Instead it more or less lists the desiderata of deliberation.
• There's information about the Vatican's group decision-making process, even though this process isn't consensus decision-making.
• Juries are cited as examples of polities that use consensus decision-making, even though the only non-controversial claim we can make about juries is that they strive for consensus (i.e. the outcome).

And so on.

Undoubtedly this problem is in no small part due to the fact that the vast majority of references are to article written by people who aren't experts in any relevant field, and the article reflects the shortsightedness of the polemic found in these works. In my opinion the best remedy is to delete the article. Short of that, the bulk of it needs to be rewritten.

-- SgtSchumann (talk) 04:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

First of all, let me say that I appreciate the work you have done in revising the article with respect to distinctions between consensus and majority voting. I also share many of your concerns about the article, which suffers (as many articles do) from drive by editing. I think that it is important to bear in mind that while the main editors of the article (of which I am one), may have had a coherent view when they wrote it, but have not been able to control all the content added. To do so would be to become little more than a police officer.

So let's deal with your concerns. I think it would be helpful for you to give some specific examples of problems. That includes specific examples of where consensus is mixed up with consensus decision-making all the way through to the use of self-published sources. Self-published sources are not forbidden, but must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Consensus decision-making suffers from a lack of quality academic sources, so we often have to take what we can get. But no doubt, they could stand some pruning and upgrading. Not everything needs to be reviewed here. For example, the Vatican example will disappear about one minute from now. Sunray (talk) 22:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your response and your recognition that the article has problems. Before I give specific examples of problems let me say that I've realized that there's another problem with the article: There doesn't seem to be a consistent definition of consensus decision-making. In some cases it's treated as though unanimity is necessarily the decision rule, whereas in other cases it isn't. I mention this, because in many cases it's not clear whether the writer has confused the process with the outcome or has confused two mutually exclusive definitions of consensus decision-making.

And now the examples:

• From the section "What is consensus decision-making?": "The word 'consensus' derives from the Latin con meaning 'with' or 'together with', and sentire meaning to 'think' or 'feel'. Thus, etymologically, 'consensus' means to 'think or feel together'." I think this would be more appropriate to a discussion about consensus qua outcome. (Of course given that the writer seems to be committing what D. A. Carson calls the root fallacy, I think we're better off omitting it from both articles.)
• From the section "Consensus as an alternative to procedures that use majority rule": "Finally, advocates of consensus frequently state that a majority decision reduces the commitment of each individual decision-maker to the decision." This would not be the case under "non-unanimous consensus".
• From the section "The process of consensus decision-making": "Each member of the group usually must actively state their agreement with the proposal, often by using a hand gesture or raising a colored card, to avoid the group interpreting silence or inaction as agreement. This would not be the case if the decision rule used were simple unanimity.
• From the section "When consensus cannot be reached": "Any group member may 'block' a proposal." This would not be the case under "non-unanimous consensus".
• From the Section "Criticisms": "Giving the right to block proposals to all group members may result in the group becoming hostage to an inflexible minority or individual." This would not be the case under "non-unanimous consensus".

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I hope that by picking one example from each of several sections I've made my point that this is a pervasive problem.

A couple of examples of self-published documents that may have contributed to some of the misunderstandings in the article:

• Consensus Decision Making: The section that's linked to is obviously polemical and makes a number of claims that are controversial or that have been challenged by voting theorists.
• Consensus Decision Making This page contrasts consensus with "voting".

I'm not going to list any more. It shouldn't be hard to figure out which of the articles linked to are self-published or haven't been written by experts.

I understand that Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, but these problems and the lack of proper citation go beyond the norm. I suspect that at least part of the reason quality academic sources can't be found is that self-published claims about CDM are often incoherent and therefore aren't worthy of investigation. In any case I think this lack of sources suggests that Wikipedians have devoted more space to it than it deserves.

-- SgtSchumann (talk) 00:58, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I have read this "critique" many times in the past few weeks and am deeply puzzled by it. It seems to treat the subject as an academic discipline that can only be discussed through peer-referenced journals. If such a standard were applied to most articles, Wikipedia would be a fraction of its size. SgtSchumann seems unaware that WP is not a textbook, scientific journal or research paper. The remarks, further, seem to come from a point of view that is hostile to the topic. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, unless there is some spirit of collaboration on SS's part, such an attitude will be very difficult to work with—which may be related to the fact that no one has ventured to reply. If I've got anything wrong here, please point out my errors.

That off my chest, I will make a few comments:

1. Failure to distinguish between consensus decision-making, consensus (as an outcome), and good deliberation practice. This seems valid to me. The cure for this is a good copyedit.
2. Lack of a consistent definition. The definition given in the lead is: "a group decision-making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections." Again copyediting. The article could be scanned to pinpoint instances where the wording is inconsistent with this definition.
3. Etymology. The objection to the statement "to think or feel along with" loses me. Consensus decision-making is a process of thinking together. That elaborates on the definition and seems fine to me.
4. Non-unanimous consensus reducing commitment to the decision. This seems to miss the point about the overall intent of consensus decision-making to increase commitment. Consensus is not unanimity. The last three examples are all variations on this theme. It makes no difference whether it is U-1, U-2 or a supermajority if the process has been followed, there should be acceptance of the decision.
5. Self-published sources. As I said, above. There is no rule that self-published sources cannot be used. Only that each much be evaluated on its own merits. One is always encouraged to replace a less authoritative source with a better one.

There has not been a great deal of research on consensus decision-making. Nevertheless, it is a process that is significant in an increasing variety of settings, thus notable. I stand ready to discuss further and work at improving the article, provided that there is a spirit of cooperation. Sunray (talk) 23:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Sunray, for the time being I'm going to refrain from making a point by point rebuttal to all that you've said, because I simply don't have the time to do so.

The main point I'd like to make is this: The consensus (heh) among voting theorists is that no matter what deliberation method a group uses, the group will need to use some decision rule for those cases in which consensus can't be reached, and even if the decision rule isn't considered to be part of the deliberation method, participants will be influenced by their knowledge of which decision rule will determine the outcome. The trouble I have with the entry as it currently stands is that it references a number of articles that presuppose that this is not the case -- articles that suggest that consensus decision-making somehow transcends the need for decision rules -- and many of the presuppositions have found their way into the entry.

I suspect that what you think to be a lack of "spirit of collaboration" on my part is really an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that something that is obviously wrong and pseudoscientific deserves to be presented as factual. As a compromise, I'm going to propose that we continue to cite non-expert sources, provided that they don't contradict the consensus of experts in a relevant field. I think this is entirely reasonable and leaves a wide range of sources that can still be quoted.

On a minor note whatever the appropriateness of including the etymology of consensus in this entry, arguing that etymology provides insight into what a word means or the nature of the word's referent is fallacious. (If anyone disagrees, I'd urge you to ask yourself why we don't edit the entry on dinosaurs to say that those reptiles were literal terrible lizards.) Unless someone wants to argue that I've missed the point of the etymology's inclusion here, I intend to remove it from the article at a later date.

--SgtSchumann (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

1. "... cases in which consensus can't be reached." You seem to be defining consensus as unanimity. (Or am I mistaken about that?). In any case, that is not the definition given in the article. However, I do agree that there must be a decision rule to achieve consensus. So an edit of the sources to eliminate those that contend that consensus decision-making transcends decision rules would be in order.
2. Sounds good.
3. We do not yet have consensus (heh) on the etymology question. The reason for including etymology in an encyclopedia article (unlike dictionaries in which it is standard) would surely be that it adds something to the article. You will need to persuade me that this one doesn't add anything useful in order for us to agree. No agreement means we leave it as is until others should happen to venture comment as well. BTW, the article on dinosaurs does give the "terrible lizard" etymology.

I appreciate you not haggling over my responses previously, though I note you do reserve the right to do that later. Perhaps we could start by working on things we agree about. Sunray (talk) 06:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

For now I'll focus on making changes I think we can agree on. --SgtSchumann (talk) 20:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just made the following changes to the article:

• I've removed a reference to juries to remedy a problem I mentioned here some time ago.
• I've removed references to questionable sources and, where this would result in unreferenced claims, the corresponding text in the main body. More needs to be done to remedy the problem of indiscriminate use of self-published sources.

-- SgtSchumann (talk) 05:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I have a particular POV here, but I think it's a POV that's backed up by reliable sources documenting how the phrase "consensus decision-making" is used in Real Life (which is why I think it deserves a Wikipedia article). That is from long experience with the IETF consensus decision making model ("rough consensus"). I concur with SgtSchumann's point that this article needs to be clear about whether it talks about the idea of consensus or the decision-making process that is called "consensus decision-making" (of whatever variety); I argue that the latter is the subject of this article - and that it *is* a decision-making process, with all the properties that such methods have.

I also think that the methods and techniques for "perfect consensus" decision-making are given overdue weight in the article, but I'm hesitant to start deleting sourced material on that basis unless there's consensus here on the talk page that it would make the article better. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. Good edit, BTW -- I wasn't aware. Given that the section you edited seems to have never been anything other than a bucket for dumping irrelevant examples, would we be better off deleting it altogether? --SgtSchumann (talk) 20:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The "Models" section is the section that most closely ties the article to reality - both the Quaker model and the IETF model are among the most frequently cited examples of a consensus process in Real Life. The "other" section could go without loss, in my opinion, but the continued abuse of the word "consensus" when the formal rule is "supermajority" is interesting and worthy of inclusion - I think it reflects the strong positive image that the word "consensus" has in society. (BTW, in *practice* most ISO work that I know about operates on a consensus model, but the recent Standardization of Office Open XML showed very clearly that it's possible to force the system to be about getting that last vote for the supermajority....) --Alvestrand (talk) 12:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Improvements to article

I am going to be bold and remove some tags from the article. I am doing this for two reasons:

1. Tags left too long defeat their purpose. Instead of being an exhortation to editors to improve the article, they present a barrier to readers, suggesting that the article is substandard and unreliable.
2. If we work at consensus, I think that we can deal with all of the issues raised by Sgt. S, above. The main point here is this: Let's deal with issues and work together to improve the article.

So let's start working on this. For starters, I've removed the tag on the etymology of consensus. As I've said above, etymology can serve to assist readers in understanding a topic. I don't see how the fallacy that Sgt S. raises is in any way a barrier to that. Rather than leave a tag hanging on the article, let's discuss this further and agree. If we agree, we simply either remove the sentence on etymology or leave it move on to the next problem. Fair enough? Sunray (talk) 19:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not averse to removing at least one or two of the tags. I think the most glaring problems have been taken care of (which isn't to say that the article can't be further improved).

If you're going to remove the tag I added recently, I wish you wouldn't characterize it as removing "the tag on the etymology of consensus". As I've said on this talk page and in the note I left by the tag for future editors, the problem is not with the mention of the etymology; it is with deducing a particular meaning from the etymology. If we want to include something about etymology, I think we should simply explain the derivation without making any deductions from this about what the word means -- much as is done in the lead of the article about Christianity. My point, again, is not that etymology has no use -- just that it's fallacious to use it in the way the article currently proposes. --SgtSchumann (talk) 17:52, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I've decided to simply remove the paragraph in question because (a) the paragraph as a whole is original research, (b) during the time it was tagged neither you nor anyone else provided a relevant source, and (c) because the disputed claim is fallacious no self-respecting expert would ever make it; it is therefore unverifiable. --SgtSchumann (talk) 15:52, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! You did something about the problem. I agree with you that the "etymology" was wrong. I wasn't the one who added that and when I checked it, I very quickly realized you had a point. The main problem I have with tags is that they off-load work onto other editors. Usually the person who places the tag knows what the problem is. It is far better, IMO, to do as you did and correct it. Thanks. Sunray (talk) 08:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for inspiring me. --SgtSchumann (talk) 15:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The passage discussing cultural differences in decision making struck me as missing a citation, but it turns out that it had one [21]. The problem is the citation doesn't support the claim. "even the janitor". See the actual page of the reference on google books:

[4] The value of the paragraph in question to the article should be evaluated and reference to the actual citation should be more direct without hyperbole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.84.47.48 (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

a few concerns with Consensus Decision-Making article

I'm new to the discussion and editing process of Wikipedia, so I'm not exactly sure how this is done, but I wanted to make some comments about this article. There are many errors and inaccuracies that I can find, but I'll only point out a few as my first attempt at this. First, there is not much on defining what Consensus decision-making is, itself.

The section that talks about non-unanimity, I'd suggest be called "Pseudo-Consensus". Consensus minus one, etc. is a false concept. It is really supermajority decision-making.

Most Quakers, from my experience, do not call their decision-making process "Consensus". It would be more accurate to call it Quaker decision-making.

A block is not a "veto". What a "block" is is not described in depth enough or accurately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boyfromthefuture (talk • contribs) 14:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for taking an interest in this article. We could definitely use a helping hand.

The main thing to keep in mind is that information should be referenced and should come from appropriate sources. So, for example, while you might like to call "consensus minus one" pseudo-consensus, I doubt we can include this in the article, because I doubt that any relevant expert has ever called it such.

Some replies to your comments:

• It is really supermajority decision-making. Perhaps so, but (in my experience) when no agreement can be reached under CDM, the decision rule used to resolve the disagreement is unanimity, which is a kind of supermajority rule, even if the people I know who use CDM would vehemently deny it. So it seems to me that if any distinction needs to be drawn, it is a matter of quota, i.e., CDM requires unanimity while other decision-making procedures do not.
• A block is not a "veto". If you were to say a block is not necessarily a veto, I wouldn't dispute that. I've heard of people who allow a sort of "blocking" that doesn't entail a veto. However, I think it is wrong to indicate that a block is never a veto. Everyone I know uses block to mean vote down the proposal on the floor, even though they'd prefer not to call it voting. Voting theorists call a minority that can vote down a proposal in this way a veto player, and on Wikipedia we need to be more concerned about their terminology.

Finally, I agree that we need a better definition. The trouble I keep running into is that it's notoriously difficult to pin down a definition of CDM. Can you find a good source for that? -- SgtSchumann (talk) 18:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Political correctness

It would be interesting of the article could mention the issue of political correctness as a possible negative effect of consensus decision-making. In modern societies, the media often play the role of consensus builder instead of the politicians, which has led to some accusations of liberal media bias. After a while, it becomes very difficult to question what are considered to be settled issues, such as abortion, immigration or state intervention, and consensus building can give dissenters the feeling that there is a kind of inquisition against their minority views. ADM (talk) 11:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Something was left out in the HISTORICAL EXAMPLES

In the Parliament (Sejm) of the First Polish Republic (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) (16th-18th centuries) any member of the Parliament, as a representative of a Sejmik (regional assembly) had the right to veto any decision of the Parliament ("liberum veto"). This is why the Parliament would debate an issue untill all parties would agree to a solution and only then proceed to formal voting. Interestingly enough, the system worked perfectly for quite some time. However, in the 18th century the Russian and German Empires started bribing the members of the Sejm to disrupt its proceedings with the liberum veto. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.77.239.121 (talk) 06:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a great and relevant example but would need a credible reference. Can someone find one? In Polish even?

Stray asterisk

There is currently an asterisk ("*") next to the list item "Most Logical" in the section "Objectives".
This looks like a reference to a footnote to me, but it is not linked to anything nor any other explanation as to what it means.
Is this just a leftover from a copy-paste operation and should be removed or what?
85.225.86.25 (talk) 05:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I've removed it. Gobonobo ^{T C} 06:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Death by committee

I know that the cliche "Death by Committee" is not an exact problem with Consensus decision-making. But the principal still applies. I think the article needs a section on the down-sides of Consensus decision-making. Like how it tends to be slower. How if there is not structure it can be hijacked by a minority. How it can be used as a cover to perpetuate the status quo. 24.145.241.4 (talk) 19:14, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The "Criticism" section was set up to deal with perceived problems with consensus decision-making. If you have material from reliable sources, additions would be most welcome. Sunray (talk) 00:44, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Separate article for hand signals

How do editors feel about a separate article for hand signals? With the recent widespread use by Occupy Wall Street protesters, it has gained a fair amount of notoriety. Furthermore, the more I look into it, the more I find. See for example--Nowa (talk) 17:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)