Wikipedia talk:Consensus

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

CONLIMITED may need expansion

WP:CONLIMITED is being misunderstood. There's a comment up now at WP:ELN claiming that it's irrelevant because it's only about making changes to policies, and this situation is about whether the existing guideline ought to apply in his case.

It's perfectly clear to me, and it's been clear since 2007, but perhaps someone else will hae an idea about how to improve it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The first paragraph appears to be false (the small group of editors discussing a particular point can override "wider" consensus, almost as a tautology, and with WP:IAR to back them up if confronted by wikilawyers). The second paragraph is explicitly about changes to policies and guidelines only. Victor Yus (talk) 06:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think saying "ignore all rules" is the same as saying "ignore all consensus." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:03, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Not all consensus, but in this context, "community consensus on a wider scale" seems effectively equivalent to "rule". Victor Yus (talk) 12:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Victor. That sentence has long bothered me. The way that our practices change is that some editors decide to do things differently than the policy/guide. So that must mean that the wider consensus that created the original policy (which only reflects practice to date, supposedly) is ignored by those editors on that article. Thus a new practice is born and if it spreads then it becomes our practice and that leads to a change in the policy. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes... but... discussion and consensus building is also part of that process. It works like this... An editor makes a change (perhaps ignoring a rule). If no one objects or raises a concern, that change stands. If someone does object or raise a concern, we try to reach a local consensus at the article talk page. If necessary, we bump the discussion up to WikiProject level for wider consensus building. If necessary, we then bump the discussion up to Policy level (either at a noticeboard or on the policy/guideline talk page). At each stage we broaden the consensus.

In other words... as long as no one objects to a local consensus, that local consensus can stand. But if someone does object, you then need to advance to the next (wider) level of consensus building for confirmation of the (previous level) consensus. Blueboar (talk) 14:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

If someone does object, everything depends on the type of objection. I understand the sentence "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale" as follows. The local consensus is valid if, and only if it does not contradict to more global rules. For example, if the users A, B, C, and D achieved a consensus that the statement X should stay in the article, but a user E provides the evidence that the statement X is not supported by the source used in the article (in other words, there is a violation of WP:V), we cannot speak about any consensus, and the opinion of the user E should prevail (at least, the burden of evidence is on A, B, C, and D). These four users cannot simply say: "ok, we do not care if the statement X is supported by reliable sources, we think it should stay". I think we need to clarify that. I propose the following modification:

"Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale, which is expressed in our core content policy (WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR), as well as in WP:NFCC and WP:BLP."

Regarding "...unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope," I cannot imagine a situation when our content policy is not applicable to some concrete article. This policy is intrinsically universal, and by admitting that some exceptions are possible we can ruin the very basis of Wikipedia.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The policy used to specifically name the core content/sourcing policies. I'm not sure that it's a good idea. That will be interpreted as meaning "You and your two best buddies are free to spam, so long as you agree to it, because WP:SPAM is 'just a guideline' and 'not mentioned in CONLIMITED' as something that you and your buddies are not allowed to overrule." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that is not an argument. Maybe the proposed wording is not optimal, but it at least lists core policies that must be observed under any circumstances, irrespective to the local consensus. In contrast, the current text does not make it clear. Moreover, the current text creates an impression that a group of users can theoretically convince a community that some core policy, under some circumstances, can be inapplicable to some concrete article, which, in my opinion, is a total nonsense.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

My argument is that your list, which includes less than 10% of our formal policies, is incomplete. All policies and guidelines should be observed, irrespective to the local consensus, and as far as I'm concerned, the only ways to "convince the broader community that such action is right" is to convince the community that the cited advice page is irrelevant (e.g., someone's irrelevantly complaining about WP:Verifiability in the WP:External links section, which is one easy example of a core policy being inapplicable to a situation at an article) or to convince the community to change the guideline or policy in question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

On your example, I don't quite agree with your analysis. If a source says X and the article says not-X but almost all the editors have the view that the article should say not-X, I would want to know their reasons. You tacitly assume they have none, but that's quite unlikely. For example, there are sometimes mistakes in reliable sources. So the sole editor who thinks the source is correct should properly have the talk about what the problem is. When that talk is had, there will be a chance for a consensus, but not because the one "correct" editor overrules the others. --Ring Cinema (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The editors can have a view that the article should say not-X for two reasons. Firstly, they have some mainstream and reliable source that unequivocally says "not-X" AND says that the source saying "X" is wrong AND there is a serious formal reason to believe the source saying "X" is minority or fringe. Secondly, these users simply believe (for various reasons) the article should say "not-X". In the first case, they should be able to present this source, and after that the issue is considered to be resolved. In the second case, the opinion on one editor must prevail, and not because it overrules the others, but because the policy his opinion is based on overrules a local consensus.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:06, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

This point could be argued at length without resolution because you are insisting on a binary arrangement of legit or not legit for your example that's very artificial, lending it an air of unreality, and your analysis is suspect as well, since you assume so much about the attainable standard of the majority position's proper evidence. "Unequivocally", "serious", "formal", "minority", "fringe", "mainstream", "reliable" are words that can all bend to the desire of the editor in question without any bad faith. But I can even set all that aside because again if the "better" source (another question-begging God's-eye assessment) is not believed better by those who think not-X, there is no amount of rules that should overrule their best judgment because there would be no basis for it. Why? Because no one knows better if it's better than the editors asked their opinion. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Even supposing we want to say that all or some policies or guidelines "overrule" local consensus, the same old question would have to be asked - who decides? (or in this case rather: who enforces?) To what extent is an administrator going to be prepared to say, in the event of an edit war, "I judge editor A's edits to be more in accordance with policy than editor B's, therefore I'm going to block editor B or protect the page following an edit by editor A, to ensure that editor A gets his way and the policy is upheld." My impression is that admins don't make this kind of judgment, or at least, if they do, they don't like to admit it (because there's a general feeling they aren't really supposed to). Nor, for that matter, are they prepared to enforce "consensus" in a similar way. The only way to enforce anything is to get together a group of editors who are sufficiently determined and numerous to be able to out-edit-war the others. Which of course no longer has much to do with the pretty picture of consensus decision-making as presented in this policy. Victor Yus (talk) 09:17, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Picking this up again

There seems no consensus above, and there's currently [1] no mention of local consensus in the policy, unless you count the redirect from Wikipedia:LOCALCONSENSUS (which I note was created by a user account which is now blocked indefinitely, I'm not sure why). Does that mean that the term local consensus should be avoided in discussions for the moment?

And if so, should the redirect shortcut from LOCALCONSENSUS be kept? It seems misleading. But there are currently more than 250 (but less than 500) pages that link to it. They include project, project talk and user talk pages (at least). Andrewa (talk)

I don't know what you mean "there's no mention of local consensus". The entire article is about local consensus (including non-local consensus, whatever that is) except when it talks about community consensus. --Ring Cinema (talk) 08:23, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

That may be true, but it misses the point. It's all about terminology. The term local appears only in the place I've highlighted, as far as I can see.

Can you suggest a simple change to the policy that would clarify this? Andrewa (talk) 09:09, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the reason for the link WP:LOCALCONSENSUS either. It's not a concept in the project. Separately, I don't care for the angle taken by the paragraph that the link points to, because it doesn't make sense that the wider community overrules the editors of a page -- if that's what it means -- since that would only happen if members of the community, i.e. other editors, contribute to the page in question, at which point the consensus is again local. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

The reason for my interest is the contrast being made elsewhere between local consensus as expressed in a particular discussion and community consensus as expressed in policy and guidelines. At the risk of oversimplifying, the principle as I understand it is that community consensus overrules or should overrule local consensus.

This may even be a very useful and insightful distinction and turn of phrase, but it's currently unsupported by policy AFAIK, and there's a problem in that it encourages a sort of anarchy, as everyone is then at liberty to interpret and apply community consensus (which is not always consistent, as policies and guidelines are imperfectly maintained, see User:Andrewa/creed#rules) unrestrained by local consensus as to how these policies and guidelines should be applied. A subtle point perhaps, do you see what I'm getting at?

There are a number of current discussions that turn on this point, most important probably Wikipedia talk:Closing discussions#RFC/Strawpoll: Clarification of what "consensus of the community" means. The information page at Wikipedia:Closing discussions should of course reflect policy, and on this particular distinction there seems to be no policy to reflect.

So I came here. This talk page seems to me to be the best place to discuss the usefulness and meaning of the local/community consensus distinction, in the hope of clarifying things for the editors of pages that are dependent on this policy. Andrewa (talk) 18:34, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

How does the community make its wishes known but through the editors editing edits? For example, there is essentially universal observance of the principle that the text of articles should reflect the content of reliable sources, and if an editor wanted to substitute her own opinion instead, along the lines of "I was there and I know what really happened", that would actually be fine until other editors changed the text to conform to sources. And even then, reliable sources have errors. So where is there community consensus but in the myriad occasions of local consensus? Maybe I'm overlooking a clear case counterexample, if someone else has one. --Ring Cinema (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. The fact that not every editor participates in every discussion does not in any way diminish the authority of consensus where it is clear. Or that is part of my understanding of WP:consensus (but see User:Andrewa/creed#consensus).

The problem arises from the clause Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy [2] (my emphasis). As I understand it, this lens is what is referred to as community consensus, as it does reflect other past discussions in which consensus was reached. Thus, an interpretation of policy by one editor is seen by that editor as trumping any number of arguments by any number of other editors, on the grounds that these other arguments are not validly policy based, again as determined by this one editor.

This is an extreme interpretation, but it's actually coming up in discussions.

See also #A problem sentence from Determining consensus below (in which you are already involved I see). Andrewa (talk) 21:22, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Editors should apply policy to their evaluation of editorial changes but the application of policy is itself subject to acceptance on a consensus basis. This, you seem to say, is missing from the project currently. --Ring Cinema (talk) 09:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It's being misquoted by a very few, but a persistent and verbose few, IMO. And the redirect from LOCALCONSENSUS and the rather vague instruction to use the lens of Wikipedia policy lend themselves to misquotation. Not sure how to improve it, though. Andrewa (talk) 10:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not know this was being discussed here, but I made this change at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS so it actually uses the term, local consensus. WAS:

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot ...

New:

A local consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot ...

This is the commonly used term for this concept among WP contributors (just search for "local" on this talk page, for example). Is there a problem with using it in the text? If so, what is the objection? --B2C 19:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

(You've made the stringing a bit difficult, would it be possible to use the normal convention in future?) And I see this edit has been reverted. [3] Andrewa (talk) 20:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Replying to Ring Cinema above... you might not "care for the angle taken by the paragraph that WP:CONSENSUS points to", but that "angle" is consensus... community consensus. And, yes, the wider community does overrule the editors of a page. The six editors of an obscure bio page cannot decide to, say, violate WP:BLP, because WP:BLP reflects the opinion of the wider community (unless they invoke IAR for good reason). That is, an admin can come and revert their BLP=violating changes even if it's unanimously approved by the consensus of six.

In practice, we usually see good consistency between local and community consensus, so the distinction is often moot. But when there is a conflict (typically manifested by a local consensus making a policy-violating decision without proper invocation of IAR for good reason), yes, the wider community overrules. --B2C 19:51, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem is, how do we decide what is good reason if not by consensus? Consensus, as Wikipedia has used the term to date, most often means local consensus, as you use the term. This turn of phrase shouldn't be a justification for ignoring consensus, wherever it is achieved. There are already ways of appealing consensus, and of escalating discussion, if in your opinion policy is being ignored. Ignoring consensus is not part of this process, and must not become an accepted part of it.

And yes, there are rare times when an uninvolved admin can and should take unilateral action to (perhaps temporarily) overrule a consensus decision that is seriously out of step with policy, as they understand it. That's part of the process, and part of the job of the admins. And it works well, but not perfectly. Andrewa (talk) 20:32, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I just think it's important to distinguish the two types of consensus, and to be clear about which is meant when we use the word "consensus". Many decisions are decided by local consensus, to be sure - and one of those is whether there is good reason to invoke IAR in a given special situation. But, since IAR is usually not invoked when there appears to be a conflict between local consensus and community consensus as reflected in policy, I don't think that's a big problem.

Further, the issue is rarely about whenever there is local consensus regarding a proposal - it's usually when there is no local consensus about a proposal. In those cases, especially when there is a history of "no [local] consensus" RM discussion results, it turns out that there often is community consensus about the issue. I believe this occurs when there are sufficient numbers of people who care for a certain title for non-policy-supported reasons, sufficient numbers so that those favoring a policy-based solution can't muster a local consensus. It is in those situations that I think closers need to be encouraged to read and apply community consensus as reflected in policy. --B2C 16:58, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

What you're saying should happen seems to me to be what does happen now, except that you're using new words to describe it. At WP:RM, for example, closing admins regularly prefer the views of a small number of contributors who base their arguments on WP:AT to those of a larger number who just say I think. I don't see any reason to think that this would work any better if they were encouraged to look for community consensus in those terms. It's needlessly complicating an already complex issue, in my opinion. Andrewa (talk) 06:44, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

The phrase "local consensus" is meant to embody a particular, seriously problematic situation: a couple of editors screw up an article, and then attempt to invoke the concept of consensus as their protective shield. So consider the situation of an external link to a fansite. The editors at article number three: the owner of the fansite and two fanboys. They have a discussion on the talk page in which they establish that three people favor including the link. The three say, "Ha! We are all agreed. Furthermore, we notice that the policy about consensus says to consider the strength of our arguments, not just the numbers, and we consider our reasons in favor of adding the link to be, in our humble opinions, models of rational thought. Therefore, we have consensus in favor of the link." That's a "local consensus". It is a "consensus" only in the sense that there is agreement by solely the current participants in the discussion. The "community consensus" is what you'll hear when you take that link to "outsiders" at the External links noticeboard: the community opposes links to fansites. The community's long-standing and widespread opposition to such links trumps the choices of those couple of editors. By "trumps", I mean that the community is fully prepared to hand out blocks and blacklist sites if that's what it takes to overrule that "local consensus". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

"Local consensus" is not necessarily problematic. It's only problematic when it conflicts with community consensus, as it does in your hypothetical examples. Local consensus is how most decisions are made. --B2C 17:01, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Most decisions are like the one at Talk:List of 7400 series integrated circuits#74S262, where the consensus is that there is insufficient evidence that a 7400 series IC with the part number 74S262 ever existed; important to those of us who want to improve that article, but nobody else on Wikipedia cares one way or the other what we decide. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:36, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, there are not two kinds of consensus. All consensus is local and the distinction is empty. If an important policy is ignored by the editors in a particular instance, the editors apparently believe the policy doesn't apply or is not as important as something else (assuming good faith, which we can). Now, is there a case where an admin would overrule good faith interpretations of policy and its applications? Hard to imagine that would be anything but a mistake. Editors here are particular about doing things the right way and our problems usually come from two different ideas about what is right, not from a bunch of editors who want to do something wrong. --Ring Cinema (talk) 22:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, all consensus is local in that not every editor is involved in every discussion. But I think I can see the distinction that B2C is trying to make, and it's a good one if it's as I understand it. Would it help if, instead of talking about community consensus, we called it historic consemsus? That has the advantage of being a subtle reference to [WP:consensus can change|]], but also makes the point that the policies and guidelines do represent an enormous amount of previously achieved consensus, snd for that reason should not be dismissed lightly. Andrewa (talk) 03:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

That's not to say I agree with everything they've said on the subject [4]. Andrewa (talk) 06:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, "community consensus" simply refers to policy and guidelines. Is there anything else included under the term? If not, we should probably just talk about policy and guidelines. Any other example of community consensus beyond these two? --Ring Cinema (talk) 12:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good interpretation IMO... consensus is always in a sense local consensus, as not everybody is involved, and community consensus means polcy and guidelines, and so we should avoid complicating the already difficult concept of consensus by even talking of local and community consensus. That then avoids the temptation to ignore consensus on the grounds that it's only local.

But it would be good to clarify exactly how policy influences decisions as to whether consensus favours a course of action. And this is not trivial. Andrewa (talk) 09:43, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

"Exactly"? :) --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that we can limit the definition of "local" and "community" consensus this way. There have been some RfCs on article talk pages where hundreds of editors left comments... Surely the consensus reached in such a large scale RFCs reflects a community consensus. More importantly, such large scale RfC's can sometimes lead to a re-evaluation of relevant policy/guidance... with people arguing that current policy needs to change to actually reflect the true community consensus (as demonstrated at the RfC). I completely agree that it would be helpful to clarify how policy influences consensus... but we also need to explain how consensus influences policy. Blueboar (talk) 14:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

To paraphrase Sir Humphrey, "...especially where the consensus on the policy of consensus conflicts or overlaps with the policy regarding the consensus on policy..." But seriously, I think it is problematic to try and define two different "types" of consensus. Omnedon (talk) 15:04, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so we have two proposed examples where community consensus might be seen as separate from local consensus. One I accept and the other I don't. Nascent policy changes are a good example for reasons that I assume are obvious: new policy emerges on these occasions from multiple tokens of policy "violation". The other case I would still like to be persuaded. If many comment on an RfC, it's still the consensus for that specific RfC (i.e. local). Are we imagining an RfC on a policy matter or a proposal for a new policy project? But in that case we end up with a new policy and the distinction dissolves. Do I have that wrong? --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you can add the views of uninvolved regulars at a relevant noticeboard (or similar pages) as another class of community consensus. If you show up at ELN and a couple of the regulars say that your website shouldn't be linked, or that linking it is not prohibited, then that is not a policy/guideline and it's not huge numbers of people, but it's very likely to be the expression of the community's views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that this is a new category. To the extent that a practice emerges from a noticeboard, that falls under nascent policy formation (at least that is one way to look at it). Apart from that, the noticeboards participants discuss the relevant policy and a local consensus is formed. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:32, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that it's actually possible for uninvolved and highly informed people (such as the regulars at any noticeboard) to form a "local consensus" in the sense that we use this word. The views of uninvolved and well-informed editors are presumed to reflect the views of the community, unless and until proven otherwise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like the wish of regulars who would like to believe that their opinions are tacitly accepted by editors who have better things to do than endlessly discuss abstruse aspects of Wikipedia policy. It's more than a little self-serving for self-appointed experts to declare themselves exempt from consensus and its constraints. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:48, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

A possible example

See this non-admin close for an interesting example of one interpretation of consensus... possibly even a pointy one, interested in other opinions. Andrewa (talk) 06:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

A problem sentence from Determining consensus

"Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy."

Since this is the first sentence in the section "Determining consensus", it should be very precise. Instead, to me it is confused and clashes with lucid reasoning. I would say that the writers of this sentence wanted to impart that the participants to the consensus should pay attention to policy (don't violate it) and the arguments (accept the good ones). The metaphor of the lens is perfectly apt, but the rest gives me pause.

First, we have the word 'determined'. Formally, if X is determined by Y, there would normally be a causal relation. (e.g., The thermostat determines the use of the furnace. Your test score is determined by your answers to the questions.) But there is not a causal relationship between the arguments and the consensus, except as mediated by the participants.

Then there is the subject: "consensus". I think we are trying to talk about a consensus decision, not just "consensus", so this phrasing invites confusion.

Consensus decisions are determined by the participants to the consensus. Their relationship to the quality of the arguments is that they should accept good arguments and reject bad ones. The arguments can't tell the participants what to think of them, as seems implied in the current text. The arguments from all participants should be considered.

Proposal: Consensus decisions are determined by the participants' assessment of the quality of editors' arguments, viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

What's the difference between a "participant" and an "editor" in this sentence? Victor Yus (talk) 15:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I take the sentence as saying Consensus is not a Vote. It essentially means that the arguments of a minority group of editors/participants can outweigh those of a majority... if the minority supports their view with solid and sound reasoning (based on policy), and the majority does not. Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

But the eternal question remains - who decides whether the reasoning is solid, sound, etc.? Victor Yus (talk) 16:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The eternal answer remains: wikipedia community, using conflict resolution process. And the eternal problem remains: "wikipedia community" is different in different subject areas, so that minority may outweigh majority regardless arguments if majority does not give a shit. And eternal solution remains: only a sufficiently broad participation will produce correct results. It is like in thermodynamics: forty two molecules of gas are meaningless for laws of thermodynamics to work. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

But Wikipedia editors obey different laws - I get the impression that beyond a certain (quite small) number, the more participants you have, the harder it is to reach consensus. Unless you mean "vote", which is more like what gas molecules do. Victor Yus (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

That is a feature of the reality, but essentially the participants decide. "Outweigh" per Blueboar is a misnomer. That is not how it works. Minority views sometimes prevail -- when they are accepted because of evidence or reason by the rest. Editors are normally more than willing to get things right. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

So views may go from being minority views to being majority views. But if they remain minority views, then they do not prevail. Is that what you're saying? (But in the past you've said you're against "majority rule", so I don't really know what you mean.) Victor Yus (talk) 16:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Seriously you want me to say that minority views never prevail because they can't claim a consensus but majority rule is anathema to consensus decision-making? Okay. There's obviously no inconsistency to that. Do you think that the rejection of majority rule requires acceptance that a minority viewpoint could claim to be the consensus? If so, you are making an error in logic. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:03, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree that ""outweigh" per Blueboar is a misnomer", everything depends on how the weight is determined. A simple example of some imaginary RfC is below:

"Should the result of the Battle of the Bulge be a "decisive Allied victory" or a "stalemate"?

• Stalemate. The Allies lost more troops and tanks, and they didn't advance much to the East by the moment the battle ended. -- UserAAA
• Stalemate. Per UserAAA. -- UserBBB.
• Stalemate. --UserCCC.
• Support UserAAA and UserBBB. --UserDDD.
• Stalemate. Let me add to that that Wehrmacht was significantly outnumbered by the Allied troops, so the initial German success was amazing.--UserEEE.
• Decisive Allied victory. According to Churchill, "this is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory". --UserFFF.

If such an RfC is closed by a simple vote count, the result should be "Stalemate". If a closing user/admin is more experienced, they would disregard opinia of UserBBB, UserCCC, and UserDDD as !vote. However, actually, UserAAA's and UserEEE's opinia are also of poor quality, because they are based purely on their own speculations, whereas UserFFF quotes Churchill's words, so the UserFFF's opinion should outweigh, and the result of RfC should be "Decisive Allied victory". Unfortunately, there is not a common practice to ignore the opinion which is not based on reliable sources or references to the relevant policy. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that's a little bit fanciful. If editors have their facts wrong or use the wrong criteria, other editors will say something about it. Then they'll discuss that. If there is still disagreement, there must be a good reason for it. What is the good reason? --Ring Cinema (talk) 20:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's assume these 6 editors are the only editors who expressed interest in participation in this RfC, and two of them are civil POV pushers and other two are simply ignorant.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Then Wikipedia will have one of its many errors. Reliable sources sometimes get it wrong, but to the "mistaken" editors there is nothing amiss. All of us have false beliefs all the time, but we don't know which ones they are. We can take a God's eye viewpoint and pick out the errors, but that is seriously begging the question for mere mortals. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Paul's correct about the closing. You have three editors convinced of "stalemate" by the same facts. Why should they all have to type out the same words? "Stalemate, for the reason given by this person" is no worse than "Stalemate, and now let me re-type this person's exact point in my own words". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

You missed two important things: firstly, if two users have no fresh arguments, their opinion hardly has any weight per WP:DEMOCRACY. Otherwise, such an RfC would degenerate to simple vote. Secondly, as you should have noticed that UserAAA provided no sources to support his thesis, so his opinion is a pure original research, and any original research, even if it is supported by 100+ votes remains just WP:OR, and cannot be added to Wikipedia.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Not a vote, but agreement and endorsement are meaningful. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

And what is the difference between "vote" and "endorsement"? That is acceptable when both versions of the text are in agreement with the policy (i.e. both are neutral, verifiable, and contain no original research). However, when one of these versions in simply not supported by reliable sources, no endorsement can overrule the policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean, what is the difference? Those are English words used in the usual way. I think, too, you are mistaken about the status of UserAAA's comment. You seem to say that if an editor gives the basis for their opinion in an RfC, they have dragged in OR. That's not correct, actually. Having a reason for an opinion is preferable to having no reason. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:33, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think the "no new arguments" position is rather fraught with issues. For example, with regard to Eastern Europe and the Soviet legacy, there is the current Russian official version and its proponents, and a differing version, mutually incompatible, incompatible in not being based on the same verifiable facts ("version" is not "viewpoint"). The most persistent area of contention is the conflation of version and viewpoint as equivalent. They are not.

I personally find myself having to repeat the same set of edifying arguments for a new crop of Russia-position (aka "you can't occupy what belongs to you") oriented editors every few years. That I don't bring a new argument does not invalidate my original argument. Since I've been attacked for not having changed my position, I can only surmise empirically that only on WP is being consistent viewed as a bad thing.

There is no substitute for knowledgeable editors debating a topic based on an agreed-upon set of starting facts to create useful content. Unfortunately, with consensus, RfC's and so on, there is a fiction that "uninformed" = "objective". Conflict resolution only succeeds when it is viewpoints, not versions, which are in question and when "compromise" is not defined as "NPOV" = half-way between two incompatible versions. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 04:17, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't follow you. What position is known as "no new arguments"? No one else has used that phrase. --Ring Cinema (talk) 08:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

That's Paul's idea that if three editors are convinced by Reason 1, and one editor opposes because of Reason 2, then you should treat this as exactly equal: one reason for, one reason against, and who cares that three times as many participants, as expressed by their responses to the questison, believe that Reason 1 is more convincing than Reason 2? Paul's idea is obviously not how things work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I would just point out again that the whole topic of "closing discussions" (in the manner being discussed above) is entirely absent from the policy at the moment, except for a link to an information (non-policy, non-guideline) page in the "See also" section. This still seems to me to be rather a significant omission. Victor Yus (talk) 09:23, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Consensus decisions are determined by the participants' assessment of the quality of editors' arguments, viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy.

Any objections to this change? --Ring Cinema (talk) 05:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, for the moment, because I still don't know who the "participants" and the "editors" are. In many cases it seems to be desired that the person doing the determination not be a participant - that it should be someone who is "uninvolved". Victor Yus (talk) 09:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Victor, this objection is an interesting case of doublethink on your part. The sentence in question doesn't have anything to do with intervention by outside parties, as you contemplate, it is about consensus among those actively working toward a consensus. Now, I know you have a very strong authoritarian streak; you want to "force" editors to do as they are instructed, which obviously has nothing to do with consensus or Wikipedia practice. The question is, should the flawed sentence be replaced, not, should the practice of consensus change to suit your authoritarian impulses. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Ring, I encourage you to use caution when labeling and characterizing fellow editors. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Strange that you never cautioned Victor on that very point. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:22, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Not so strange. Due to our prior exchanges I tend to be more aware of your behavior than of that of most other editors. Perhaps Victor should have received a similar suggestion. That, of course, doesn't mean that my comment to you was not valid. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you really saying it's against Wikipedia practice that editors should do as they are "instructed"? If there's been a discussion, and it's closed with an admin's decision that the consensus is to do X, is it in order for an editor who disagrees simply to carry on edit-warring against X? That would seem to nullify this whole policy. For the principle of consensus to work (within a community like Wikipedia's, which is open to all, including the most argumentative and combative), there must be a authoritarian stage somewhere down the line. Victor Yus (talk) 06:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You've got a straw man argument there. No one said an edit war is okay if an admin does something controversial. But now that we've "cleared that up", we can return to the question at hand, which is about something else. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:25, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The truth is, consensus is "determined" in different ways on different types of pages (and by different people depending on which type of page we are talking about). At one end of the spectrum we have relatively non-confrontational article talk page discussions, where consensus is "determined" by the article editors... (ie those who have been participating in the discussion). At the other end, we have AfD, CfD and RM discussion, where consensus is determined by an official "closer" ... someone who has not participated in the discussion. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you agree, then, that it is a bit misleading to say that consensus is determined by the arguments and their quality? The quality of the arguments is assessed by those who read them, I would say. Consensus is determined by something else, with the arguments (usually based on evidence and logic) as the guides. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I would say that, ideally, consensus is reached, not determined. That is, a solution is reached which all those involved (preferably) find acceptable, or (at least) recognize as representing the consensus ("I still don't agree with this, but I can see I'm massively outnumbered, so fair enough"). If no such ideal position can be reached, then ultimately someone from outside will have to "determine the consensus", i.e. determine the result of the discussion given the lack of (ideal) consensus. What criteria that person may use doesn't seem to be well-defined (nor probably should it be), but it seems to be a mixture of head-counting and evaluation of the quality of the arguments (which may in turn depend to some extent on how well those arguments are founded in policies and guidelines). I'm not sure exactly what question or set of questions we're trying to discuss here; in fact we might all have slightly different questions in mind, which is causing the apparent disagreement. Victor Yus (talk) 17:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

We are talking about one sentence that is already included. The entire policy doesn't have to be captured in this one sentence. Look at how it reads right now. It attempts to place the quality of the arguments at the center of consensus. I think we agree that is good. However, the sentence is slightly incorrect and ill-fitting. So, for this one sentence that leads off a section, can we do slightly better? This discussion is not about reinventing consensus, it is about improving one topic sentence.

Currently: "Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." Proposal: Consensus decisions are determined by the participants' assessment of the quality of editors' arguments, viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy.

I think it's an improvement. Let's address ourselves to that single question. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It's just not true. There are times when consensus decisions are explicitly not determined by the participants' assessment of anything, so we should not say that consensus decisions are (always) determined by the participants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

What kind of case are you thinking of? How could someone not participating determine something? --Ring Cinema (talk) 04:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

There are many cases where a group of editors convince themselves that a discussion concludes that a particular action is required, yet most editors with a wider experience could tell them that their idea won't fly—their local consensus isn't worth anything if wider community involvement would override it. The whole point of "consenus" is that it cannot be defined in more than general terms, and it is unlikely that wording tweaks would be both helpful and accurate. Johnuniq (talk) 06:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

There are simple examples, such as RFA. The participants at RFA do not determine whether the candidate becomes an admin or whether the comments for or against are more convincing. That decision is made 100% by an uninvolved bureaucrat. An experienced editor might have noticed also that AFDs are normally closed by uninvolved admins rather than by the participants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"An uninvolved bureaucrat"? But if that bureaucrat makes the decision, that person is a participant and they assess the arguments. An experienced editor might realize that everyone who offers an opinion about the arguments is an involved participant. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:54, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the sentence as it stands is not helpful, but I think the problem is, as I've said before, that we entirely fail to introduce the concept of "determining consensus". Who does this? How? In what circumstances? Taking what into consideration? With what degree of authority? All these are perfectly valid questions that I'm sure we can, to some extent, answer. The sentence we're discussing might fit into this exposition somehow, but standing on its own it's almost meaningless (though still better than nothing, I suppose). Victor Yus (talk) 07:59, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, another effort to define the entire article in one sentence, while the question is if the proposal improves on the current draft. As I've mentioned, the current draft is inaccurate. I don't see anyone saying that it is accurate. Would anyone like to defend the position that that current draft is better than the proposal? --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, for the same reason that several people have already given, namely that it's wrong (as a general statement) to say that consensus is determined by "the participants". (Also, I'm not trying to "define the entire article in one sentence"; I'm suggesting adding more sentences, so as to properly cover the topic purported to be addressed in this part of the 'article'.) Victor Yus (talk) 20:03, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Who else determines the consensus if not the participants? --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:36, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, let me point out that my draft does not "say that consensus is determined by the participants". Please check the text. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Ring, recall that WP Consensus is not the dictionary definition of consensus. Maybe we should use a different word, but let's not get bogged down in semantics. The dictionary definition of consensus means the relevant participants all agree (some perhaps more enthusiastically than others). On WP Consensus is something of a cross between the dictionary definition and a courtroom-like "verdict". In pure consensus only the position of each participant matters - if they all have the same position - that's consensus. On WP Consensus is a soup of participant positions, their arguments, and the Consensus of the community as reflected in policy and guidelines. But ultimately the participant positions as well as community Consensus is presented in arguments, so we can accurately say that Consensus is determined "by the quality of the arguments".

The current wording is better than the proposed wording because the proposed wording suggests that Consensus is always and only determined by the discussion participants assessing the arguments. That's simply not true. Sometimes it's the discussion participants, but often an uninvolved editor or admin assesses the arguments to decide whether the arguments determined a Consensus, and, if so, what that Consensus is.

The point is, regardless of whether it's the participants or an uninvolved editor doing the assessing, "Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." That's accurate.

Consider, whether it's a judge or jury doing the assessing in a court case, the verdict is determined by the quality of the evidence and arguments given during the trial. We're using the same sentence structure here, except replace "Consensus" with "verdict". --B2C 00:06, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It's an OK analogy... Except that we are plaintiff, defendant, witnesses, jury, judge, and police... all rolled into one entity which we call "the community". Also, Consensus is nowhere near as permanent as a jury's verdict in a court case. Blueboar (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

An editor or admin who comes in after some discussion and assesses the arguments is a participant. Everyone who assesses the arguments is a participant. If they don't participate, they don't assess the arguments. If they assess the arguments, they are a participant. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:47, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

But when (and if) it comes to "determining", then not all "participants" (if you want to use that term in the way that you do) are equal. The determination is then made by (normally) just one of your participants - and it is considered important that that person not have been a participant previously. The situation could certainly be clarified enormously, but your proposed wording seems to have the opposite effect. Victor Yus (talk) 06:05, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

No, it doesn't have the opposite effect. You are imagining that it says that ALL participants determine the consensus simultaneously in all cases. The sentence doesn't say that. It just states the reality in general terms, which I would expect to be at least partially our goal. The goal of capturing the entirety of the policy in one sentence is certain to fail. Again, the current draft states something that's not true, which I would expect would bother some. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

What do you think is not true in the present sentence? Would it be improved by saying "determined based on" rather than "determined by"? Victor Yus (talk) 16:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

My first posting at the top of the section lays it out clearly. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid it isn't really clear to me. But if we wrote "Consensus decisions are determined based on..." instead of "Consensus is determined by...", would that do? Victor Yus (talk) 18:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"...determined based on..." is awkward and unclear, though, isn't it. Two verbs are not the best for clear writing. Are the decisions based on the arguments or determined by them? I'm pretty sure the participants assess the quality of the arguments; the arguments themselves don't say if they're good or not. Since that is what we are trying to impart here -- that the arguments should be assessed and used as the basis of the decisions -- I would suggest that we should say that clearly instead of obliquely. --Ring Cinema (talk) 19:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The quality of the arguments is the causal factor in Consensus determination - therefore the quality of the arguments determines Consensus. As to what determines the quality of the arguments, of course that's partially those making the arguments, but also the underlying basis for the arguments, which of course varies from case to case. Without policy and/or evidence supporting an argument, it's not going to be of very high quality, no matter how hard the participants try. --B2C 19:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I basically agree, except that the terminology is a bit ambiguous. To be clear, consensus itself (its nature and application) is not determined by arguments on any particular issue. Consensus (as expressed in the policy) is applied to decision-making on Wikipedia. Consensus decisions are determined by the quality of the arguments, and on that we agree. --Ring Cinema (talk) 19:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

What about the title of the section ("Determining consensus")? Do you think that should be changed? Victor Yus (talk) 06:06, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Could be, if that can make it clearer. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Nor is it clear to me. First, there is the alleged problem of saying the quality of the arguments determine Consensus; I don't see a problem with that. "Determine" means to be the causal factor, and the quality of the arguments is the causal factor here; that is, Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments. I really see nothing in the current wording that is "confused and clashes with lucid reasoning".

And, if you want to use the word "participant" to be inclusive of what is normally called an "uninvolved admin" to defend the correctness of your proposed wording, I suggest you're depending on confusing usage. --B2C 18:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Determined vs. Achieved

I am wondering if we make a mistake by using the word "Determined" when talking about consensus. The way I see it, a true consensus isn't determined... it's achieved (or not). In most cases, consensus is simply achieved without anyone actually making any formal "determination" of what that consensus is. How do we know? That depends on what method of consensus building we are using. If we are are attempting to reach consensus through editing, we know we have achieved consensus when no one makes any further revisions to the sentence/section being edited. If we are attempting to reach consensus through talk page discussion, we know we have achieved consensus when someone proposes an edit that no one objects to.

The only time we need a "determination" is when the normal system breaks down... when people stop actually trying to achieve consensus, and start trying to impose one. One sign of a broken down consensus discussion is when the question being asked becomes a dualistic "either/or"... "X" vs "Y" (or worse a "yes/no"... "X" vs "not "X"). Once the discussion becomes dualistic, it means people have stopped looking for compromises... they are ignoring the possibility that "A", "B", "C" or "Z" might work to satisfy all parties (ie achieve a true consensus).

Now, unfortunately, the normal system does break down with alarming frequency... but let's understand what is going on when it happens... once the system breaks down, we are no longer trying to reach a consensus, we are trying to resolve a dispute. And we have procedures for this (see WP:DR). Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

"Reaching consensus" is another useful way to think of it; it's a destination. 'Determined' is the word when we want to express the criteria, I would say, or in another context the process. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, if a consensus discussion is a journey (with consensus as its destination), then asking whether consensus has been "determined" is like asking "Are we there yet?" (to which the answer is almost alwasy "no... not yet".) Blueboar (talk) 17:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

We do regularly reach or achieve consensus through editing and/or discussion. Sometimes an uninvolved individual needs to determine whether consensus has been reached, and, if so, what it is. Regardless of whether an uninvolved individual does the evaluation of the discussion, when consensus is reached or achieved via discussion, it is the quality of the arguments that determine consensus. --B2C 19:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, although it is a little more precise to say the assessment of the arguments. --Ring Cinema (talk) 22:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

If the fact that the need for a "determination" means that the normal system has broken down, then the system for deciding on article deletions, renames, etc. must have been totally broken for years, since such decisions are made by determination as a matter of course. I don't like the adversarial atmosphere that seems to develop at those discussions, but on the other hand, I don't think the need for a "determination" necessarily means anything has gone wrong - it just means that enough time has been wasted on discussing whatever it is, the multiplicity of reasonable but conflicting views means there's no realistic possibility of reaching a clear overwhelming majority agreement within any reasonable time period, and the encyclopedia needs a decision of some sort. Victor Yus (talk) 09:52, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

As to the title of the section currently called "Determining consensus", I would suggest "Outcomes". Victor Yus (talk) 09:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

You miss my point... We created AFD and RM so that we could resolve disputed deletions and renames (if there is no dispute, then we simply speedy it without going through the process of a formal "determination"). So AfD and RM are part of the dispute resolution process, not the consensus achieving process.

Disputes occur all the time, and it is not always possible to achieve consensus. There is nothing "wrong" with that. All I am saying is that once we engage in our dispute resolution process, we are no longer engaged in our consensus achieving process. Indeed the dispute resolution process was created precisely to deal with situations where the consensus achieving process isn't working. Blueboar (talk) 11:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Possibly, but your terminology seems not to accord with actual usage. When someone determines the result of a discussion (at AfD or wherever) they tend to phrase it in terms of "consensus is to do this/that". I agree that those discussions don't have much to do with any real attempt to reach consensus, but still, the practice seems to be that people go for them straight away - you don't first try to get consensus on whether to delete an article, and then go to AfD if you fail (maybe people should, but they don't - I suppose it's predictable that it would just be a waste of time). This policy ought to explain the two meanings of "consensus" as used on Wikipedia - the ideal kind where everyone reaches agreement, and the less-than-ideal kind where an outsider comes to tell them what agreement they've reached. Victor Yus (talk) 12:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree... we often try to get consensus on whether to delete an article before we send it to AfD... that's what PROD and the Speedy criteria are for. AFD is for disputed deletions (so, I consider it part of the Dispute Resolution process, not the Consensus achievement process). We also frequently try to get a consensus on page moves before we sent them to WP:RM. We only go to RM when there is a dispute. Blueboar (talk) 12:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe, in a sense, but still, the terminology used at AfD etc. refers very much to consensus ("no consensus" is one of the possible outcomes, not a precondition). Victor Yus (talk) 12:55, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

• Agree, that a consensus is achieved, not determined. Consensus can require negotiation and work. Consensus involves rephrasing the question. Consensus is not achieved by expert judgment. In some cases, such as debates agreed to have a limited time, a WP:Rough consensus may be determined. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:22, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

If Victor is referring to the sentence I brought to the fore at the top of this section, he completely misconstrues what the section is about and how 'determined' is used. He imagines that we only use 'determined' to refer to special cases where consensus decisions are finalized by an outside party. That's completely incorrect. The usage we have been discussing concerns cases routine and unusual. Please read the original in context. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:23, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

The original of what, in what context? The sentence you are proposing changing is isolated, with virtually no context - which is exactly the problem. Victor Yus (talk) 10:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

No, it is the first sentence in a section. You can see the topics covered under the rubric, so this sentence is no more nor less isolated than any other and presents no special problem. It has a role to play in the whole, in this case to summarize in general terms. It is pretty clear from the content, the placement, and the sequel what this sentence should do. It was put there for a reason. Anyway, none of that changes your misunderstanding of the use of the word 'determined' in this context. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be nothing in the rest of that section that relates to that sentence, or indicates how it is supposed to be interpreted. Like much of Wikipedia policy, it's vague and open to multiple interpretations, so that anyone can feel happy that their own view is represented, or (if they like to be patronizing) to tell other people that they are "misunderstanding" it, without the least bit of evidence. Rather than arguing about such matters, we should be working on rewriting the section, so that it tells people the truth and the whole truth, explicitly, with as little room for misinterpretation as possible. Adding something like "by the participants", and expecting people to work out that in certain situations that may refer to a non-participant, is clearly only going to increase the potential for misunderstanding. To do the job properly, we need significantly more than once sentence here. Victor Yus (talk) 15:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Another appearance of the phantom "non-participant"... Exactly who could be a non-participant and assess the quality of the arguments? Not the first time I've asked; as far as I can tell it is conjured from the set of situations that can't occur. If your objection applies only to situations that can't obtain, I am of the opinion it is an objection we can ignore. But perhaps I am overlooking something. So that's one thing. Secondly, I don't think that routinely we explain how to interpret the sentences in the article. Rather, we use English words in the usual way and let the readers read them in the usual way. The exception in this section -- maybe -- is our use of the word 'consensus', where we sometimes seem to mean 'consensus as practiced on Wikipedia'. As a rule, English words on an English page do not need to be specially defined. --Ring Cinema (talk) 18:59, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

You should take note of the fact that more than one person here reacted to your suggestion of adding "by the participants" by objecting that sometimes it is not the participants who decide. If other people here are not divining correctly what you mean by that phrase, then we can expect that people reading the policy would not divine correctly either. Victor Yus (talk) 06:33, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

In MOST situations, consensus is not actually decided by anyone... it simply emerges through editing and/or lack of objection in discussion. The only times when we need someone to "decide" is when there is a dispute. We have a procedure for that... it's called "Dispute Resolution". Blueboar (talk) 14:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I think "dispute resolution" is more about sorting out objectionable behavior. The procedures where someone decides consensus are called AfD, RM, RfC, etc. But we've kind of been over all this, it would be worth writing it into the policy somehow. Victor Yus (talk) 14:54, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

But if a consensus exists, there is no need to go to AfD, RM, or hold an RfC... you just do whatever it is that has consensus. We only go to AfD, RM, RfC when there isn't a consensus. Blueboar (talk) 15:09, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we've talked about this already, I don't think we disagree about anything substantial (except perhaps some niceties of terminology), but the policy fails to address it, providing people only with this one nebulous sentence. Victor Yus (talk) 16:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

We're not talking about someone "deciding consensus", and this section isn't about "achieving consensus". We're talking about people "determining whether there is a consensus" (and if so, what that consensus is). A more descriptive section heading would be ==Determining whether consensus has been achieved, and if so, what it is==, but that's really too long.

The current first sentence says, Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy.

IMO it might be more descriptive to say something like To determine whether a consensus is achieved, users consider the level of agreement among the participants and the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. Depending on the situation, this determination may be made by the participants themselves or by an uninvolved person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that would certainly be an improvement. We should also say something more specific about which situations are like this and which are like that. And something about the expectation that the "uninvolved person" is often preferred to be an admin. Victor Yus (talk) 05:38, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It's absurd -- not to mention hopelessly confusing -- to say that someone "uninvolved" will decide something or assess something. As soon as they start participating, they are involved and, in the ordinary usage of 'participant', they are exactly that: a participant. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:57, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Consensus decisions are determined by the participants' assessment of the quality of editors' arguments, viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. The only objection to this proposal has been based on a misreading of 'participant'. Now that we have cleared that up, it seems to be a pretty good improvement on the current text. Any objections? --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:00, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, still, because if we "misread 'participant'" (allowing that you are to be the judge of what the "correct" reading of 'participant' is), then so will many other people when they come to read the policy. We need to follow WhatamIdoing's idea, which makes it much clearer, but also add additional explanations of the things I've already mentioned, plus (I suppose) what we mean by "uninvolved" (if you insist, we can replace it by "previously uninvolved", but that's not really the point; perhaps we should say "neutral", but in any case define it). (In fact WP:INVOLVED and WP:UNINVOLVED both link to a section which explains the matter quite well, though not specifically in relation to the determining of [...] consensus.) Victor Yus (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Well no, still, it takes some work to misread it that badly. Most people know what a participant is. WAID's idea is good for some other place, but at the beginning of the section, where we should be making the most general comments to outline the practice of consensus, he seems to want to explain what happens if there's an impasse. What happens when it is difficult to reach consensus is not the subject at the beginning of the section, unless it's a section on how to handle an impasse. Look at the sentence that is there now; it's a general statement on what goes into consensus here. That's what belongs there. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Evidence from this talk page implies that most people do know what a participant is, and it isn't what you think it is. I'm not objecting to having the sentence as it is now at the beginning of the section, but it needs to be followed by more sentences explaining the matter in more detail. WAID's idea, supplemented by some further explanation or appropriate links, would achieve that. Victor Yus (talk) 06:38, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, badly misstated. Evidence is that it is easy to understand what is meant by 'participant': it's an ordinary English word used in the ordinary way. It takes work to get it wrong. And even the misreadings do no damage to the purpose of the text, so this is a null set in every way. WAID's idea is very badly misjudged, unfortunately, for this place in the policy. My suspicion is that the current text has not been re-read to see where this sentence fits. Currently, there are no extant objections once the misreading is finished. Apart from that, any further objections? --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The "misreadings" obviously do do damage to the purpose of the text, since they imply that all those who have been involved in a discussion get to determine the outcome, whereas in fact, in one set of cases, it's one person who has not previously been involved in the discussion who makes the decision. This absolutely needs to be made clear, and since this is the section which purports to deal with "determining consensus", this is exactly the right place to do it. Victor Yus (talk) 13:38, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

But most of the time the participants do "make the decision". The only situations when an uninvolved third party (such as an admin) would have to step in and "make the decision" are those where the issue is disputed (for example: a contested deletion nomination or move request... or a contentious RfC). In other words, calling in a neutral third party to "determine consensus" is the exception rather than the rule. Blueboar (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, although in some areas (deletion, moves) it's the rule rather than the exception. Again, all this needs to be written out on the page, rather than being left as a kind of insiders' secret. Victor Yus (talk) 17:13, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, you seem to think that an admin who steps in at the end is not a participant who assesses the arguments through the lens of Wikipedia policy. In fact, that is exactly what they are: a participant who assesses the arguments through that lens. There is no special use of the word 'participant' in this proposal. Someone who participates is a participant. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:32, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Victor - as I said before... non-disputed moves do not need to go through the WP:RM process... and non-disputed deletion PRODS don't need to go through AfD. So AFD and RM are by definition dispute resolution scenarios that are outside the usual consensus process.

Ring - Would you prefer the terms "involved" and "uninvolved", rather than "participant" and "non-participant"? In those cases where those involved in a discussion can not reach a consensus, and bring in a neutral third party (often an admin) to "make a deterination" (ie settle the dispute) we almost always insist that this third party be someone who has not yet commented on the issue under discussion... ie the Admin has not participated in the discussion prior to being asked to settle the dispute. Yes... He/She becomes a participant when he/she makes the "determination"... but not before that point. Blueboar (talk) 02:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

When I last looked, there were half a dozen or more AfDs and RMs per day. They are not something unusual. There may be a larger number of speedy/PROD deletions and unilateral moves, but those cases don't meaningfully involve any "determining of consensus". I would guess that out of the generality of situations in which consensus could be said to be "determined" (as opposed to simply reached and acted upon), the cases where the "determination" is made by an uninvolved third party might even be the majority. Maybe it would be nice if they were exceptional (if people first tried to agree for themselves what the result of a deletion discussion ought to be, before calling in an admin to arbitrate), but that simply isn't what usually happens, and this page shouldn't be written to imply any such thing. Victor Yus (talk) 09:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that a PROD does not involve a "determination of consensus"... it's just that the consensus is "determined" through silence (ie no one challenges the PROD nomination). Also, consider the fact that our criteria for WP:SPEEDY deletion were determined by consensus. In other words, consensus plays a big part in the PROD process... it simply operates behind the scenes. Again, we only go to AfD when we expect there to be disagreement ... ie when there is no consensus at the local article level and we need to see if there is a consensus at a wider (project wide) level.

Something else to consider...There is more than one way to "determine" consensus... first there is consensus through discussion (an overt form of consensus building, where consensus is "determined" by people discussing - even arguing- on the relevant talk page). But there another form of consensus - consensus through editing (a silent form of consensus building, where consensus is achieved without much (or even any) discussion ... by everyone making edits and tweaks to edits... eventually reaching language that everyone likes and no more edits are made). Blueboar (talk) 12:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, I would perhaps use certain words slightly differently than you do, but I don't think that should matter much as long as a readily comprehensible account of all the things we've been discussing appears on the page. Victor Yus (talk) 16:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

There are no cases where a non-participant decides anything. When someone reads the arguments, assesses them, and offers an opinion, that is a participant and they are involved. Any other use of the word is not ordinary English, which we should use as much as possible. Again, the proposal, which is in ordinary English: Consensus decisions are determined by the participants' assessment of the quality of editors' arguments, viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. As far as I can tell, there is no challenge to the truth of this sentence once we realize that 'participant' refers to those who participate -- which is what it means. --Ring Cinema (talk) 12:19, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

You keep saying that, but the fact remains that many people interpret "participant" differently, so the addition has no purpose except to provide the potential to confuse. In any case, it's also misleading because you use the plural (and the definite article) - in the case of a closure by a hitherto uninvolved person (even making the rather strained assumption that that person will be understood to be a "participant"), it's not correct to say that "the participants" decide; it would be "a participant" (or, the way most people seem to understand these words, "a non-participant"). Victor Yus (talk) 12:33, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Your objections amount to nothing. First, there's nothing strained or confusing about saying that a participant is a participant (which word from your vast vocabulary is better, Victor?). Secondly, even if someone doesn't know that a participant is a participant, the text says nothing about what this non-participant does, so it is not an objection to the text. Thus, although your objection is poor, it is meaningless even if accepted. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:31, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you are saying now. The text does say what this (non-)participant does, namely assess the quality [...]. You also haven't addressed the singular/plural thing. Would you object if, instead of trying to write this in one sentence, we wrote it out in several sentences, so as to provide a fuller and clearer explanation along the lines that several people have successfully given here on the talk page? Victor Yus (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Consensus "determination" Let's take a step back

OK... to sort all this out... there are actually three different ways that consensus is "determined"...

1. Consensus through editing - here, no one actually "determines" the consensus. Consensus simply occurs (when no one makes further edits to the section in question). This is how consensus is achieved in the vast majority of situations... especially in article space.
2. Consensus through discussion - here, everyone "determines" consensus together... there is no formal "ruling" as to what the consensus is, no one "closes" the discussion... consensus emerges. Sometimes it emerges quickly, and it is obvious what the consensus is (as when an overwhelming majority all agree)... sometimes the consensus emerges slowly, and is not at all obvious for days, weeks or even months. Sometimes more participants must be called in to give further opinions before the consensus emerges. This is how consensus is achieved on our more stable articles... it is also used in most (but not all) RFC's, on many policy pages, and in answering questions at policy noticeboards and village pump pages.
3. Consensus through process - Here, one person (often an admin) or a pre-selected team is asked to make a ruling on the issue and declare what the consensus is. While that "ruling" is based on discussion, the decision rests with the "closer". Some may say that this isn't actually a form of consensus at all... but if we accept that it is, then this method is best used in contentious binary, yes/no situations where no compromises are possible. For example, at AfD there is no compromise position between "delete" and "keep" (except perhaps "merge"). This method is also how many serious disputes are settled (example: ArbCom). These are all situations where experience has proven that reaching a consensus through editing, or through group discussion is unlikely... so a process is created to "force" a consensus... and the "determination" is declared by fiat.

Does this help clarify things? I think Victor is focused on "Consensus through process", while the rest of us are focused on the other two forms of consensus. Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I'm "focused" on that option, I'd just like to see it at least acknowledged in the policy, which doesn't seem to be the case at the moment. Your summary above (like your and others' previous similar summaries) seems pretty good - could it not be written (with appropriate stylistic changes) into the policy, to follow after the single nebulous sentence we currently have? Victor Yus (talk) 18:44, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

When an argument is offered that effectively counters a poorly reasoned objection like Victor's, is that the time the discussion should be interrupted and started over? No, this is the time to recognize that Victor's objection has no teeth. It not only rests on a strained misreading of the text, it is pointless even if accepted. So, let's not take a step back. Instead, let's just say there is no objection to my proposal that has stood up to scrutiny and proceed from there. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:33, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

You don't really get this "consensus" thing, do you? It doesn't mean dismissing anything anyone else says as worthless, and keep pushing the same proposal over and over again until people get tired of pointing out the various reasons why it's wrong. Or maybe that is how it "works", I don't know. Victor Yus (talk) 08:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I think this is where one of your colleagues mentions how uncivil you are. As a matter of fact, your criticism of my proposal is that you personally misread it. Apart from that, you have no objection. Now, are you taking the position that any time one of use misreads another editor's proposal that means it can't be understood? Another option would be for you, upon realizing that you had tried to interpret "participants" erroneously, would be to say something along the lines of "Oh, I see; that's just the ordinary meaning." Instead, you seem really dedicated to your misreading. I assume that's ad hominem since you haven't raised a substantive objection and you haven't offered an alternative to 'participants' when you were asked to. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:24, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

What you call "misreading" is in fact reading and interpreting in the same way that several other people (a long time ago) also interpreted it, and which many other people, on reading this text if it were to be added to the policy, would also interpret it. "The participants" simply does not mean "one previously uninvolved person". Possibly you could stretch the meaning of "participant" to include that person (though it's highly unintuitive, as you can see from the objections that were raised), but you certainly can't make "the participants" refer to one person to the exclusion of all the actual participants. What we should say is basically what Blueboar has written, which in rough summary is that usually it's the participants who decide (explicitly, or more likely implicitly) what the consensus is, but on certain significant occasions the decision is made by (someone who has so far been) a non-participant. (Then it would be a good idea to describe what a participant might do if they disagree with that person's decision or dispute that person's appropriateness as decision-maker.) Victor Yus (talk) 05:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I think Ring disagrees with that. And I think you disagree with Ring disagreeing with that. Can you two just give up trying to convince each other of the error of the other's ways? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:09, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Happily, as long as silence on the matter isn't going to be interpreted as acceptance of the change that Ring has proposed. Victor Yus (talk) 12:36, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Since the only problem is with the word 'participant', what word would better express the meaning, where the meaning is 'participant'? This is how consensus works: you can address your objection not simply with ad hominem nonsense, but with an actual proposal. In this way, we can improve the article. Which word do you prefer? --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:15, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Victor, please respond to Ring's first and last sentences and ignore the unhelpful comments in between. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is any single word that will work. The sentence should either be left as it is, or (a much better option) replaced or supplemented with the kind of fuller explanation that Blueboar and others have been giving. Victor Yus (talk) 00:12, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

As a minor nit, the "pre-selected team" isn't always pre-selected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The third way

Victor wants the policy to say something about the third way that Blueboar mentioned above. His proposal is not part of mine and it doesn't belong there. But I agree that the policy might benefit from including something about that. Let's discuss that separate issue here. First of all, is it true that the policy is deficient in the way Victor claims? --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I took 30 seconds to check and I think that Victor is mistaken. Section 1.3.2 covers this issue at least in part. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:41, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Not really, because the procedures mentioned there are ways of bringing more people into the discussion. The thing that's missing from the policy is the information that sometimes a discussion is definitively (though not necessarily irrevocably) closed by someone from outside the discussion. There is a very clear distinction between that action and the action of offering one's own views on the subject under discussion. Victor Yus (talk) 08:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Put me in the camp of people who would say #3 is not determining consensus. At most, it's an evaluation by a previously uninvolved party about whether consensus has been determined in a given discussion. In situations where "rulings" are made, yeah, that's often not consensus at all. --B2C 18:40, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think "determining" is really the best word to use at all in this section. Like I suggested a long time ago, I would retitle the section something like "Results" or "Outcomes". Then we could avoid some of the nitpicking over terminology - we could just go ahead and summarize the various possible scenarios, as has been done on this talk page. Victor Yus (talk) 00:43, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

This project is about consensus. --Ring Cinema (talk) 05:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Underlying assumptions

I am beginning to wonder whether we even agree on what the word "consensus" means. Some of us seem to see "consensus" as a process, while others seem to see it as an outcome. Or is it something else entirely? Can consensus actually be determined?... or is consensus more of a goal that we constantly strive to achieve... something we can come close to but can never completely arrive at? Blueboar (talk) 14:51, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

You may be right, but we have to describe it here as the term is used on Wikipedia, not how it would be used in our personal ideal worlds. When a number of people write either "Keep...." or "Delete..." about some article, and in 7 days an admin comes along and declares the "consensus" to be such-and-such, that doesn't seem to have much to do with consensus as described in this policy, nor I suspect as most of the idealists here would understand it. Nonetheless, accepted Wikipedia practice in a number of areas is for exactly that to happen, and for the word "consensus" (or "no consensus") to be used to describe the outcome. Hence this policy, being the place people are likely to come for to read about practice concerning such outcomes, ought to contain information about them. Victor Yus (talk) 17:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

But that begs the question of whether Wikipedia uses the the word consistently or not. Given that the four or five us talking here on this page have differing views of what we mean by "consensus", it would not surprise me if a similar confusion exists throughout Wikipedia. Different policy/guideline pages may use it in differing contexts do mean different things. Or to put it another way... it could be that the reason why consensus may be determined one way in one situation... and a different (perhaps contradictory) way in a another situation (and not determined at all in a third)... is because each situation is using a different underlying meaning of the word "consensus". Blueboar (talk) 19:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The assumption that a precise definition is better than a flexible profile should not be accepted without examination. Flow charts are good for computers, but I don't think it is controversial to say that the preferred result for Wikipedia is a meeting of minds. Some decisions are binary, others are not. --Ring Cinema (talk) 20:03, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

We seem to agree that consensus can mean different things in different situations - but that shouldn't be too much of a problem in writing about it, provided that we don't attempt to nail it down to a single definition (which we don't), and that we cover all of the principal situations, saying what "consensus" customarily means in each case. Victor Yus (talk) 07:21, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

When a number of people write either "Keep...." or "Delete..." about some article, and in 7 days an admin comes along and declares the "consensus" to be such-and-such, it has everything to do with what this page says, presuming the admin does his or her job, paying much more attention to the arguments represented here by ellipses, rather than the counts of "Keep" and "Delete". --B2C 22:01, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Not entirely, because this page seems to say that editors should discuss, listen to others and reach a position based on the arguments, rather than just state that they have made up their minds, give a brief reason, and go. But anyway, what this page is lacking is a full description of the "job" that the admin (or other closer) is expected to do, or in fact any indication (apart from the "see also" link) that such a job even exists. Victor Yus (talk) 07:14, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I have to question the word "lacking"... it assumes that this page should give a full description of a closer's job, and I am not sure this page is the right venue for that. To give an (imperfect) analogy... A driver's ed manual will "lack" a full description of the job that a traffic cop is supposed to do, but no one expects a driver's ed manual to contain this information. A driver's ed manual is not the the right venue for such instruction. The manual is designed for the driver, and not the cop.

I see this page as explaining an informal process, rather than outlining a formal procedure ... its purpose is to give guidance on how to reach or achieve consensus in fluid situations, and not on how to determine a "winner" in static situations. More to the point, I don't think this page should be a procedural manual for determining AfDs... if AfD is lacking clear "procedural" instructions for closers, there are better places to put such instructions. Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with both of you. Victor's point that the arguments should be attended to is an excellent one. However, for reasons that aren't always bad, there is a strong temptation to look for common ground later rather than earlier. Most editors don't read this page anyway; perhaps we don't offer useful distinctions. The mixture of description and proscription is not spelled out, probably because it would be too contentious. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, I don't insist that this page give a full description of a closer's job, but it should at least indicate that in some circumstances (and specify which) there is such a thing as a closer, at least summarize the job of that person, and say how other editors should/might proceed once a closure has been made. And say, as was said before, that in most situations consensus is either reached transparently, or adjudged (or whatever word we want to use), by the people involved in the discussion themselves. That is, basically write what Blueboar wrote above about the three possible outcomes. Victor Yus (talk) 10:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not completely opposed to the idea ... But figuring out how to do it appropriately will take some work. The page has (up to now) focused more on "how to achieve a consensus" (guidance on a process), and less on "how to determine who wins in a consensus debate" (which would be more of a procedural instruction). I would like to keep that focus if possible. Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm only suggesting adding a paragraph or three, which won't change the focus of the page as a whole. And "determining who wins" (or rather, which suggested course of action "wins") is part of the process, whichever method of determination may apply in a given situation. Consensus isn't an end in itself - a consensus is meant to lead to action (or inaction) to (hopefully) make the encyclopedia better (or not worse). Victor Yus (talk) 17:05, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I think we're going to have to add a new page to Category:Wikipedia fauna called "WikiPhilosopher" just for Blueboar. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Highly inappropriate comment, WAID. Apparently you prefer superficialities but it will be up to you to explain why we should dumb down the conversation. So this is another recent example where the editors who have convinced themselves of their superior understanding actually don't want to do the hard thinking. Not good. --Ring Cinema (talk) 08:19, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I understood the comment to be meant affectionately. Victor Yus (talk) 10:37, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

So did I. :>) More to the point WAID's comment is somewhat accurate... I do tend to think "conceptually" when discussing proposed policy and guideline edits. Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

If I misinterpreted, my apologies! --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You are forgiven. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:42, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

If the Category:WikiPhilosopher were to be proposed, may I propose both myself and B2C as possible foundation members? I would seek their permission first of course. Andrewa (talk) 03:18, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course. It's usual for inclusion to be based entirely on self-identification. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Forum shop if no opinion given on noticeboard?

I put something that's probably more WP:OR/SYNTH on WP:BLN since it's in a bio. Obviously a mistake since no one answered except an involved editor who merely linked to the relevant talk page discussion. (Later I did add a couple things in a second section more directly BLP related).

When I asked at the BLP notice if it would be a problem to move WP:OR section to WP:ORN, the editor of the questionable edit finally bothered to respond, merely linking to WP:FORUMSHOP. So is moving to another noticeboard if there is no response forum shopping? And if it is not, do such exceptions need to be mentioned in that policy section?

Also, this may be where canvass issues become forum shop issues, but can one then go to the relevant notice board like WP:ORN and post link to WP:BLPN discussion, or is that forum shopping? Maybe it's summer, or maybe the topic too boring, but responses on a lot of problematic issues hard to get lately. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 18:03, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Someone answered elsewhere: WP:FORUMSHOP: "Where multiple issues do exist, then the raising of the individual issues on the correct noticeboards may be reasonable, but in that case it is normally best to give links to show where else you have raised the question." sometimes you read stuff but don't quite believe it given strong objections. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 15:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Another option is to pick one centralized location where the discussion will take place (the article talk page, the most relevant policy noticeboard, etc), and then leave neutrally worded notices at all the other relevant noticeboards and talk pages linking to that centralized discussion. It becomes canvasing and forum shopping when you try to "prove your case" at all of the different locations separately... save that for the centralized discussion. Blueboar (talk) 16:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. In that case it was a law drawn out discussion that needed summarizing. Though I guess one can invite people to new subsection that summarizes the above.

I guess the big problem is if you go one place, get lots of opinions from non-involved and neutral editors that you do NOT like, and then go elsewheres. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 16:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes... for more on that, see: WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. Blueboar (talk) 17:46, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Decisions by WMF software developers

PROPOSAL WITHDRAWN. While I still believe the wording of policy could be improved, clearly there is no consensus for my proposed changes. As always, I am happy to follow the consensus; my attitude is that if my proposal was as good as I thought it was, it would have gained some traction and attracted some supporters. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly support a proposal in the spirit of yours. I only learned about this proposal right now. In fact, I only discovered the "exception" to Consensus in Wikipedia's policies just now, through the discussion on Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default_State_RFC. That discussion is an example of developers forcing changes on the site as a whole, when there seems an overwhelming opposition among editors. Personally, knowing that the WMF can force changes on the site against the consensus of editors makes me (a) less likely to want to contribute my time and energy to editing the site, and (b) less likely to want to donate money or to recruit other, wealthier individuals to donate money. It seems to go against the spirit of the site as a whole to enable such easy overriding of consensus. I would strongly like to reword this too, although I'm not sure your proposal is the best one. It's a good starting point though to spark some discussion though. Cazort (talk) 17:20, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I would like to propose the following change in order to clarify our policy. More comments after the two versions.

CURRENT:

---

• Some matters that may seem subject to the consensus of the community at the English-language Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) are, in fact, in a separate domain. In particular, the community of MediaWiki software developers, including both paid Wikimedia Foundation staff and other volunteers, and the activities of Wikimedia Commons, are largely separate entities, as are the many non-English Wikipedias. These independent, co-equal communities operate however they deem necessary or appropriate, such as adding, removing, or changing software features, or accepting or rejecting images, even if their actions are not endorsed by editors here. This does not constitute an exhaustive list as much as a reminder that the decisions taken under this project apply only to the workings of the self-governing community of English Wikipedia.

PROPOSED:

---

• Some matters that may seem subject to the consensus of the community at the English-language Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) are, in fact, matters that affect the many non-English Wikipedias or even non-Wikimedia Wikis that use MediaWiki software.

One example is the activities of Wikimedia Commons, a separate entity that serves images to Wikipedias in all languages. They have their own policies and procedures for accepting or rejecting images, even if their actions are not endorsed by editors here. Images that are stored on the Wikipedia website instead of Wikimedia Commons are subject to consensus.

Another example is the rollout of new software features. The same software is used by all of the different language Wikipedias, and we cannot force our consensus on other Wikipedias by mandating changes in how the software works. On the other hand, other than a few exceptional cases, turning a software feature on or off or deciding which access levels can use the feature is configured on a per-wiki bases, and thus we can decide by consensus to turn it on, turn it off, turn it on only for administrators, etc. Other configurable options include naming pages or features. On the English Wikipedia we can "edit" the "main page". On the Icelandic Wikipedia they would "breyta" the "forsíða", and on the German Wikipedia they would "bearbeiten" the "hauptseite". These names are configuration options, and thus we could, by consensus, decide to "update" the "home page" without that decision affecting other Wikipedias.

This does not constitute an exhaustive list as much as a reminder that the decisions taken under this project apply only to the workings of the self-governing community of English Wikipedia.

---

Background: There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Flow‎ about whether changing the term "talk page" to "boards" is subject to consensus. A couple of editors cited WP:CONEXCEPT, saying things like "The devs are not obliged to follow onwiki consensus (per WP:CONEXCEPT)". At that point I realized that the paragraph in question can be interpreted to mean that there can be no consensus-based restrictions on the actions of WMF software developers. This, of course, is not true in practice, as seen by our experience with Pending Changes.

Because of this, I have tried to create a more balanced statement that better reflects actual policy as it is typically applied. I am not married to the wording I chose above (it is longer and possibly instruction creep) but I do think we need something better than "These independent, co-equal communities operate however they deem necessary or appropriate, such as adding, removing, or changing software features". We need language that makes it clear that we cannot impose our preferences on other Wikis or create extra work for the WMF developers, but neither can the WMF developers have absolute power over the English Wikipedia, as the current language implies. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:30, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

In the case of a disagreement, what mechanism would prevent the developers from implementing a change that they believed was correct over the objection of Wikipedia? --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

There are two answers to that question; what could happen in theory and what does happen in practice.

In theory, the WMF developers can do anything they want including turning Wikipedia into a Facebook clone, and there is nothing the English Wikipedia could directly do to stop them. Jimmy Wales or Sue Gardner could stop them, and if the decision was egregious, they would. Then again, in theory whoever has the keys to the data center can override any decision by a software developer who logs in remotely, and in theory a court order can override the WMF.

Those are all things that could happen in theory, but in practice, the developers are reasonable people who really do want what is best for Wikipedia, and WMF management is extremely cooperative and helpful, balancing meeting our needs with making sure that the needs of all of the different language Wikipedias are met.

My main concern is that the present wording implies that we can't make consensus decisions like the decision we made to turn off pending changes a while back or the more recent decision to turn pending changes back on. Clearly we can and did make those decisions, and the wording should reflect that. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Two points:

• If the consensus here requires any effort or cooperation from the devs, then you can't actually "can't make consensus decisions like the decision we made to turn off pending changes" unless they voluntarily agree to go along with it. NB that in the case you mention, the devs did nothing at all. PC was "turned off" only in the sense that we instructed admins not to click that particular button.
• You need to read this again: "...when we say "board", we're not discussing what the term is on enwiki - we're discussing what the software concept is called. That's not something that falls under the consensus policy, and if you think it is then I'd suggest you re-read it and take into account the section about the community not having control over technical decisions. What the software concept is called, what the code refers to the object or class as, is totally unrelated to what it's called on the English-language Wikipedia. We could call it "Happy-Fun-Talky-Place" on enwiki and still have the software refer to it as a board. Each project can call it a totally different thing, because it's just a string in a localisation file."
  Nobody has told you that the en.wikipedia name must be "board". They've told you that what feels good to you personally isn't the deciding factor (they're going to get data), and someday they'll probably get around to telling you that "talk" may be technically impossible because both "boards" and the existing talk pages will have to co-exist during the transition (unless "No, I meant my other talk page, not this talk page" is the sort of conversation you like having), but nobody has said that it will definitely be called "board" here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: unfortunately, the very reasonable diff you linked was subsequently contradicted – strongly! – by another WMF staffer, which is why I think Guy proposed this idea here. That said, I have low enthusiasm for this proposal, as much as I sympathize with its intent. The current wording is descriptive of the way things currently are, and a change here is not, in itself, going to change the facts on the ground. If the existing wording says that developers can sometimes act outside of WP consensus, and we take that out, that's not going to make them act within consensus if they don't want to: you can't enforce it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Petition to the WMF on handling of interface changes. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that Jorm actually contradicted Oliver. NB that the person you're saying "contradicted" this reasonable statement is the exactly same person who wrote "Nomenclature in this document (e.g., "Flow board") is product design facing and not user facing. User facing terms will very likely be different than those included herein." in the official documentation at Mediawiki. Twice. We can (and should) quibble with Jorm's inappropriate omission of hyphens, but I don't believe that anyone could read that statement and come away with a rational belief that "Flow board" is the final, user-facing name of the feature on all projects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Jorm and I are, hyphens aside, in full agreement. Let me reiterate; there is pretty much no way to make a MediaWiki extension that wouldn't allow for language- or project-specific user-facing terminology. Theoretically I guess you could do it, if you only wanted it to work in English, but.... Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 03:56, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I would also suggest that the commentary around the community turning it on, turning it off, etc, does not align with how things actually work. We will listen to the community, certainly, and we have disabled/scaled things back in response to power user concerns in the past - pending changes, liquidthreads, AFT5. On the other hand we can point to just as many examples - Echo, the VisualEditor, ACTRIAL - where power user concerns have not prevented the software moving forward (although they have led to things like changes in deployment timetables or feature sets). To write into policy "the community can demand anything be turned off" is, as WhatamIdoing astutely points out, to pretty much guarantee dev-community conflict: and to guarantee that it is a conflict the developers win. You cannot convince people to do something differently merely by citing a policy they are not bound by. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:00, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

"The term 'Board' was chosen because it's just that: a bulletin board about you. A place for people to pin messages. Now, to the idea about 'being too social network', I say 'nuts'. This is the year 2013. We have scads of tests and data that show new users simply do not understand what 'Talk' means. This is the reason why the 'talk' tab was labelled 'discussion' for so long (and then reverted back, because too many templates said 'leave a message on the talk page'). This is an artifact of history, and it's one we'll do well to get rid of and move on with our lives on."

I am having trouble interpreting the above as not being about what new users see. Yes, I realize that the phrase "we're not talking in 'user facing' terminology at this point, just software terminology" was used earlier in the same comment, but I am having trouble reconciling that with "We have scads of tests and data that show new users simply do not understand what 'Talk' means". How is that relevant if we are talking about something that new users will never see? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:16, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I interpret it as Jorm basically saying "We're not talking about user-facing terminology and shouldn't be, but if you insist on doing so, here's why my user-facing terminology is better". Not the best structure to an argument, but a structure. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

It had not occurred to me to interpret it that way, but now that you have written the above, I will start doing so. I find your interpretation to be quite reasonable. This resolves all of my concerns. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:47, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

At this point, I have no idea what to think. And hyphens are the furthest thing from my mind. I consider myself capable of reading the English language in the plain meaning of words, and I cannot see how what Jorm said as meaning anything other than what I thought it said. Okeyes (WMF), you could save everyone a lot of drama if you would go back to WT:Flow, and explain in detail how editors should understand the "board" thing. I say that knowing that you already did it once, but the discussion subsequent to when you did it turned in a very different direction. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure; I'll try to get something up later today, but the VE is sucking up a lot of my time at the moment. If I haven't posted something by the end of the day, ping me. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I just made an edit there that could serve as a perfect place for you to reply to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:14, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Jorm? Oliver? What's with the obscurity? I don't think this is a place for the thrill of insider conversations. --Ring Cinema (talk) 20:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

defining "local" etc.

I suggest that we use "local consensus" here to mean a consensus on a specific article talk page, where editors who are not already involved in the article are unlikely to appear. We then have "project consensus" applying to policies and guidelines where one expects a much larger number of people to be involved in any changes to a policy or guideline. Third, we have "noticeboard consensus" which, we hope, has a different group of editors than are present in the local article, but who are basically making their opinions on the basis of Wikipedia policy and (we trust) not on the basis of personal points of view about the topic.

Lastly, we have "RfC consensus" where basically we mix type 1 and 3 together -- hopefully still in accord with policies.

If we tentatively work with these definitions (arbitrary as they might seem) perhaps we can generally state that if a local consensus consistent with Wikipedia policies can be worked out, that such a consensus is good and proper. If concerns about the applicability of policies and guidelines arise, then the use of an RfC or noticeboard discussion to weigh the policies is proper, and no "local consensus" can actually override certain policies (inter alia BLP and NPOV for example).

Does this work for anyone as a basis to more specifically elucidate what goes on (or should go on) in a consensus discussion? If not - oh well. Collect (talk) 22:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a good idea but perhaps you will accept a little fine tuning. 'Project consensus' as you describe it might be misleading because the causality, I understand, flows from the practices of Wikipedia editors -- or maybe just the good practices -- which the policy supposedly reflects.

Secondly, I would suggest we keep an open mind about how it really could come about that a certain policy could overrule editors who reach consensus after discussion. The implication that good faith editors would ignore an important policy seems to me a contradiction; if they think the policy should be ignored, it must not be as important as their reasons. While this objection does not speak to the accuracy of your definition, we could spend a lot of time figuring out how to express this idea accurately when in fact it is more than possible that it is an empty set. --Ring Cinema (talk) 22:59, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

As I have seen "consensus" try to override WP:BLP as a practical matter, I can assure you that such cases exist, and in abundance where strongly held political, religious or sexual beliefs are found. To wit, an editor who felt that (essentially) "conservative Christians are anti-gay, and that this must be exposed in their BLPs." And another editor who felt "the most important part of a BLP was to expose the hypocrisy of those whom he felt needed to be exposed". Yes - there are editors who would indeed try to override such policies as BLP and NPOV. Collect (talk) 01:00, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. That is the first genuine counterexample I've come across. So it's not the null set. The flip side of the problem, as I'm sure you're aware, is an outlier who would try to commandeer a discussion based on a questionable reading of a policy. But that's not a matter of definition. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:35, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Presumably those who discussed it on the basis of the policy relevant to that noticeboard and not having any content bias one way or another would not reach consensus contrary to policy, we hope. This does presuppose that we can aver that noticeboards exist primarily to deal with the policy relevant to that noticeboard. Collect (talk) 01:58, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't follow you. As a rule, content bias or its lack is not connected to policy conformity, while there is no problem with editors reaching a consensus at odds with policy if that is what they want to do. It's only an issue if another editor wants to follow the policy, but then there's not a consensus to ignore the policy. Perhaps I don't understand you. --Ring Cinema (talk) 12:20, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I know the theory - but in practice some editors do have different interpretations of policy depending on what they wish the result to be <g>. The purpose I suggest is to ensure that the policy discussions be grounded in policy, and for that folks who have no axes to grind on a topic are possibly (hopefully) better suited for determining exactly where that line is than are people with labile interpretations of policy. Is that a bit clearer? I really think this may set a groundwork for substantial improvements here. Thanks. Collect (talk) 12:44, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Now you don't understand me. My point is exactly that tendentious interpretations are ubiquitous. There is no one without an ax to grind. Further, there is no avoiding interpretive bias; it is a fact of life. With respect, there is no authority outside of consensus and no consensus outside of discussion. Thus, there is no method that "guarantees discussions are grounded in policy." To imagine that someone outside a discussion can or should impose an interpretation of policy application on editors who know a subject best is not a prescription for excellence. Ignoring policy is fine if that is the consensus view but I believe you don't accept that. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

As the Five Pillars note - NPOV is "non-negotiable" and WP:BLP is strong both for moral and legal reasons. Some other policies may be weaseled around, but not those particular two AFAICT, Can we agree on that part? <g>. Then once we have the language figured out - perhaps we can make this policy the strong "dispute resolution tool" it is intended to be. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

There will always be disagreement about how to interpret policy, even when the relevant text is not in question. That's one point. Secondly, new policy arises from new practice. The way to change a policy is for a new practice to emerge. Thus, violating policy is sanctioned -- in both senses. Thirdly, I sense that you believe there is some authority somewhere that can force compliance. Not only is that not desirable (see my second point), it is not possible. The authority of consensus comes from consensus. Please let's not pretend there is a God's-eye point of view from which we can see all the truths. It's not there. --Ring Cinema (talk) 22:30, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Well said. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

It is actually a two way street... policy does and should influence consensus discussions ... but consensus discussions should in turn influence policy.
In any "local" (or even "project level") consensus discussion, we obviously should discuss what our policies say on the issue ... however, if enough "local" consensus discussions "go against" the same policy point, those discussions are a good indication that community consensus about the policy point has changed... and that the policy needs to be re-written to better reflect the new consensus. Blueboar (talk) 15:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

In the interest of consistency I am trying to mentally recast those comments, Blueboar, without resorting to "community consensus". See above where we were thinking that community consensus always refers to policy or guidelines, so it's redundant terminology, therefore confusing. However, nascent policy changes might be the one area where something is community consensus but not policy. If that is so, perhaps this area requires some codification in writing. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:10, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Silent consensus is also a form of consensus - e.g. if there is something widespread, that nonetheless violates written guidelines, this can be considered a form of community consensus to overrule the written guidelines.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:02, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

If there is something widespread, that nontheless violates written guidelines... that is usually an indication that the guidelines don't actually reflect community consensus... and that the guidelines need to be re-written.

I'm not sure we can recast in the way Ring wants us to. I don't think it is accurate to say that "community consensus" always refers to policy or guideline pages. It certainly isn't limited to just policy/guidline pages. A broad based RFC can be a very good indication of "community consensus". Indeed, sometimes a broad based RFC can be a better indication of "community consensus" than a policy page - because more people were involved in the RFC than were involved in crafting the policy/guideline. Blueboar (talk) 16:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Neither do I, based on the discussion above, but the meaning of 'community consensus' seems limited to policy, guidelines, and nascent policy changes. That is not much wider than just policy and guidelines. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I would say the definition of "community consensus" is: "A wishy-washy mixture of the stated opinions and unstated practice of the Wikipeida community at large".

Policy should not be confused with "community consensus"... Policy is supposed to reflect community consensus... but it can sometimes get out of sync with it. Blueboar (talk) 20:22, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I see these abstract conversations are continuing ad infinitum - but unless you are prepared get down to the gritty detail of who decides what the consensus is and on what basis, and how that consensus can then be enforced if necessary, then the whole thing will have no practical effect whatever. People will always claim that their edits are supported by consensus or for some reason don't need to be, and that the edits they oppose lack consensus. With no way of adjudicating such claims, they become empty, and the matters will be decided by (if it comes to that) an edit war. In most cases it doesn't come to that, because consensus happens naturally (or one party can't be bothered to argue) - but you don't need a policy to say what's going to happen anyway. Victor Yus (talk) 09:36, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Re: "People will always claim that their edits are supported by consensus..." Or (perhaps more commonly) people will claim that the other guy's edit is not supported by consensus. That puts the other person in the position of trying to "prove" that consensus actually does support his edit. In most consensus disputes, the reality is that neither side has a true consensus... and both sides need to back down from their "I'm right" attitude and and reach a compromise. Blueboar (talk) 12:43, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and I suppose mostly they do (or else one side simply concedes that the other is right, or decides it's not worth arguing about). But what about when they can't, or won't, reach a compromise? Or when one side (arguably) does have a "true" consensus? Or when one side claims it doesn't need a consensus, because its position is the status quo or is dictated by policy, or something (and possibly then makes no effort to find a compromise)? Who decides these things? On what principles? By what process? The policy continues to lack any information on these essential matters, and hence remains woefully incomplete and of almost no practical use as a policy. Yet in spite of all our chat on the talk page, we don't seem to be making any effort to repair these deficiencies. Victor Yus (talk) 08:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)