Wikipedia talk:Consensus

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

Mentoring

I'm sure that this article is meant to be clear as crystal, but I could sure do with some help from time to time, and never know where/who to turn to. I know that this is OT, but is there some mentoring programme, or help place, for getting assistance with the details? What brought me here was a question regarding the establishment of consensus of an article that I have contributed to for years. I was away for about ten days, and another editor made a load of changes, which were ok'd by a third (inexpert) editor. However, a substantial portion of the contribution appears to me to be confusing at best, maybe even faulty. However, that editor is now saying that he got WP:CON while I was away, and he disagrees that my unhappiness with the new copy indicates a lack of WP:CON. I am hoping in this case, that we will be able to resolve our differences, but I am unsure about who is in the 'right' here. If you are willing to get the odd question about policy, then maybe drop me a line so I can stop filling up policy talk pages every time I get confused! 20040302 (talk) 01:10, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that policy will help you in fact - you might think policy pages are meant to be clear as crystal, but in fact the reverse is true - they are meant (by the people who tend to control them) to sound pompous and legalistic while remaining vague and ambiguous on any substantial issue. That particularly applies to this one. (In any case, it's unlikely to settle your argument.) Your best bet is probably not to worry about policy but to get some outside opinions (from the relevant WikiProject, say) on the particular editing matter that concerns you. (Just my opinion.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:37, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Well said. Unfortunately, to the initial point, there are few areas where editors are knowledgeable in an area but not already embroiled on some side of an ongoing argument in that area—when it comes to assisting in conflicts, it's not that easy to find someone who is well informed on a topic and who is not intellectually invested in a particular viewpoint. "Inexpert" editors too often view their being uninformed as conferring neutrality; IMHO they cause more damage to articles than the most ardent of polarized protagonists. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:40, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

That's why I tried to get consensus of the community in the lead, so that people aren't stuck fighting with 3 people who really are violating policy in some way yelling there's a "consensus" to do it!! I stopped paying attention and noticed it's still confusing, so just clarified. CarolMooreDC 15:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

But that is not really what Peters said, it seems. I understand him to say that neutral ignorance is mostly ignorance. You are saying that editors who claim a consensus in (apparent, undefined) violation of policy shouldn't have standing. Unfortunately, as a practical matter that is just how it works. We have no police; local consensus rules, as a rule. --Ring Cinema (talk) 18:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, what you wrote is rather confusing to me and I'm too busy to concentrate on it. Why not just work on specific wording we all can agree to, per the below. CarolMooreDC 22:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Lead again

In my proposed lead higher on this page, I originally had a second paragraph, reading: Most editorial decisions are made by single editors acting alone; their actions are assumed to be supported by consensus so long as no-one objects to them. If disagreements arise, the editors with an interest in the article or page in question attempt to reach consensus on a solution. Matters with wider significance may be brought to the attention of the whole editing community in order for a wider consensus to be reached. One editor objected to this, but if we're going to talk about scope of consensus in the lead, perhaps a whole paragraph like this so as to deal with it more fully?--Kotniski (talk) 16:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

How about the lead incorporating both our concerns by reading:

'Consensus' refers to the primary way in which decisions are made on Wikipedia, and is accepted as the best method to achieve our goals. "Consensus" on Wikipedia does not mean that decisions must be unanimous (which, although an ideal result, is not always achievable); it is not a vote either. It means, rather, that the decision-making process involves an active effort to incorporate editors' legitimate concerns. Edits that are not challenged can be considered to be "consensed upon." If disagreements arise which are not resolved though actual edits, editors may use the talk pages and, if necessary, solicit opinions from the larger community to achieve consensus.

??CarolMooreDC 16:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

"Edits that are not challenged can be considered to be "consensed upon."" I don't think that's proper English, and I don't see the issue with the current lede. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:43, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

An edit that isn't challenged doesn't require further definition. Also, soliciting opinions from elsewhere is an invitation to uninformed editing (and perhaps a violation of policy). My sense is that this is included out of an impulse to police editors that aren't punctilious about policy, and this is not the right approach. The strength of Wikipedia is good faith editing, and this section works best by pointing in that general direction. The details are for later. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:25, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I added the "edits not challenged" business to accommodate someone else's comment. Whatever.

Note current long section already exists so let's not forget that: Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus-building_by_soliciting_outside_opinions

I like the current list of four things the article is about because I'm just looking for the lead to make contents of article clearer since people can get lost in the TOC or just reading all those sections. CarolMooreDC 16:45, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it is important to include "edits not challenged", because we do have people who don't grasp this basic point and consequently believe that they must prove that there never was a consensus for a given edit, rather than simply challenging it and saying that they believe it could be improved/consensus has changed. See, for example, North's RFC last month on whether "verifiability, not truth" should have been added to the lead of WP:V on the grounds that his simple search of the archives didn't show a major discussion on the phrase before it was added to the policy. "There wasn't ever consensus to add this phrase (despite it somehow sticking around in one of the most heavily watched policy pages since August 2005)" was his main line of argument. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I see your point if you are someone who has had that happen a lot. Evidently not a lot of people have. I usually see the opposite - changing willy nilly despite whole RfCs of consensus from whole community! CarolMooreDC 18:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a kind of tension here - on one hand, wording that has stood for a long time on a well-watched page can be assumed to have consensus (in the absence of any other evidence), but that assumption of consensus shouldn't be allowed to override what we can actually see - if discussion shows that it doesn't have the consensus of the community now. If it's masquerading as a key statement of policy, as in WAID's example, then it really matters quite a lot if it doesn't have consensus support. I don't follow the religious warfare at WP:V any more, but it seems to me the problem there was a classic case of the downside of the "no consensus = no change" principle - that it makes status-quo supporters feel exempted from any need to try to reach a compromise or mutually acceptable solution.--Kotniski (talk) 09:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

edits

I tried to get this closer to English, without making any substantive changes to its intent. Where I erred, please restore the intent, but please do not toss the baby out <g>. I am concerned that "legitimate" is a word which does not work in the policy, and that "proper" works better. Also I find the mixing of sock, ew etc. in the policy on "consensus" to be confusing to the average reader, and think that the separation of issues ought well be expanded. Lastly, I think the use of the second person was quite overdone. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Large changes are not good here. Please take a moment to check on how this project works in the discussion above. Small changes can be hard on good editors, who will do better with stable policies. Thanks. --Ring Cinema (talk) 00:36, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Just tell me which "massive change" you note. "Proper" instead of "legitimate"? Or reduction of use of the second person? I did my best to make no substantial "change" to any policy at all. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh and by the way - kindly self-revert your wholesale unexplained revert - just saying "it is too much" is woefully akin to the exemplar of "I don't like it" indeed. Try going back and noting exactly what "major change" you found. Cheers - that is how this concept is described in this page - doing the exact opposite seems a tad -- interesting. Collect (talk) 00:42, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your good intentions and personally agree that the second person is not the best tone, but I am not sure how it came about. This is something to discuss. However, because of the special function of this page, it's better to take a more incremental, consultative method. This page has not been edited carelessly because of how it fits in the Wikipedia scheme of things. While you may have done your best to make no changes, I imagine you are sensitive to how small differences in language alter meaning, That is monumentally uncontroversial. You wouldn't claim that your edits are superior because they came second? That would be absurd, no? So, while in some contexts your many changes might just be a quick dusting out of the cobwebs, this is a project that a lot of editors consult for guidance, so, honestly, having the sharpest copy is simply beside the point. As I mentioned, good editors do better with stable policies, and I respect their efforts a lot. Pulling the rug out from under them in this way is not the best. Thank you, but as other editors occasionally mention in this discussion, it is confusing to change the policy on consensus. --Ring Cinema (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I have not looked at the edits or the revert - these comments are based entirely on this discussion, which I find to be outrageous. When one reverts the good faith edits (as I presume these are) of another editor, the onus is on you, per WP:BRD, to explain specifically what your objections are, not simply utter vague and useless platitudes. How about some quotes, diffs, and specific comments or explanations? If you don't have specific objections like that, then I suggest you restore the changes. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I looked over the diffs now and they do appear to all be improvements. I suggest restoring the edits, and then tweaking from there. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

This is not the first time a certain editor has reverted other people's efforts on this page without making any effort to explain why, but I guess certain people are just like that. Anyway, perhaps we could try some of the changes one by one? The ones I noticed, I didn't particularly like (such as saying that consensus is achieved "while following policies and guidelines", which implies that consensus is somehow subservient to these written "rules", whereas in fact consensus can be and often is reached to deviate from them, and of course to change them).--Kotniski (talk) 10:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying consensus can override NPOV and BLP, inter alia? Thanks. Collect (talk) 12:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, maybe not the principles (at least, it shouldn't, although in practice it will do unless someone with authority comes along to enforce the principles), but if there happens to be some less essential point on those pages about how specifically to deal with situations of some type (which there might not be on those pages, but there certainly are on many other policy and guideline pages), then consensus can certainly "overrule" what the policy says.--Kotniski (talk) 14:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

We may need to find a better way to say that, but IMO the concept is good. It is not actually possible to have a true consensus to violate BLP or NPOV or COPYVIO. It's only possible to have a couple of editors at a local page that mistakenly believe that they have a LOCALCONSENSUS to screw up an article. They won't discover their error until someone else comes along, but the fact is that they never did have a real consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the policy/guideline must be presumed to reflect broad consensus (if it doesn't, then that needs to be addressed), so not following policy/guidelines is by definition not following consensus.

That said, there may be cases in which policy/guidelines do not apply, did not anticipate something, or do not accurately reflect consensus, but those are exceptions and should be expressly identified each time. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

My experience is that such cases are not particularly exceptional - the wording of policies (and especially guidelines) is frequently very poor, and quite often at odds with consensus (since we have this "no consensus means no change" principle, it means that what's written on the page can easily be something that does not represent consensus now, and quite possibly represented only LOCALCONSENSUS at the time it was written), that we shouldn't be emphasizing the importance of these "documents". They have an input in the consensus-forming process, certainly, but it's quite rare (really only applies to things like BLP and copyright) for anyone in authority to come along and enforce them against local consensus - instead, the policies tend to describe the considerations that tend to start to hold sway once a more representative sample of editors is drawn into the debate.--Kotniski (talk) 09:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Replying below indented at this level. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:04, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, Collect's edits are too much to even evaluate, and their motivation has not been discussed, beyond one word and the a change from second person, which were minor aspects. This is not an article; for policy and guidelines, we need to apply WP:BRD in a much more careful way. OK, he was bold, and he got reverted. Now we really do need to discuss, and not use the guideline page as a sandbox. A sequence of much smaller edits, perhaps one per day, would give interested editors a chance to follow and evaluate what's being changed. Who can evaluate a diff like this? It's a lot more than what the edit summary suggested. Dicklyon (talk) 03:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree. The problem is that the diff is too complicated for review. Undiscussed edits are welcome, but on a policy page they should be kept small. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Try reading the edits before saying "too much" is automatically revertable where the discussion here has supported the word changes (which do not change policy). Cheers - but "IDONTLIKEIT" is listed as a great reason (NOT) for reverting. Read the edits - they are not all that hard to figure out, as the other editors writing here have already done. SJ - the edits have absolutely been discussed here - so that does not strike me as a strong reason to reject edits automatically. Collect (talk) 13:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The edit on examination I find reasonable, but I find the connection to any single discussion less than obvious. I suggest that this would be easier for everyone if your edit summary linked to a specific thread where you provided some minimal commentary. We've already had editors complaining about the high frequency of unnecessary edits to this page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Removing the "second person" one at a time would be ludicrous, and I tried doing "small edits" on another page I noted to you - with the same result of "blanket revert" - as no substantive policy changes were made here, I suggest that there is no reason not to allow a substantial copyedit, which I started a discussion on as soon as I did it, as being a valid means of aiming for Consensus - especially since it is exactly what the policy calls for <g>. And reverts just saying (unehlpfully) "no consensus" are, curiously enough, specifically mentioned in the policy ( the actual reason for your disagreement, rather than just citing "no consensus" or "not discussed". and compare to the new version an edit summary of ""no consensus" or "not discussed" is not helpful) , making this a textbook case, no? Cheers - and glad you find nothing unreasonable in the edit. Collect (talk) 13:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

There is the mistake made over and over by "some" that this series of changes is reverted simply because someone "doesn't like it." That's poor reading comprehension, so those who have said that should read again. Large changes to this page are counterproductive; incremental changes should be the norm. Maybe it is hard for some to accept the reality that Wikipedia gets its best results when experienced editors work in a stable policy environment, but that is the reality. Check this discussion page above and you will find the complaint from someone who doesn't edit here that we respect their need to have a stable statement of consensus. So, maybe that is hard for some to accept or understand. However, it is a good reason for those of us who respect the work of editors on Wikipedia who have sticky problems with consensus. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:01, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Right. I'd like to see an edit that makes the mentioned 2nd-person changes without changing the paragraphs, so we can clearly see the changes in the diff. That will likely be OK, but we might may also want to tweak it a bit. Then, the next day, the mentioned wording change. Then some of the not-mentioned changed. There's no rush, since there's no indication that I've heard that the current policy is somehow causing problems. Dicklyon (talk) 17:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Glad to see you discussing -- after you make an "edit war" warning for me on my UT page - whilst another editor has a long history of reverts without discussion here <g>. Did you warn him in the past? Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't believe I'm familiar with that one. Dicklyon (talk) 20:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

[replying to comment from yesterday, above] Kotniski, perhaps that was true in the early years, but as time goes on, if the policies and guidelines are not converging on accurately reflecting broad consensus more and better, then something is very wrong. If one looks only at cases that go through WP:RM he might get the impression "that such cases are not particularly exceptional", but I suggest that's like deciding whether criminal behavior is particularly exceptional from the view of a law enforcement officer. After all, only potentially controversial cases go through the RM process, so it's essentially a filter for finding the exceptions.

If, instead, you select a sample of articles by repeatedly clicking on SPECIAL:RANDOM, I suggest you'll find that deviations from policy/guidelines are indeed exceptional. And, again, if there is something in policy that is shown to be commonly violated by such a random sampling, that suggests an update to policy is required (which, BTW, is essentially the basis for restoring the familiarity clause to the recognizability criterion at WP:AT). --Born2cycle (talk) 17:04, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who reverts the work of another editor should feel obligated to provide a substantive objection to the changes in question. Saying simply that there was no discussion prior to the change, that it's "too much", or the change is "too big", is not such a substantive objection. We owe it to each other to provide a better explanation than that. On the other hand, if there simply is no substantive objection, then don't revert.

If you're too frickin' lazy to simply read and evaluate what another editor took the time to compose and write (which takes much more time and effort than to read and evaluate) enough to decide if you have a substantive objection or not, then go do something else, because your contributions are not constructive here. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It's up to the editor making the proposed changes to explain them and get consensus for them. As with article, the burden is on the person making the change.   Will Beback  talk  18:11, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

No. The default assumption is not "no consensus until proven otherwise". To the contrary, by far the most common method of developing consensus at WP is through editing - and that requires that the edits in question be read and evaluated, whether they are accompanied by an explanation on the talk page or not. If someone is not even willing or able to put in the effort to evaluate the change in question, he or she has no business participating, much less reverting. The essence of the D in BRD is that the one reverting explains his or her objection in the discussion that he or she commences. To put the burden on the one making the change is unreasonable, especially if it's a large change. Why defend the whole thing if only one or two parts of it are the perceived problem? The default is "supported by consensus unless reverted", and then the reverter must explain the objection. Otherwise it's unworkable. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

If it's a burden on an editor to explain a large change then it's obviously even more of a burden on other editors to figure out the changes and their possible effects. If someone reverts an edit then it doesn't have consensus.   Will Beback  talk  19:40, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Really? Then if I revert any editor on any article, they can not assert they have "consensus" on any article? Pray tell me where you can find anything remotely approaching such a novel dictum. And note that I immediately started a discussion here - meaning it is I who has been following that silly policy called WP:CONSENSUS in the first place! Meanwhile, most of the "large edit" was removal of the "second person" - do you seriously contemplate that each such edit should be separately discussed? Amazing! <g> Collect (talk) 20:40, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Come on, Will. You're switching the meaning of the term "burden" in this discussion. That's confusing. We're talking about who has the onus to do something, not how difficult it is to do something.

And if someone who has not read and evaluated a given change sufficiently to express an objection, his revert of that change says nothing about consensus. How could it?

Anyway, the person making the change usually is willing to explain it, as Collect did in this case, but those reverting without reading/evaluating typically are just as unwilling to read and evaluate the explanation as well, much less address any of it substantively.

We're just saying that if someone is going to revert the work of another editor, they need to explain why they believe those changes are against consensus. The alternative is to require editors to explain why every bit of every change is supported by consensus; that is ridiculous administrivia, and would increase the size of talk pages a hundred fold if actually implemented. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It's part of the BRD cycle. If someone reverts you then you go discuss your edits. This isn't a new idea.   Will Beback  talk  21:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Reverting a bold edit as part of BRD, and then explaining the revert and your objections in the discussion is one thing. Reverting without even evaluating the change, much less explaining the objection, is something else again, and the latter is what we're talking about. You can't explain and discuss your revert of something that you did not read and evaluate. If you didn't read and evaluate a bold edit, then you're not engaged in BRD, and you have no business reverting it.

If your reasons for reverting are too complex to explain in an edit summary, leave a note on the article's Talk page. It is sometimes best to leave a note on the Talk page first and then revert, rather than the other way around; thus giving the other editor a chance to agree with you and revise their edit appropriately.

Again, you can't do any of that if you haven't read and evaluated the change. See Wikipedia:RV#Explain_reverts. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing about BRD that precludes the reverter from explaining his or her objections immediately. Also, "no consensus" does not mean "no change": There are times when no consensus means a definite change (WP:ELBURDEN, for example). No consensus means no consensus, nothing more (or less). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

WAID, are you responding to something I said? Everything you say appears to agree with what I said. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

My comment is entirely in reply to Will's claim that having your change reverted means you should be the person who starts the discussion. Will might like to take notice of WP:BRD-NOT's statement that "The talk page is open to all editors, not just bold ones. The first person to start a discussion is the person who is best following BRD." WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

What about this as a way of dealing with no consensus

At WT:Disambiguation#Proposed clarification: No consensus for primary topic means the page becomes a disambiguation page it's being effectively suggested (and not for the first time) that an admin might close a move discussion where no consensus was reached, not by simply saying "no consensus = no change", but by selecting a compromise solution and declaring that to be the result of the discussion, even though the participants in the discussion had not reached the compromse themselves. (In particular, where the conflicting positions are that A is primary topic for X and that B is primary topic for X, the admin may declare the result to be that there is no primary topic for X.) Is this a reasonable principle to apply in this case, and could it be extended to others?--Kotniski (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That's a perfectly reasonable solution, and WP:DAB is welcome to enshrine it as the normal result if the editors there decide that they want to do that in the future. Alternatively, if they decide that they prefer to enshrine the "best edit warrior wins" principle (aka "no consensus = no change"), then they're welcome to do that, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

"No change" in this case (requested moves) tends to mean no change to the long-established status quo, so it's not really a case of rewarding edit warring (at least, not recent edit warring).--Kotniski (talk) 08:49, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski, this question is a red herring. The only one who suggested that an admin might do such a thing was you; but it didn't sound like what you wanted. I'd interpret that discussion differently: if people can't agree on a primary topic, they should consider agreeing to not have a primary topic, instead of continuing to bicker about it. There's no good reason to make this into an admin's problem, just because the guideline says what should happen. Instead of an admin, some uncommitted editors should be able to look at such a situation and help drive it to a conclusion; RFC if you need to. Dicklyon (talk) 02:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

From what I read of that discussion (and the strength of feeling expressed), it seems people saw it as something more than just a proposal to add a friendly suggestion to the guideline. If I was the only one talking about admin action, I guess it's because I was the only one thinking about it in terms of practical consequences. (And as to whether it's something I'd want, I think the principle is a good one, but it would be quite a novelty and need to be carefully considered. It probably ought to happen only after at least some attempt at mediation by the closing admin - which would itself be another helpful innovation.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, asking the closing admin to act as a mediator would be quite novel. Probably better to get an actual mediator when needed. Dicklyon (talk) 20:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

What's the difference between someone "acting as a mediator" and an "actual mediator"? (Is there a formal qualification?) If you mean going through the bureaucratic process of what's called "mediation" on Wikipedia, then what I envisage (mediation+closure) would be far superior to that - it would be much quicker (it would just happen, without any formalities); it would be focused on a result; it would lead to a result; and it wouldn't rely on everyone's consenting to the process.--Kotniski (talk) 10:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

No difference; just that an admin is not expected to be, or to act as, a mediator. To load mediator duty on top of admin duty is a bad concept. Dicklyon (talk) 18:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. I don't care whether you call it mediation or not, but the closing admin is already loaded with the duty to evaluate consensus based on the discussion and policy. The result of the admin's evaluation can be "no consensus" for this or that, or "consensus" for this or that. All we're saying is that IF the question at issue is whether a given name has a primary topic, and there is no "no consensus" on that question, THEN that automatically implies that there is consensus in favor of a dab page being at that name, and that closing admins should evaluate such discussions accordingly. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's one version of the proposal; the weaker and more reasonable one (and the one I was talking about) is that if there are two candidate primary topics and no consensus between them, then the admin could impose the (obvious) middle solution of saying there is no primary topic. The remark about mediation was not intended as a reference to the Wikipedia bureaucratic mega-process of mediation, but just the idea that instead of jumping in and closing the discussion without talking to anyone, the admin could suggest a way of closing it (even if it's a solution that hasn't yet gained consensus of the participants), talk to people about it and then make a more informed decision (i.e. this kind of talking should not be considered to make the admin "involved" and therefore ineligible to close the discussion - it's better in controversial cases to have a neutral but "engaged" closer than a neutral and completely "uninvolved" one).--Kotniski (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Second person

Should we eliminate the second person material? I'm in favor of that change in style. Other opinions? --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't much mind either way; I don't think we should be dogmatic about it (whichever works best in a given situation, but other things being equal I would probably avoid second person). I think this page has more significant problems than this.--Kotniski (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I spent a long time reviewing the policies and other pages Mr. Dixon suggested. I could copy and paste many of what I think breaks the rules on this page, but I am not. I have verbally abused no one. The discussion page should be used for the "Community" Discussions about a said topic. Yes, I read all of the post by others who wish the "Shadow" term taken out. I am not going to say anything else, but I will say plain and simple that the official word for the Confederate Governemnt of Kentucky during the Civil War was "Provisional". The term "Shadow" has a totally different meaning. When I write "Official"-I mean my references come from official military reports. Perhaps, I know that some Unionist of Kentucky may have used the term "Shadow" in an attempt to make the CS Governemt seem less important or use it as a slander remark. But the books I mention are the best resources, especially if you note the references. I am not making a comment concerning this situation again--On this page, but after I read the policies and other regulations of this site, I know their are "offical" avenues those disagreeing with editors can take. You say that I have broken this sites rules by not following their policies....Maybe, but you have too by not taking in consideration all of the comments that have been written. Enough said. I have not verbally abused anyone on this site. All my attempts have been to prove a word needs to be removed. You or whoever could atleast explain the the word in the article and include provisional. The first word you see in the first line is "Shadow".

I want to apologize to Wikipedia for this situation. It was not my intention to break a policy on this site. We are in the 150th anniversary of the CW and this site will be viewed more than before. All I have done is ask that a word be removed, becuase it is NOT the official term of the said article. At best, he could in the same paragraph explain his use of the word "Shadow", not in a reference, but out front. After all the Talk on this page, there has not even been suggested a compromise to this. I think this breaks the policy by the writer.

---

When agreement cannot be reached through editing alone, the consensus-forming process becomes more explicit: editors open a section on the talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion. Here editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerned. The result might be an agreement which does not satisfy anyone completely, but which all recognize as a reasonable solution. It is useful to remember that consensus is an ongoing process on Wikipedia. It is often better to accept a less-than-perfect compromise – with the understanding that the page is gradually improving – than to try to fight to implement a particular 'perfect' version immediately. The quality of articles with combative editors is, as a rule, far lower than that of articles where editors take a longer view.Ollerj (talk) 17:52, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

proposal - accept the entire change first now

I suggest that if any "edit war" is occurring, it is not by those who accept the changes proposed to remove the "second person" etc. As a result, I suggest that we go back to [1]

The following diffs show an ongoing problem with this policy: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] and so on indicates an extraordinary problem here. Let's start with what a number of editors have asserted is an improvement, and not try the "revert every change" mode which has ruled here for far too long. It is past time for the editors here to follow WP:CONSENSUS as well. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by those who accept the changes proposed to remove the "second person" etc. Counter-proposal: break your edit into reviewable pieces. How about starting with the "second person" fix, but present a diff that can be reviewed (without changed paragraph breaks) so we can see exactly what the edit does? Dicklyon (talk) 20:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Um -- those who read the proposal noted that one can not rationally remove one use of the second person at a time without appearing quite loony <g>. Start there. And also note that the adamant opposition to any changes at all is quite in line with WP:CONSENSUS I suppose. It is wondrous how folks make points which they seem oblivious to. <+g>. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:52, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would be a silly approach. By "starting with the second person fix" I meant all of those, and only those, in way that leaves a reviewable diff please. Dicklyon (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Then go ahead and implement what I already did and had reverted on the really good grounds of 'It is too hard to figure out' or the like fella. Cheers. And be sure to read and follow WP:CONSENSUS. Collect (talk) 21:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Stability in the article on consensus is so much more important than the trivial matters about second person or whatever other undefined matter might be before us. We don't have to change anything at all, so let's have a clear enunciation of why a change should be made and we can see if it makes sense. I look forward to seeing that here. --Ring Cinema (talk) 23:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Strange -- I can not find any Wikipedia policy which says Revert any changes as stability is more important than improvement. Cheers - you have made my day <g>. Collect (talk) 01:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Clearly you are distorting what was said. That means you don't have a good counter. When you have a reason to obviate our responsibility to the many editors who don't want to waste their time maintaining a stable policy, then you can write it here. In the meantime, my reasoning stands. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:37, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yep - the other key to getting consensus after asserting that "stability" is more important thatn clarity is going to ad homs and charges that the other editor is distorting your words. As I see it the "responsibility" here is to make the dang policy clear and readable - not to simply assert that "stability" means me must keep bad writing sacrosanct. And it is clear that I disagree with your exact and precise words : 'Stability in the article on consensus is so much more important than the trivial matters about second person or whatever other undefined matter might be before us. We don't have to change anything at all' is clearly fully in conformance with WP:CONSENSUS indeed. LOL~ Collect (talk) 16:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Collect, per BRD, several editors have reverted your bold edit and discussed what you can do to make progress on what you're trying to do. Why won't you make such a step instead of just carrying on your flaming and re-insertion of same objectionable edit? Dicklyon (talk) 17:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The "objectionable edit" was read and approved by a number of editors. It substantially made use of normal English, and removed the use of the "second person" in the wording. It made zero (AFAICT) actual changes to policy! Meanwhile, tell me exactly which words are the problem so I can fix them. That is, after all, what this very policy says to do. Is this policy not app,licable to this policy? Collect (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

You claim you made no changes and that is in dispute. You claim you made a copyedit only and that is in dispute. It is claimed that your changes do not serve the functional role played by this page. These are matters of substance that can't be ignored. There is something higher than lucid copy but that seems to be the only value to which you appeal. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

HUH? I said I made changes -- how you can read that to assert that I said I made no changes is beyond me. I sought to make no substantive changes to the policy of CONSENSUS, I did seek to alter the wording using "second person" phrasing into something more akin to an actual policy statement. My edit summary made clear that it was not only a minor copy edit:

copy edit - change "legitimate" with its connotations to "proper" etc. , rm second person usage, "civility" blocks are currently under ArbCom discussion, and should not be here

- note that all of the changes are properly mentioned in the edit summary per WP:CONSENSUS. Is this quite sufficiently clear? Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This is 100% disruptive. There is nothing constructive here whatsoever. These platitudes are meaningless; they make no forward progress at all. Give specific comments/criticisms/suggestions that can be addressed or don't say anything at all. At any rate, comments like this should be ignored because they say nothing of substance. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Those who suggest others' concerns should be ignored are, I suppose, those who by rights should be ignored. Funny how that works. It is obvious that experienced editors function better with stable policies, and we know that when the consensus page is changed frequently, other editors don't appreciate it. Now, it's true, we can just tell everyone else to take a flying leap. That seems to be B2C's approach to those he doesn't agree with. Maybe it is really hard to understand that a good editor would bring substantive changes here for discussion first, but a good editor would do that, especially after taking criticism on it. It's just ordinary common sense. --Ring Cinema (talk) 10:06, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support I hereby declare I read the change and approve that it be incorporated wholesale, retaining the right for editors to continue making "tweaks" and other changes afterwards, of course. I further suggest that any vague objections that do not point to specific issues in the change be ignored, because there is nothing else that can be done with them. So, if you do object, please be specific about what it is that you find objectionable. And if you can't be bothered to read and evaluate the change, then please keep your uninformed and irrelevant opinions (regarding this change) to yourself. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support And reject the idea that any page's grammar and wording is "set in stone" for "stability". Per WP:CONSENSUS Collect (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Again Collect repeats the error of asserting his changes were only of grammar and wording. I thought initially that it might be too obvious to state that changing a text changes its meaning. But I guess that is not too obvious, so let me state it here: changes in wording are changes in meaning. That is the nature of language. It's an insult to everyone's intelligence to have to discuss it. --Ring Cinema (talk) 10:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, the nature of language is that sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. It would help if, instead of complaining about the fact that changes are being made (which may be either a good or a bad thing, depending on the changes), you would point to some specific changes that you believe have a substantial and detrimental effect on the meaning, and explain why you think that.--Kotniski (talk) 10:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Second person (2)

I have re-instated Collect's word change and second-person fixes in this diff, but without all the other changes and complications. The paragraphs line up, so you can see what sentences changed. Please review. Dicklyon (talk) 16:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Like. Well done. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm wondering why Collect wouldn't just do that if he wanted these changes. I'm not convinced yet that it's a great edit. Still a lot of change of review. Dicklyon (talk) 23:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Considering one editor repeatedly over a long period had reverted all changes, I did not want to keep butting my head into a brick wall, Dick. The policy is still far too verbose IMHO. Collect (talk) 00:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

And I just reverted another second-person advice paragraph added today by Brews ohare. I think a policy page shouldn't be too loaded up with advice; and if we do add advice, the fact that we're in the middle of getting rid of second person should be noticed and respected. Anyone like the advice paragraph? Dicklyon (talk) 23:37, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

On one hand I like it, but in fact there's no limit to the number of equally good advice paragraphs we could add to this page. Perhaps we could split the page into two - a fairly compact policy on consensus as a way of making decisions on Wikipedia, and a guideline (which might be merged with various other guidelines and essays that cover the same ground) with advice on how to behave during the consensus-forming process. Or maybe that's not necessary - perhaps we could just reduce the verbiage on this page and give links to other pages that already contain the relevant advice. (For example, there's no need to talk in detail about being bold and BRD when we already have pages that do just that.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:42, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

more Collect and B2C edits

I reverted Collect again for another big edit, calling specific attention to a couple of new concepts he introduced without discussion. Born2cycle put it back and chastised me, and then removed one of the new concepts I complained about. And I haven't even got past the first two paragraphs. Such a big change to a policy is too much to digest, as they're been told before. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not a big change. It easily fits on one page and took me a couple of minutes to review. "A big change" is a very lame excuse to revert, especially when it's not a big change. Please give specific objections.

Use of the word "formal" does not introduce a new concept, both informal and formal are used in similar contexts on the page already. However, in this context...

Discussions on other websites, web forums, IRC, by email, or otherwise off the project are generally discouraged, and are not taken into account when determining formal consensus "on-wiki." In some cases, such off-Wiki communication may generate suspicion and mistrust.

... it's superfluous at best, and a bit misleading at worst. Regardless of whether the consensus determination is an informal discussion on a talk page, or through a formal process of some sort, off-wiki discussion are not taken into account. I presume no one disputes this, and this is all this is saying, and all it said before (Collect's version - with the "formal" removed - is just crisper). This is the older wording:

Discussions on other websites, web forums, IRC, by email, or otherwise off the project are generally discouraged. They are not taken into account when determining consensus "on-wiki", and may generate suspicion and mistrust if they are discovered.

Obviously just a copyedit, and a readability improvement, with no change in intended meaning as far as I can tell. Same with the rest of the changes.

In your rude (because they're not explained substantively) reverting edit summaries you also mention the "disparate" wording as a "new concept". Well, let's look at that.

BEFORE:

Try not to attract too many editors into a discussion. Fruitful discussions usually contain less than ten active participants; more than that strains the limits of effective communication on an online forum of this sort. Where large-scale consensus is needed then it should be sought out, otherwise the input of one or two independent editors will give far better results.

AFTER:

Fruitful discussions usually do not generally contain too many participants. It is difficult to reach consensus with a large number of disparate views involved.

Now, what's the objection to this? Collect's wording avoids the "how to" language (which we should avoid), without changing meaning or intent. It does remove the "less than ten" heuristic, which obviously was pulled out of someone's ass. And the previous wording is obviously talking about disparate views - if the views are not disparate, then there already is consensus! Actually, you can even argue disparate is superfluous here (but certainly not a new concept or a change in meaning), but I think it's a stylistic point, and it brings attention to the fact that a situation where consensus is developing involves discussion among people with disparate views. Why would you object to saying any of this?

Now, this was a significant amount of time and work to dig all this up and explain it, much more than it would for you to read and evaluate the entire change in question. To what end? Do you have an objection or not? What are these "new concepts" and what makes you think they're new? If you don't explain your objections substantively, then your revert is simply disruptive. If you wish, I can start a file on how often you do this... --Born2cycle (talk) 06:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The change was from being about too many editors to a version that seems to limit how many different views can be discussed. Seems like a bad idea. And that's all just in the first two paragraphs. Why not reword without changing meaning? Dicklyon (talk) 07:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Collect's version also says, "too many participants", which, as far as I can tell, has the same meaning as "too many editors". The following sentence refers to "a large number of disparate views", but this is obviously referring to the views of the participants/editors from the previous sentence, and explains why having too many editors is problematic in these situations. How is this a change in meaning? I suppose 2 or 3 people could in theory have 10 different views each on the same topic, but in practice we know that's not the case, and that's not what this is talking about. This is a reword with a bit of clarification but without any change in meaning. I'm really trying to assume good faith, but I have to tell you that I really feel like you're jerking my chain, and this isn't even my edit. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:43, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Collect's assumption that his changes are not substantive or deserve no discussion are leading to trouble. Out of respect for the many who are not wasting their time here, the editors on this page generally realize that it is better to be conservative about changes. I don't see why he wouldn't bring his proposal to discussion first, especially since he was seriously mistaken the first time about what constituted a change in policy in the eyes of others. I suppose if good faith were going to be questioned, that might be one to bring up, B2C, but you haven't mentioned that. --Ring Cinema (talk) 09:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

My statements are true, and my edit summaries are accurate. Your ownership here is getting tiresome. I have seven times as many edits as you, though you appear to have a hold on reverts on this one page. Your contributions appear to be 20% on this page and on MoS/Film - I think if you engaged in other articles where you saw CONSENSUS at work, that would make things far easier. At this point, I count only you and Dick as being "many editors" here, whilst, I, Kotniski, Carol, B2C, SmokeyJoe, Brews, WAID, Jayjg, et al are now of no account? I rather think it is you who is fighting clear [[WP:CONSENSUS[[ at this point. I am sorry - this looks exactly like "tendentious editing" as defined here. Collect (talk) 13:29, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

You may believe your statlements to be true, but a policy page is too important to expect other editors to just trust that your rewrite is a good thing. It would be better to say what's wrong and how you want to fix it, rather than expect us to figure it out from an edit summary and a long complicated diff. And having your changes vetted and approved by B2C only makes matters worse, as he has a long history of rewriting policy to suit his needs. Dicklyon (talk) 15:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

As I noted - two editors saying "nay" do not negate a clear consensus, Dick. And asserting that one editor does not count because he has tried to make changes before is ludicrous - I can not find any Wikipedia policy saying "editors who try to edit do not count when determining consensus" at all. Perhaps you can show me that bit in some policy somewhere? Collect (talk) 15:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

@Dicklyon, discussing the editor not the edit is breaking the first rule of working to achieve consensus on content? Have a spot of warm tea. Generally speaking, I firmly believe Collect's contributions here have been cutting through some of the crap and flotsam created by (albeit well-meaning) attempts to quantify aspects which are simply better left to common sense and the context of each individual situation involving an impediment to achieving consensus. Casting aspersions on Collect's edits by crying WITCH! about an editor who agrees with Collect's changes is axe-grinding. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Good idea. But I'll have a Cappucino instead, and retire from the Censensus argument. Dicklyon (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon, you wrote: a policy page is too important to expect other editors to just trust that your rewrite is a good thing. That's true, but why say that here? What has Collect said or done that cause you to believe Collect expects others to just trust that the rewrite is a good thing? Collect's change at issue here can be reviewed by any editor in two to three minutes. If something problematic is seen, it can be reverted and the problem explained.

What I see here is pure disruption: reverting without substantive objection/explanation, and then much more time and energy spent on making vague objections about process. This disruption appears to be based on the position that all non-trivial changes must be discussed first, and any non-trivial change not discussed first can and should be reverted without reading/evaluation/objection/explanation, and hours, days or even weeks can go by without the reverter offering anything substantive in objection to the change, rather than an honest and genuine reading and evaluation of the change, followed by a possible reversion and associated explanation if there is substantive objection. Reverting merely for lack of discussion or not establishing consensus first itself blatantly contradicts consensus as explained all over WP, including on this policy page at Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_editing,

If an edit is not an improvement, then it well should be reverted. Any such revert should have a clear edit summary stating why the particular edit is not considered to be an improvement to the article, or what policies or guidelines would require the edit be undone. Further discussion should then be undertaken on the article discussion page.

,

and at Wikipedia:RV#Explain_reverts:

It is particularly important to provide a valid and informative explanation when you perform a reversion. Try to disclose the link for the Wikipedia principle you believe justifies the reversion. Try to remain available for dialogue, especially in the hours and half-day or so after reverting.

A reversion is a complete rejection of the work of another editor and if the reversion is not adequately supported then the reverted editor may find it difficult to assume good faith. This is one of the most common causes of an edit war. A substantive explanation also promotes consensus by alerting the reverted editor to the problem with the original edit. The reverted editor may then be able to revise the edit to correct the perceived problem. The result will be an improved article, a more knowledgeable editor and greater harmony.

I'm a second set of eyes, and I see nothing significantly objectionable in the original edit. In my opinion "formal" is unneeded per the explanation above, but it's not a big deal whether it's in or not. The main thing is that the affected parts of the policy read much better after Collect's changes are applied.

Now, does anyone who has read this far - which should take more time and energy than reading and evaluating Collect's change - have any substantive objections to the change? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I think everyone here has broken that rule, Vecrumba. And along with Collect's other misstatements about his contributions, now we can add a claim of clear consensus where none is present. His effort to work in harmony with the usual practices in this space are not much in evidence. I started a discussion of the second person question in deference to his concerns and I think it was immediately clear that opinions differ on these matters. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Who or what is Vecrumba and what rule are you talking about? Since you've stated no substantive objection to the change in question, I will presume you have none. Making statements about the behavior of others is highly inappropriate here regardless of who says them or how much others have done so (need I remind you that two wrongs do not make a right?). --Born2cycle (talk) 17:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

My objections are not difficult to understand, so which unappealing conclusion about your state of mind would you prefer we draw? I recognize that you have not been able to make a meaningful counterargument to my objection. Until that appears, my objection stands. --Ring Cinema (talk) 11:10, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Vecrumba is Peters' actual username. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I have not been involved here before, nor am I interested in the back and forth in above. However, I take issue with Collect's edit that changed:

Try not to attract too many editors into a discussion. Fruitful discussions usually contain less than ten active participants; more than that strains the limits of effective communication on an online forum of this sort. Where large-scale consensus is needed then it should be sought out, otherwise the input of one or two independent editors will give far better results.

to:

Fruitful discussions usually do not generally contain too many participants. It is difficult to reach consensus with a large number of disparate views involved.

Whether or not the numbers were "pulled out of someone's ass" (as Born2cycle put it), they represent the consensus prior to Collect's edit and they provide useful guidance on arriving at consensus. Which is after all, a major purpose of this policy. Johnathlon (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Amazingly enough - ascribing words to an editor which they did not write is not a good way of either gaining consensus nor of gaining the respect of an editor whom you falsely ascribe the words to. Cheers, and consider redacting false statements. Collect (talk) 22:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Honest mistake. My bad. A simple, "I didn't say that" would have sufficed :). And it was tangential to my statement. Johnathlon (talk) 08:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I doubt this represents prior consensus, it was just something that someone wrote once and it's taken until now for anyone to notice it and object to it. There are just too many variables affecting the optimum number of editors. I don't much like the revised version either, though - "usually do not generally contain too many" is almost meaningless; and it's not the number of disparate views we're concerned about (the more alternative ways of looking at the problem, the better, probably). --Kotniski (talk) 18:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hey! "Pulled out of someone's ass" was how I put it, not Collect! (credit where credit is due!). I disagree that "usually contain less than ten" is useful guidance, but I have no issue with it being in there. I don't think it changes the meaning at all. But something so minor, like the removal of "formal", is something that can be done while reaching consensus through editing via actual edits and edit summaries, which I suggest is far more productive than Reaching consensus through discussion in a situation like this. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy to have the "less than ten" advice removed, because it depends. Five may be too many for a content dispute; ten may be too few for a site ban proposal.

I am unhappy that "too big a change" and "no written documentation of prior authorization" are being tossed about as excuses for reverting changes. It took me less than 60 seconds to review the changes to that section, and this policy in particular does not need to have an incredible level of stability. If you've got a problem with a specific bit of wording that was changed, then you should feel free to revert that specific bit, but it's really inappropriate to toss the baby out with the bathwater. For example: if you don't like "formal consensus", then remove the word "formal", but don't revert the grammatical changes (e.g., splitting a long sentence into two shorter sentences) at the same time. You are all experienced editors here: wholesale reversions because you don't like a fraction of the changes are for newbies and incompetents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Noetica edit

Good one! [14]. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I've reviewed all your other edits and am either supportive or neutral on all of them but one, this one, replacing:

Unless a discussion regarding a claim of "no consensus" is undertaken on the discussion page, an edit summary of "no consensus" or "not discussed" is not helpful.

with:

Unless a discussion regarding a claim of "no consensus" is undertaken on the discussion page, an edit summary of "no consensus" or "not discussed" is not helpful, except possibly on pages that describe long-standing Wikipedia policy.

I've reverted that accordingly, with edit summary: "no, it's not helpful to revert simply as 'not discussed' even on policy pages. Have a substantive objection or don't revert". Many people seem to think it's perfectly okay to revert other people's work without even reading and evaluating what they did, but that's the epitome of non-productive and disruptive activity. It's one thing if it's obviously vandalism, of course. But if you look at a change and don't see anything objectionable, a revert is just rude, at best.

I strongly object to the introduction of this text to the policy, which is itself a change in policy without consensus support. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

• Dreamguy (talk · contribs) reverted my restoration of the original wording [15] with edit summary: "My substantive response is that you do not have consensus to make a change to page defining consensus - which is kind of the point of the text)".
• That makes no sense, as Noetica is the one who introduced the change (to which I, at least, object), so I reverted again[16] with edit summary: "I object to this addition to the policy, which is clearly contrary to policy. If the change changes policy, then id it as you rvt. See talk.)".
• This was then reverted again by Noetica[17] with edit summary: "Undid (good faith?) revision by Born2cycle; please note: that qualification is simply taken from the linked essay; it is quite an important clarification, and it has a proper place here; not undiscussed!)"
• Not undiscussed? Where has it been discussed? And if it has, there certainly has been no consensus for it, as it contradicts what the section itself is about. Why should there be an exception for policy pages on this point? Reverts like that on any page are simply disruptive. If you want to discuss the change, then you should have something to discuss, namely, a substantive objection to the change. So bring that up, and you can revert. But to revert without even having a substantive objection in mind? Again, that's just disruptive. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

B2C, it's just a qualification that is thought necessary in the very source that has just been linked (Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus"). It has stood unopposed since 11 November 2009. See this edit. All I did was correct the citation of that source, so that a crucial exception is not stripped away.

It is not to be censured as "undiscussed"; it has been there all this time!

Noetica^Tea? 00:55, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Noetica, surely you understand that this is policy and that that is an essay, and when there is a distinction what the policy says trumps what the essay says. Sounds like we need to have a discussion to determine which is supported by consensus, but, in the mean time, the original wording of the policy page, on this disputed point, should be retained. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Policy trumps guidelines and essays, sure. Like rock trumping scissors. But there is no question of trumping here. The appeal to that pretty stable essay was made by Collect with this recent unilateral and hotly contested edit. Note the frankly deceptive edit summary: "(copy edit - change "legitimate" with its connotations to "proper" etc. , rm second person usage, "civility" blocks are currently under ArbCom discussion, and should not be here,)". Why should we take that as discussed, or consensual, or now to be defended? It even contravenes one of the less controversial pushes that it makes, calling for informative edit summaries! (Well, I have always supported that; in hard discussion over at WT:MOS.)

I say that unruly, portmanteau, tangle of an edit should be undone, except where there are merely innocuous changes of wording. In particular, it is ridiculous to appeal to its innovations to protect it from reversion!

But this theme is addressed in concerns expressed independently by Tony, below. Perhaps we should move to a single treatment of this nest of issues there.

Noetica^Tea? 01:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad that we've agreed that policies, which have been adopted by the whole community, are more likely to reflect the community's desires than an essay, which was not. Given that, let me tell you what the actual, official, community-approved policy on making changes to policies says about this issue:

Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page. It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance.... Consequently, you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there is no formal record indicating consensus for it: instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it, and open a discussion to identify the community's current views, if one hasn't already been started.

So the actual policy is that reverting a change to a policy on the grounds that the change was "undiscussed" is a bad idea. This page should not be recommending restrictions that the most applicable policy has directly and explicitly rejected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Well What, that is interesting for a number of reasons. Some points in response:

1. Your citation of policy skips over about 300 words, and with a single ellipsis ("...") leaps from one named subsection to another. The way you have done this, the word "consequently" appears to link what comes before and after it. But it does not. Excerpts from the intervening text that you have omitted:

   However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.

   Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy. Changes may be made if there are no objections, or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Minor edits to improve formatting, grammar, and clarity may be made at any time.

   Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general; announcements similar to the proposal process may be appropriate.

2. As it happens, you are the author of half the text following that ellipsis: with this edit (entire edit summary: "Start a discussion"), without indication of which section or provision is affected. There was no discussion of the change.
3. As it happens, you are the author of the whole text preceding that ellipsis: with this edit of 9 September 2011 (entire edit summary: "Merging redundant sections"), without indication of which sections or provisions are substantively affected. There was no discussion of the change.
4. In citing your own undiscussed insertions into policy ("which have been adopted by the whole community, [and are] more likely to reflect the community's desires than an essay"), you appear to contrast it with the present page. But as things stand, this page is as much policy as the page you refer us to. This page addresses the matter of consensus – central to the working of the Project.
5. You write: "So the actual policy is that reverting a change to a policy on the grounds that the change was 'undiscussed' is a bad idea." But it is not a question of a change merely being "undiscussed"; it is a question of changes for which there is no evidence of consensus, in a policy or guideline of Wikipedia. Such changes can be challenged; they have been challenged; they will be challenged. Then it can all be sorted out in discussion, as the policy that you cite requires, and "publicized to the community in general" to make sure that the community accepts it. It is certainly improper to insist that such undiscussed changes stand until proven non-consensual.

In sum, we need to take far more care to consult, to present our mooted changes on talkpages fairly, to give informative edit summaries (certainly not misleading ones), and to avoid the kind of incestuous tail-chasing that has a small band of enthusiasts writing what purports to be consensual policy, and then resisting reversion on spurious legalistic grounds – sometimes reinforced with threats, as we have seen recently. But as I say, this is a broader discussion; it needs community scrutiny in a section of its own. Below, or elsewhere.

Noetica^Tea? 21:47, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Noetica, it would be more informative to say that I have been the most active editor at that policy during the last couple of years, the primary author of the last half of the entire policy page (the life cycle section began in one of my sandboxes and was eventually pasted to Wikipedia:Policy/Procedure before joining the policy, but it is not the only section I have drafted), and a major contributor to a good deal of the first half, not just most of these specific sentences. Anybody who can find the history page can discover this, and anybody who can read the talk page's archives will discover that these sections were discussed (repeatedly, in the case of the life cycle section) and the results clearly approved. So if anything, your statements above amount to "If any editor in the entire English Wikipedia knows what this section is actually supposed to communicate, it's WhatamIdoing."

"Undiscussed" and "no evidence of consensus" are synonymous. You get to revert the changes if (and only if) you want to challenge them, and you must challenge the changes on some basis other than the lack of prior written agreement to make the change.

This shouldn't be hard: either it's a change you personally believe improves the page (in which case, it would be unbelievably silly for you to remove it), or it's not a change that you personally support, in which cause you are (in my experience) a thoughtful and rational enough person to explain exactly how or why you think the new version is worse than the old version, without resorting to bureaucratic whingeing about "he didn't jump through the hoop marked 'discussion' before editing the page". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

As a point that may help you understand the section: When I write a policy, the grammar is intentional. These examples should illustrate the differences:

• "Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy" is a declarative sentence that communicates nothing more than plain fact. It is not a recommendation for anyone to follow the typical pattern.
• "Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page" is a statement of permission: you are allowed to do this.
• "You should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there is no formal record indicating consensus for it: instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it" is a direction on how you are (or are not) to behave under the relevant circumstances.

Unlike some less careful writers, if I'd actually meant "You must discuss substantive changes before making them", then I would have actually said that, in direct and unambiguous words that left no doubt in your mind about the necessity of prior discussion. The fact that it doesn't say this is because prior discussion is not actually required. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed reply, What. I would certainly prefer that the discussion proceed elsewhere; but if you insist, I will continue it here with you for now. On some points of yours:

[I]t would be more informative to say that I have been the most active editor at that policy during the last couple of years, the primary author of the last half of the entire policy page [...] and a major contributor to a good deal of the first half, not just most of these specific sentences.

If that is so, well done! I am more focused, though, on the particular parts that you cite above.

[...] your statements above amount to [...]

But no. You go on to say what you think, not what my statements amount to. This does not mean that I disagree: just that we are making different statements.

"Undiscussed" and "no evidence of consensus" are synonymous.

I disagree. But I prefer, once again, not to pursue that here. It is an issue connected with the provenance and fate of several recent edits at this policy page. See sections below, instead. If I have time, I might well have something to say there. I hope you will too.

You get to revert the changes if (and only if) you want to challenge them, and you must challenge the changes on some basis other than the lack of prior written agreement to make the change.

So you keep insisting. I find the wording "prior written agreement" strange and strained; but beyond that, though I have looked I do not find where consensus was developed for that idea, either here (where the surreptitious edit was and is hotly contested), nor for this text that you inserted in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines just three months ago: "It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance. However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion." Please point to the discussion of what I have underlined, whether preceding the edit or accepting it afterwards. I point out again that in your edit summary ("Merging redundant sections") you did not signal to the community a small but substantive change. I must have missed the discussion, and how the change was recorded for easy retrieval in the history of the page. Please show me where all that is. Not that I strongly disagree! But I don't like to see any such policy text used (as it has been) to justify Collect's jumble of an edit covertly introducing controversial provisions on this policy page. To me that seems altogether perverse; and others agree.

Unlike some less careful writers, [...]

I am a careful writer too, and I certainly appreciate your conscientious attention to detail. What I am concerned about is the apparent lack of good signalling, so that the change could be verified as consensual.

For examples of my rather different approach, see these discussions:

Quotation marks guideline: adding a special case
[A completed case in which we discussed fully before even a minor change.]

"Proper nouns", "proper names", and other concerns: amending the lead
[A current case of considerable interest; please join in! I signalled very clearly what the intention was, and explicitly called for reversion if the change was suspected to be against consensus.]

Noetica^Tea? 05:38, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

We don't need "the change [to] be verified as consensual" before the change is made. This is not a bureaucracy. If you dislike a given edit, then you should challenge the substance of that edit. But you should not be wasting your time and energy challenging the process that Collect chose to use. The process Collect chose to use is explicitly permitted. You will find that process described in approving terms at Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_editing as well as at POLICY.

I understand that you don't like the process Collect chose, and I understand that you are more accustomed to the anti-bold LOCALCONSENSUS at the main MOS page, but that is pretty much irrelevant. If you've got a problem with the substance of a change to this page, then please let us know, in as much detail as possible, what's wrong with it. I firmly believe that writing policy is much harder than the average editor realizes, and consequently that bold changes have a much higher risk for significant, unintentional problems than previously discussed ones. However, if your only problem is "Collect didn't say Mother, may I? before editing", then I have no sympathy for you: skipping the Mother, May I? step is permitted, even on policy pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

It is not so much a matter of the change being verified as consensual before it is made, as your selective quote of my text suggests. What I wrote is this (underlining now added):

"I am a careful writer too, and I certainly appreciate your conscientious attention to detail. What I am concerned about is the apparent lack of good signalling, so that the change could be verified as consensual."

It is a question of what turns up on people's watchlists, and in the history of the page when it is reviewed for changes of interest. It is irresponsible to leave an edit summary suggesting a mere "copyedit", where substance is actually changed. The controversial edit by Collect, which a few editors have objected to, was controversial not just in its content. It was also more sweeping than the edit summary suggested. That was inadequate as an indicator of the content, as some have noted. This is the feature I object to most. All too often changes are smuggled through without clear signalling, by design or by negligence. Now look at these excerpts from Wikipedia:Editing policy (with which you have been concerned):

• When you edit an article, the more radical or controversial the change, the greater the need to explain it. Be sure to leave a comment about why you made the change. Try to use an appropriate edit summary. For larger or more significant changes, the edit summary may not give you enough space to fully explain the edit; in this case, you may leave a note on the article's talk page as well. Remember too that notes on the talk page are more visible, make misunderstandings less likely and encourage discussion rather than edit warring.
• One person's improvement is another's desecration, and nobody likes to see their work "destroyed" without prior notice. If you choose to be very bold, take extra care to justify your changes in detail on the article talk page. This will make it less likely that editors will end up reverting the article back and forth between their preferred versions.
• In general, more caution should be exercised in editing policies and guidelines than in editing articles. Minor edits to existing pages, such as formatting changes, grammatical improvement and uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time. However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first.

There is more; but I highlight a few policy provisions that are relevant to the present disagreement. Central to all of this is what I mention above: proper signalling. If you insist that this is not a proper concern for an editor to have, and that a lapse by itself is no warrant for reverting, I insist, and cite policy in support, that the original lack of warrant is more egregious and more likely to damage policy and guidelines. We could argue back and forth about that; but let's not. Let's just give adequate edit summaries, and mark changes on the talkpage (before, or at least after) when they might be thought substantive – as policy requires. Then none of the concerns Born2cycle raises above can arise. Nor can your own concerns.

♥ Noetica^Tea? 23:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I think that edit summary was excellent signalling. It signals "I did not intend to make any substantive changes here, so if you see substantive changes, it was probably a mistake". If you've got objections to the substance of the changes, you should still be complaining about the actual substantive problems, but the signal seems perfectly fine to me.

Even tiny changes to some policy statements can have unexpectedly large effects, and most editors frankly do not have the skills or experience to get complex details right on the first try. If I were concerned about the precise language in this policy (and because of its subject matter, I'm generally not, although I am very much concerned about the details in other advice pages), then I'd be checking every change, no matter what the edit summary said. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Substantive changes to policy made, ironically, without consensus

Surface changes are fine, but significant changes appear to have been introduced without prior discussion and consensus on the talk page. I suggest that we go back to whatever the relatively stable version was and proceed from there on the talk page. There's just a slight hint that one or two parties are changing the policy to suit themselves. I may be wrong. Tony (talk) 23:43, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want to participate (and calling for a revert is participating) please read and evaluate the changes yourself before suggesting a revert on such dubious grounds. I've been doing that and have had no trouble whatsoever. Do you think something was missed? These really are mostly copyedit changes, and we should not have to start trying to reach consensus through discussion (which we are to resort to only "When agreement cannot be reached through editing alone") unless the far for more preferable and productive reaching consensus through editing fails.

Reverting merely for lack of discussion or not establishing consensus first itself blatantly contradicts consensus as explained all over WP, including on this policy page at Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_editing,

If an edit is not an improvement, then it well should be reverted. Any such revert should have a clear edit summary stating why the particular edit is not considered to be an improvement to the article, or what policies or guidelines would require the edit be undone. Further discussion should then be undertaken on the article discussion page.

,

and at Wikipedia:RV#Explain_reverts:

It is particularly important to provide a valid and informative explanation when you perform a reversion. Try to disclose the link for the Wikipedia principle you believe justifies the reversion. Try to remain available for dialogue, especially in the hours and half-day or so after reverting.

A reversion is a complete rejection of the work of another editor and if the reversion is not adequately supported then the reverted editor may find it difficult to assume good faith. This is one of the most common causes of an edit war. A substantive explanation also promotes consensus by alerting the reverted editor to the problem with the original edit. The reverted editor may then be able to revise the edit to correct the perceived problem. The result will be an improved article, a more knowledgeable editor and greater harmony.

If you establish lack of consensus, and after you try to reach consensus through editing, and that fails, then bring it to the talk page. Doing so any sooner is just disruptive. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we "go back to whatever the relatively stable version was and proceed from there"? I have two reasons why this is a bad idea:

1. The one version that we know, for certain, no longer enjoys wholesale consensus is the "relatively stable version" that used to be on this page. If it enjoyed consensus, we wouldn't have so many people complaining about it here or trying to fix it on the policy page.
2. Reverting all of this work means tossing out all of the work done so far and starting over. If we've made some improvements, we should keep them. The wiki process is supposed to keep the good and toss only the bad. "I can't be bothered to figure out these changes, so we should just start over from scratch" is not how collaborative editing works. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

B2C appears to be exerting "ownership" over this page. I notice his most recent edit-summary contains "I object". It's an odd thing to say in an edit to policy on consensus. I agree with Noetica's recent revert. Tony (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

What's wrong with saying "I object"??? "I object" is how one establishes that there is no consensus for the change in question, in this case a change that Noetica introduced. Anyone can do that, as long as the substantive reason for the objection is also provided, which I did in both edit summaries and in the section above this one. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

So you agree that Collect was in error when he said there was a "clear consensus" for his "copyedit"? --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:43, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Did he actually claim it had consensus? After Ring Cinema, Dicklyon, SmokeyJoe, and Will Beback objected to is as too big and complicated to understand? That would be fun to see. He seems to be going to other way, saying that we have not established a lack of consensus, which is perhaps even more amusing in its twistedness. Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

He said there was a clear consensus for his "copyedit". --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see now where he said "At this point, I count only you and Dick as being "many editors" here, whilst, I, Kotniski, Carol, B2C, SmokeyJoe, Brews, WAID, Jayjg, et al are now of no account?" How he counts Kotniski, Carol, Brews, Smokeyjoe, WAID, or Jayjg as supporting his edit is unclear to me; did I miss or misinterpret some support from some of them? Then he told me "two editors saying 'nay' do not negate a clear consensus, Dick." which I agree is typically true, though it's inapplicable here. Dicklyon (talk) 18:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I fear you missed [18] from SJ and the simple fact that the others either explicityly agreed with the consensus I stated, or edited without altering my edit. Cheers - but we have now moved well past the cavils and I thought it quite unfair to SJ to have you assert he opposes my edit. Collect (talk) 21:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The relatively stable version was the one on which I made this edit on Jan. 4; the edit was to apply a portion of Collect's big edit, basically the part described in his edit summary, but keeping the paragraphs lined up, so we could review that part before doing more. B2C gave me the thumb for it. Before anyone had a chance to react, Brews ohare, my other old nemesis, came out of left field to add another second-person advice paragraph. Since it was undiscussed and opposite to what we were working on (getting rid of second-person), I reverted it; he hasn't come back. But then Collect started off in a new direction. Still nobody has discussed this first part of his edits; it's OK by me if we want to accept it and move on from there. The next stable version (for 29 minutes) is the one that Collect changed 4 paragraphs of in this diff. We should go back to that if we're not sure we like what Collect did, and analyze his diff, and tune that up. I found two things I didn't like in the first two paragraphs (which is as far as I got), and said so in my edit summary; B2C agreed on the first one, and didn't understand the second, but put it all back anyway, saying my objection was not "substantive". So I reverted it again, and then Collect put it back. By then I had 3 reverts on Jan 4 (one of Brews, two of the Collect/B2C thing) so had to back off. Then Collect did 3 more in a row, including this one. I think it's safe to say that his edits do not have consensus, since they've been widely objected to and never motivated by any discussion. Now there are 20 more edits today, so it will be difficult indeed to see what had been changed, with what implications. I personally find this kind of rapid-fire modification of policy page scary and inappropriate (since Collect started this on Dec. 30, 48 policy page edits and about 135 talk edits). Anyone else? Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, and it is a policy page: although I believe it should be a style guide, the fact that it's currently policy is reason enough to talk things through here rather than boldly changing it in controversial ways. Tony (talk) 04:33, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Much of what's on the page is not really policy, it's just waffle, often departing from the topic. If anyone's interested, I'm vaguely working on a version of this page that could reasonably be described as policy - see User:Kotniski/CON (the first few sections, down to where it says PREVIOUS DRAFT). I'm not entirely happy with it yet, but I think it's the direction we should be going in - get the policy down to the essentials, and leave the advice on various loosely-connected matters to the appropriate guidelines.--Kotniski (talk) 12:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Since it's telling editors how they should behave, rather than what the final product should look like, it would be a behavioral guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of a major rewrite, Kotniski, even though I find your instincts sound on how the policy should be manifested. My reason is that so many editors rely on this page when they are trying to figure out how to proceed and it is important that we avoid undermining their good faith reliance on it. There is nothing here so egregiously misguided that it can't be addressed on the margin. True, some material seems out of bounds to me, but apparently at one time there were editors who decided it should go in. Perhaps they had a good reason for that. Although personally I think the scope of this page could for good reason be restricted to simply the issue of consensus and its discontents, we go beyond that, and maybe it is striking the right balance. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

"Too many participants"

I've never been happy with this bit. WP's canvassing policy most adequately deals with the matter of stacking, among other issues. This too many participants clause seems to go further, really cutting across the import of the canvassing policy, by asserting that discussions should be kept small (how small? how large? who knows?). Does it mean that the diversity of opinions should be restricted by having small, short discussions in out-of-the-way corners of the project and launching into grand changes on that basis? It certainly could be taken that way, as an implied licence for a small group of editors—or even a single editor—to "own" a page.

My view is that the too many cooks bit is gratuitous and in conflict with the canvassing policy, which concerns more properly the way in which editors are attracted into a debate, not their participation itself. This is a critical distinction. The clause should be removed, in my view, with a link to the canvassing policy quite sufficient. Tony (talk) 01:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree -- hence the removal of "10" as a "magic number". The current ArbCom case on Civility, however, seems to set rather an upper bound, with around a hundred different editors furnishing comments <g> Note also the recent published study showing that very few articles ever get more than 30 total editors at all (I think it was mentioned in the Signpost as well). Collect (talk) 01:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree, too. Why not just remove this section? Dicklyon (talk) 01:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed; it can hardly be said to be part of our policy concerning consensus.--Kotniski (talk) 12:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski, a valiant attempt to improve it, but as you said in your edit summary, probably needs to go. Tony (talk) 15:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's valuable advice. I've personally left discussions because it eventually occurred to me that my contribution to the volume (no matter how brilliant you all believe my every word is ;-) was impeding resolution. I'd leave the general concept (without any magic numbers, since the ideal size for a team depends on the team's goals) in this page, at least until a better method of educating editors about this reality-based phenomenon appears. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I think editors would be better educated (in general) if we did a lot of wholesale tidying-up of a whole lot of policies and guidelines and other pages we kind of encourage people to read about the ways of Wikipedia. The way it is at the moment, the meaning of much of it is unclear, its division between pages (and the way those pages are labelled) is pretty random, and so the chances of anyone who might benefit from this piece of advice actually stumbling on it here (before they simply work it out for themselves, as you report that you did) are minuscule. The problem we always seem to encounter, though, is resistance from people who think of these pages like lawyers think about laws - not as information being presented to an audience, but commandments that might be "used" or "misused". We ought at least to aim to split off the actual genuine policy (of which there really isn't very much) from the vaguer norms and the good advice.--Kotniski (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm in favor of tidying up. But it can't be "wholesale", as many people have an interest in watching to make sure that the policy doesn't get written in a way that will become a problem down the road. It would be better to do incremental cleanups (including removals of whole paragraphs of advice when editors are OK with that). Dicklyon (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The policy page should be shorter. People complain that editors just don't take any notice when they're bloated, as this one certainly is. Tony (talk) 01:36, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and even people at Board level have identified the complexity and incomprehensibility of "policy" as one of the things that put people off contributing to Wikipedia. To Dick: when I say "wholesale", I do mean incremental (not that we just wake up one day and find everything's changed), but without timidity as to the eventual number (and sometimes size) of the increments. We ought to at least have some kind of intelligent plan, or some overall scheme to aim at - suppose we really wanted to convey information to people about how Wikipedia functions, how would we organize that information in such a way as to ensure people can find what they need without wasting time, and how can we write it in such a way that people who don't know it already can readily understand it and aren't put off by it?--Kotniski (talk) 11:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a very admirable goal. I don't think the consensus page has much of a role to play in putting people off contributing. Most new editors just edit, and until there is a need, they ignore policy. And that's a very fine feature of the site. I would prefer that we inflate our importance in a different way. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:28, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

(od) Consensus is central, as consensus is even required on what is even considered to be a reliable source in the first place. There is too much of a focus on consensus relating to content (representation of sources) and not enough focus on sources in the first place (misappropriating "consensus" to censor or to inappropriately include sources, any one editor disagreeing "voiding" consensus as a means to own content or "allowed" sources, etc.) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 15:00, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

That is:

1. even prior to "Achieving consensus" we should consider an "Applying consensus" section
2. the diagram need to be explicit, separately, on sources (input) and content (output)

There is more about the 101 ways of dispute resolution (FAR FAR TO MANY)—for example, in my experience I find the "Village pump" to be little more than flypaper for editors fluttering about for a soapbox to opine from—than there is about how consensus really works. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The ability of the WMF board and developers to override community consensus

Blueboar has just edited the Beyond consensus section of this policy, thus drawing our attention to it:

Before:

• Some declarations from Jimbo Wales, the Wikimedia Foundation Board, or the Developers, particularly for copyright, legal issues, or server load, must be respected by editors. See also Wikimedia Foundation Policies.

After:

• Some declarations from Jimbo Wales, and all declarations from the Wikimedia Foundation Board, or the Developers, particularly for copyright, legal issues, or server load, must be respected by editors. See also Wikimedia Foundation Policies. [my underlining]

Now, I'm sorry to rattle the crockery, but this wording—both before and after the recent change—needs major examination; some of it is simply untenable. Naturally, we are all bound by Foundation policies, but the text here seem to go way beyond this without reason or basis in logic, practicality, law, or convention. Such an important part of en.WP policy should be worded carefully. Let's look at a few of the holes:

1. Jimmy has no special rights on en.WP beyond his role as a point of appeal WRT ArbCom decisions (see WP:AC); that much the community affirmed in the referendum last year revamping the ArbCom policy. His "ceremonial" appointment of new arbitrators is not based on the ArbCom policy, which is now expressed in the passive ("will be appointed"), and continues only at the pleasure of community consensus. Despite talk of Jimmy's putative reserve powers, they are neither properly defined nor rooted in any credible source. They can be sourced only in consensus by the en.WP community, or by fiat of the WMF board, only insofar as the board might act within WMF policies. Last time I looked, I saw neither such consensus nor such fiat, but that Jimmy is simply a member of the WMF board.
2. The text here, worryingly, says "some declarations from Jimbo Wales". Clearly the meaning is not all declarations—just some. Some is a meaningless subset unless this class of declarations that can override community consensus is defined.
3. Until Blueboar's edit a a few hours ago, the some applied not only to declarations by Wales, but to the WMF board and WMF-employed developers. Now, all declarations of the board and the developers can override consensus, but only some declarations by Jimmy. Neither some nor all for any of these three entities works logically, practically, or in terms of the legalities.
4. Since Blueboar's edit, "all" is pitted against a subset, particularly: this is not logical. All is all, not some things in particular. Until the recent edit, particularly was pitted against some, although whether some referred to the same subset of declarations as those listed under particularly was unclear.
5. Whereas the text says "See also Wikimedia Foundation Policies", it doesn't explicitly relate these policies to the power of the board or the developers to override community consensus. This needs to be explicit. No one would agree that the board or the developers can instruct us to perform illegal acts, indulge in plagiarism, breach privacy, licencing, CoI, or non-discrimination policy, for example. It's probably most unlikely that the board would do this, but I can imagine cases where a developer might slip up; in any case, the ability of board and developers to override en.WP consensus needs to be explicitly constrained to Foundation policy, rather than having the link to the policy sit there unconnected as a "see also". Otherwise, why is the policy mentioned at all?
6. I'm struggling to know why the developers (and it should be piped explicitly to WMF-employed developers) are given the same ambit as the board; the same classes of particular declarations are ascribed to both board and developers ("copyright, legal issues, or server load"), and it's odd to think of developers having legal or even copyright expertise—that belongs to the board and its legal delegates, not to developers. Do we believe a developer's dictum that something is not legal, or breaches or does not breach copyright? And taking this policy at face value, a WMF developer can override consensus on our civility policy. Why? Is it not possible to constrain the developers' power to override community consensus to technical matters ("server load", sure)?
7. Just a language quibble: declarations by, not declarations from.

It's time to get this policy right; whether before or after Blueboar's edit, it's a joke that does have slight potential to blow up in our faces one day.

Tony (talk) 06:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What's the problem? Are you saying that editors should not respect what the Developers say about server load? Or are you saying the paragraph should be three times longer to make it clear that only certain statements from the developers are respected? It is unlikely that much benefit would arise from a bureaucratic specification of exactly which statements must be respected. While it irritates some to see a suggestion that Jimbo is somehow different (What have the Romans has Jimbo ever done for us?), the fact is that we have no idea of whether he would or could make a statement that "must be respected by editors". Nevertheless, it's pretty reasonable to assume that he might summon sufficient resources to impose a view. It is clear that the WMF could impose their views although they seem to focus on fluff. A policy might say that Jimbo/WMF/Developers are not respected (or whatever), but those would be hollow words with no effect. Johnuniq (talk) 06:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I have endeavoured to make the section both more succinct and more accurate. Collect (talk) 14:19, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Collect, much improved, but it needed to cross-refer to both the Foundation board's and ArbCom's own scope and constraints. I've endeavoured to write these in succinctly, using piped links. Tony (talk) 14:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I find Jimbo et al. stay away from the most contentious problems as long as there is no imminent legal threat to the WMF. Legal requirements must be observed—is there really any need to muddle "consensus" with "respect" for anything? If something causes a server load (or other technology infrastructure) issue, that should simply be dealt with on its own.

   IMHO, Jimbo's "consensus = people working together" refers to collaboration, not consensus. There is a difference. Editor "A" and editor "B" are under no obligation or need to form a consensus in order to work together. We need less touchy-feely and more nitty-gritty in addressing guidelines and policy. The more ultimately vapid (goodness, respect, et al.) statements we add to either, the more Wikipedia becomes a caricature of itself divorced from its own realities. (Apoloiges, WSOB, wrong side of bed, syndrome this morning). PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 14:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I've attempted to make the section less wishy-washy. IMHO, respect is irrelevant. Policy is the way things work, it is not a etiquette manual. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 16:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Etiquette matters, because practices are at least as important as rules; every way of doing things can't be written down. There is a form to the work of editors but it is one they provide according to their own designs, so the bedrock here is not a policy or rule but the behavior of the crowd. In that light, community consensus seems to me overvalued, since, with respect to the editors on this page, we are a self-selected group just as much as any other page editors. If we collectively overstep our ambit or, more likely, present advice that can be interpreted badly or well, only local consensus corrects us. Wikipedia's strength is in just this collective self-correction. Policy is genuinely of limited utility and that is a good thing. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:57, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I was not implying etiquette does not matter, only that it is not within the ambit, as you say, of policy. I do completely agree that manners matter. Too often I have seen "just let them be, they are just blowing off steam...", "leave well enough alone" (for the rightly offended party to go calm themselves) be the words of wisdom to live by from admins and ArbCom. Individuals attacking others off-Wiki are allowed to prostrate themselves before ArbCom and ask for forgiveness. Policy should be crisp, clear, and succinct. Proper etiquette should be enforced vigorously. The current instantiation of "tolerate free speech" = "tolerate insults" is a cancer to be summarily excised, IMHO. (Not to mention we have far too many sophomoric essays which have taken on cult status, such as Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you.) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. We are either a (truly) fraternal organization or a frat house. We can't be both. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S. That said, I shall have to write an essay on the belligerent usage of policy to control content, which I have decided to name "acronymonious" behavior. (!) PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I am unaware of the cultic eminations, I guess. I think what I'm trying to say is that the policy that says that it has to be followed doesn't know its own limits. A policy here is advice on the right form, and etiquette is the same. For what it's worth... --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Well... I think that Blueboar's change was fine, and I think that the current version has some problems. But I also think that it would make more sense to take this up after the next Board meeting, because the rules are changing. Those who haven't been following the development of the revised Terms of Use should look at meta:Terms of use#11._Resolutions_and_Project_Policies, which addresses this issue.

Basically, if the Board declares that the English Wikipedia (or "editors", or "the community", or "projects", or anything else that sounds like you) is going to do something, then we-the-editors have a choice between complying or quitting.

NB that the only reason that "all" Board policies aren't mandatory is because some of the resolutions are explicitly phrased as suggestions, and some of them are completely irrelevant (like the policy on employee travel expenses). But when (to name a current example that has a couple of editors in a panic over community autonomy) they declare that editors should take the principle of least astonishment into account, we don't have a choice: compliance is mandatory.

The only change I would have made to Blueboar's version is to add the word relevant, as in "all relevant declarations from the Board". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Is "relevant" relevant? There is no purpose to specifically calling out that WMF policy which applies to WP is relevant to WP. It is by its very existence and definition. Where this policy (or any other) is concerned, wordsmithing => less is more. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:22, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, and yes, if there's policy at some point which we find to be a personal anathema, we can leave WP. There is no conflict, no conundrum, no Gordian knot here. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

even by those who had disagreed...

In "Consensus can change" we read "Decisions reached through consensus should be respected, even by those who had disagreed." This is perhaps somewhat off the mark if consensus is not majority rule. Those who disagree supposedly have their dissent heard, and everyone tries to accommodate those views. So if consensus is reached, there shouldn't, at that time, be disagreement. If someone else would like to tackle that one, okay. I am thinking on it and will edit there when I think of something that satisfies me. Are there other views? --Ring Cinema (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope - the point is that consensus != unanimity - and thus there will still be those who disagree. Simple and clear? Collect (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't agree that's the way to state it. Unanimity is the ideal. Dissenting views are included. Simple enough? --Ring Cinema (talk) 00:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

IPOF, "dissenting views are included" is not always true of consensus. In fact, it is quite rarely true. Cheers. Collect (talk) 07:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That's one of the parts that needs to be binned as gratuitious and of utterly no use to the community. This page should be shorter rather than longer. Tony (talk) 08:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Which part do you mean? (I agree with Collect about the original point though - unanimity is often not achieved, and there will therefore often be people who disagree with the decision reached - and if the decision was "no consensus" and whatever (in)action follows from that, then there will certainly be people who disagree - nonetheless those people are expected to abide by the decision - this is pretty much the whole point of this page, and ought to be given much greater prominence IMO, since if editing "against consensus" were not to be regarded as a Bad Thing, then the whole purpose of the consensus policy would be negated.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you are making the point that we are, indeed, missing an introductory section "Achieving consensus." We launch right into policy about consensus and discuss the conflict resolution and the "output" portion without sufficient discussion of the "input", including how to write about things in a manner that good faith consensus can be achieved. We also need to honest about WP not being some encyclopedic utopia, and to separately deal with how to deal with good-faith disagreements and how to deal with disagreements (taken to be) in bad faith. Policy needs to be geared to actual circumstances; Collect is correct, there are, in fact, very active editors who espouse editorial views which are supported in no reputable account of topics in dispute and which will (ultimately) never be included in article consensus.

   We also need to deal head-on with the sticky situations which result in entrenched editors running off fresh contributors via abuse or intimidation (or, as I call it, acronymonious behavior). Let's be realistic: every editor is going to wish to promote their editorial view, hopefully it is well-sourced where basic facts are also not in dispute; the downside is that WP policy OMITS factual accuracy as a gate for content inclusion, so WP:CONSENSUS needs to deal with that aspect as well. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 15:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I see several bids for majority rule here. For those who feel that dissenters needn't be accommodated, perhaps they can spell out the difference between their idea of consensus and majority rule. We might be thinking of different cases, so perhaps we have a hard case / easy case problem here. Hard cases involve binaries, where there is literally no middle ground; easy cases involve the more common decisions that editors manage through discussion. I was thinking about the easy cases, and I am still quite sure that the ideal of consensus is unanimity. If we write this page in a way that makes it easy to ignore dissenters, consensus will be impoverished if not meaningless. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, if we write it in a way that makes it easy for dissenters to ignore the majority, then consensus again becomes meaningless (since our decisions would no longer result from the consensus process, but from a tactical edit-warring process). We need to cover both sides of the coin - it's not majority rule, but it's not the law of the jungle or the liberum veto either.--Kotniski (talk) 07:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"Decisions reached through consensus should be respected by everyone who participated in its formation." I don't think this comes with the full force required. If a decision was reached through some reasonably full process (i.e. not just by one person claiming that his edit has stood for x weeks and is therefore "decided" by WP:SILENCE), then everyone needs to respect it, regardless of whether they participated. You can't just stay out of a discussion, watch the community come to a decision, and then say "I wasn't part of it so I'm not bound by it". That, as I think we can easily see, would be disruptive to the whole process.--Kotniski (talk) 07:21, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You can, however, explain how the previous group of participants were mistaken. WP:SILENCE is trumped by speaking up. If something is wrong, you don't have to respect it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, well, I don't mean "respect" as in "sit quietly and say nothing" (like we are supposed to respect people's religious beliefs); perhaps "abide by" would be a better choice of words. You can still try to persuade people that they've got it wrong (up to a point where continual harping on the same point becomes disruptive in itself), but it's disruptive to edit against the decision. (E.g. if consensus is to delete an article, then don't recreate an almost identical article - get a review of the decision first.) If people weren't expected to abide by consensus decisions, then this whole policy would be just empty words.--Kotniski (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Trying to recap: I think the issue is not that folks who did not assent in the first place to the consensus must consent to it, but more that once the article is in "calm mode" that seeking to keep arguing the case is not productive to improving the article, that it is generally wiser to either move to another article, or find other issues which would improve the article at hand. Picking at sores does not generally help them heal. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be conflating two issues here: one is whether it's appropriate to raise again for discussion a matter that's already been settled (to which I would generally answer yes, with provisos - that's the "consensus can change" principle); the second is whether it is appropriate to edit so as to thwart the result of the settlement (to which I would generally answer no, with provisos).--Kotniski (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. Kotniski's objection is very well taken, but I ignored that consideration on the theory that remaining silent for the purpose of objecting after a consensus is reached would constitute bad faith. And, in fact, it is perverse behavior, since one must eventually make one's case. On the other hand, my draft eliminates the idea that a single editor can arrive at a consensus or that an editor on holiday is out of luck. So, on balance, perhaps this is okay as is. Where Collect's summary is concerned, there is some ambiguity in his words, but I think it is probably not legitimate to claim that an article/edit is "settled" as a form of denying a new editor the chance to offer an improvement. Kotniski's second objection finds less favor with me: objections should be accommodated; that is the policy. Claiming a consensus despite continued good faith objection is not consensus-seeking. Therefore, it is not possible to make a change (ignoring the binaries) without obtaining some form of assent from dissenters. That assent might take the form of agreeing to put the matter to a binding straw poll, but since that is not consensus everyone is clear that only the participants can be so bound. Thanks. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You now seem to be saying that nothing can be done until everyone agrees (or something like that). As we've long established, that doesn't work. Sometimes we say we have "consensus" even though we don't have universal acceptance. Not every objection can or should be accommodated. And those whose objections are not accommodated must live with it. Whether or not their objections were made during the decision-making process or are brought to the table sometime later. I'm not saying you can't raise objections after the fact, but then it should be talk first, action later. --Kotniski (talk) 16:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a principled explanation of which objections do not have to be accommodated. In the absence of that -- which is really quite basic, Kotniski, for your post to make sense -- I have no problem saying that real consensus means everyone agrees. What else is it if not that? A super-majority is not a consensus. It does no good to say you want consensus only for people who agree with the smart people in the majority. True consensus is ideally unanimity where different views are ironed out through some form of compromise. Of course that is difficult, but that is how it goes here. When dissenters agree that the majority should be allowed their way, that is consensus, too. As I've mentioned in the past, if majoritarianism is unavoidable, its most palatable form is acceptance of a majority proposal by a majority of the minority. I mean, that's my opinion. --Ring Cinema (talk) 19:50, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You still seem to have a different view of what "consensus" ought to mean than that that actually operates on Wikipedia. Super-majority situations are called consensus here. Sorry, but it wouldn't work otherwise. --Kotniski (talk) 19:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No, that is not in the policy and it is, unfortunately, incoherent to say that we operate under consensus except when we use majority rule. (And, again, let me stipulate that I am not talking about binary choices.) I realize that it is difficult to explain which objections can be ignored or under what circumstances, but it must be done. My idea on the majority of the minority is a principled explanation of the circumstances that could allow it. There could be others. However, we got here with consensus, so the practice functions fairly well already. According to the policy, all legitimate concerns should be accommodated, and that includes dissenters. To say that we follow consensus when we actually employ some undefined version of supermajoritarianism is not honest. --Ring Cinema (talk) 20:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

It amounts to the same thing. In Ring's system, any viewpoint that isn't being accommodated is simply defined as "not legitimate" and then ignored. In Kotniski's system, the small minority's viewpoint might be legitimate, but it isn't being accommodated anyway because the super-majority doesn't choose to. The end result is the same thing: the small minority's viewpoint is not accommodated, and the super-majority claims to have a consensus not to accommodate it.

Ring, I think it's important for this page to address consensus in ways that apply to binary choices. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't amount to the same thing. All legitimate viewpoints must be accommodated. The circumstance that allows them to be ignored should be stated or, as has been the case, left to the editors to work out. Not majority rule. Consensus. 2) I agree that we cover binary choices, but we label them and explain the difference. --Ring Cinema (talk) 03:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying now. It's not the case that all legitimate viewpoints must be accommodated (as you seem to acknowledge yourself, in the next sentence, when you say that there are circumstances that allow them to be ignored). And I'm not sure there's a substantial difference between "binary" choices and other choices. With non-binary choices there's more potential for seeking a middle-ground solution, but we aren't obliged to adopt such a solution; and such possibilities may also exist in the case of apparently binary choices (e.g. in a deletion discussion, the result may be to merge the article into another), but again there is no obligation.--Kotniski (talk) 09:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Ring, how do we know what is a "legitimate" viewpoint? As nearly as I can tell, a viewpoint is legitimate if the supermajority chooses to accommodate it, and it is not legitimate if the supermajority does not choose to accommodate it.

So I had a case a few years ago in which a guy wanted a particular idea about how posture affects human health to be "accommodated". Was his viewpoint "legitimate"? He certainly thought so (and gave several reasons why he thought so), but the supermajority did not think so (and gave several reasons why we thought so). We don't have a system for declaring someone to be an omniscient being who can rule on whether his position was Truly™ legitimate; all we really know is that, in the end, the supermajority did not choose to accommodate his viewpoint, and that we declared our refusal to accommodate his viewpoint to be "consensus". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't introduce the term 'legitimate' for this context or decide that consensus is Wikipedia's decision procedure. It is simply the standard and the policy. We are, actually, obligated to try to incorporate dissenting views; that is the essence of consensus. A poorly-framed supermajoritianism is a slippery slope to majority rule if dissenters don't have to be accommodated. If we want to design a backstop to outliers and cranks, a supermajority rule is worse than recognizing the majority of the minority because the latter requires the majority to craft a proposal that meets with some dissenter acceptance. In this way, I implicitly define legitimate views as those held by a majority of the dissenters. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:44, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Kotniski. I think you're conflating how it should work ideally with out it works in reality. Take this discussion as an example and you're the only dissenter about this point. We'll hear you out, to a point, but if we don't convince you and you don't convince us, at some point we, the super-majority, will declare that the super-majority is the consensus and you'll be expected to respect that. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for eloquently making my point. You are advocating majority rule. In consensus decision-making, my views should be accommodated. That is the policy. To the extent you want to ignore them is the extent to which you want to ignore the actual policy. And in fact, I happen to have the only proposal that offers a formal solution to the paradox of consensus. That you would think it is fine to ignore the only solution before us only shows a lack of understanding of how consensus works in practice. I'm not obstructing, I'm offering arguments that are not rebutted. Thanks again. --Ring Cinema (talk) 01:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Although you say you're talking about how "consensus works in practice", you offer no evidence that this is how it works in practice on Wikipedia. This is how you think it should work. This is how you believe it can work. This is the only way it can legitimately be called "consensus", in your view. I get all that. What you are refusing to accept is that, "Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity" (that's what the policy says; it does not say that all views should be accommodated). And thank you for providing a great example of why it must be this way. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

You misstate the policy. To "incorporate all legitimate views" I take as longhand for "accommodate all views". So, my only evidence is the text of the page on consensus. And, as it happens, my proposal offers a formal method to realize the contradictory goals of accommodating all views but determining which are not legitimate while requiring the majority to offer something to the minority when unanimity is not possible. That is something supermajoritarianism doesn't do. --Ring Cinema (talk) 02:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I misstate nothing; you do. It does say "Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity" (verbatim), and it does not say "incorporate all legitimate views". It says "involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns". Again, this is a good example. An effort is involved here to incorporate your concerns, but since they're contrary to what policy says and what is done in practice, their legitimacy, and therefore the need to incorporate them, is in question. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Ring, I still think you're misunderstanding something or else trying to pretend that some ideal is always achievable in practice; but you mention your "proposal" - what proposal would that be (I've kind of lost track)? If it's still the idea that people who didn't take part in the decision-making process don't have to abide by the decision, once properly made, then I think that's clearly wrong (it would go against the fundamental principle that what we call "consensus" is the way we make decisions, and not just a talking shop which leaves the actual decisions to the edit-warriors and the (pseudo)random admin page protectors). Though I think this issue deserves a separate section, to deal with the subtleties.--Kotniski (talk) 08:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kotniski, I concur on your edit throwing out my try on the first sentence of "Consensus can change." It's a better paragraph without it and I was not completely comfortable with it myself. You will note that I didn't just jump in and change it. I asked for opinions and stated my intention to change it.

But to the substance: No, I am not misunderstanding consensus. I believe you don't appreciate how often unanimity is possible when it is insisted that people try to get it and how easy it would be for the page on consensus to lead people to ignore other views. When editors say to each other, "I don't agree with you but how about we do this?" there is a lot of ground covered. So I am accounting for theory and practice. We want to find unanimity where it is possible, we need here to recognize that the process of trying to find unanimity is the essence of consensus, and we can improve on the page the principles that allow ignoring anyone's views. My proposal is that we pay attention to the majority of the minority; their assent is meaningful. But of course there are problems with any approach so it requires careful consideration. At least it is a principle that requires the majority to offer something to the minority. --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

We are, actually, obligated to try to incorporate dissenting views; that is the essence of consensus.

Actually, Ring, that's my point: we are not "obligated to try to incorporate dissenting views". We are actually obligated to (politely) tell WP:Randy in Boise to take a hike. We are obligated to omit tiny-minority views altogether. We are obligated to omit any and all views that can't be supported by suitable reliable sources.

"All legitimate views" is not a longwinded way of saying "all views". We don't have to accommodate all dissenters. We don't even have to accommodate a "majority of dissenters". NPOV requires us to care about a "viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors". That means that the prevlance of a viewpoint among dissenters is explicitly rejected as a factor that can be considered in determining the consensus for an article's content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Bravo! Never saw WP:Randy in Boise before. Excellent. I've added this to my favorite quotes section on my page, here: User:Born2cycle#Consensus. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

1. We are not obligated to make an effort to incorporate dissenting views as long as we don't follow the policy. Dissenting views are legitimate, so it's clear that there is a choice: follow the policy or incorporate dissenting views. That is how consensus works and what distinguishes it from majority rule. 2. Of course legitimate views are different from all views as soon as there is an omniscient editor (see WhatAmIDoing above). Since we don't have that, only consensus can determine the difference, and that gets us nowhere in the context of a decision about which views can be ignored. I'm sorry, it's not up to the majority to decide when a consensus is not needed, since that is majority rule. So for those reasons I've offered my proposal. It suggests a principled way of managing these difficulties. No one else has made such a proposal, but if there is a better one I would be interested in it. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:00, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Consensus here clearly does not seem to accept your assertions. Collect (talk) 14:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm just repeating the policy, so it's hard to know what you mean. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You seem not to appreciate the meaning of "make an effort..." You can try to find a solution that satisfies everyone, but sometimes it proves impossible, and you have to be satisfied with one that satisfies "most" people (for a value of "most" that we don't define exactly). So the policy certainly doesn't say or mean that all dissenting views must end up being incorporated; and after discussion has run a resonable course, there is a kind of majority rule (otherwise we would end up with minority rule, with single dissenters able to block any change, which would be even worse).--Kotniski (talk) 14:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick correction: "Legitimate" is the wrong word to use... Wikipedia does not base inclusion on the legitimacy of a viewpoint... it bases inclusion on the significance of the viewpoint. We are required to include all significant viewpoints (even those we personally consider illegitimate), but may exclude viewpoints we deem (by consensus) to be insignificant. Blueboar (talk) 16:28, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you not possibly mixing the viewpoints of editors with the viewpoints found in sources? When we are talking about the viewpoints of editors on a particular question, I think "legitimate" is closer to what we mean than "significant" - if 100 people want Justin Bieber's article to say that he's the greatest singer of all time "because he is", that's likely to be significant, but someone assessing consensus would (hopefully) conclude that those people's views are illegitimate.--Kotniski (talk) 16:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah... now I understand what you are saying. Yes, I did misunderstand what you were talking about. Blueboar (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Kotniski, but my understanding is not lacking. All views should be incorporated; that is consensus. I see that you increasingly endorse majority rule, and I mentioned a few days ago that your views are majoritarian in character. Now you've stated it. However, on Wikipedia, we don't operate by majority rule, we make our decisions based on consensus. Majoritarian views belong in a different forum. My sense is that you want to take examples of outliers and cranks and generalize that problem to anyone with a minority view. That's not consensus, and I think you have sort of admitted it above.

So there is the problem of how to manage situations where consensus is hard to come by. It is possible to discuss which views are legitimate, but, as has been pointed out, there is no omniscient agent to settle that matter. That is why I have mentioned several times that legitimacy needs to be settled according to some principle, and, let me add, it is even better if there is a procedure or process that requires compliance with the principle. It is always possible to leave it to the editors, but, if we can do better and remain consonant with the principles of consensus, it would be a good thing. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Ring, suppose I am of the view that President Obama is a reptilian alien from Mars. Suppose I feel strongly that this important and vital information should be included in the bio article on Obama (and half a dozen related articles). Are you saying that my view must be incorporated? Or would you agree that other editors can come to consensus that my view is utter nonsense, and exclude it? Blueboar (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

(Perhaps it would work to ask for a citation to support this crank viewpoint.) --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe a completely legitimate view will be excluded by your "consensus of the smart people"? I'm sure you realize that any power given to the majority that allows them to ignore the minority will be instantly abused. Your example isn't of a legitimate minority view so it seems simple. But to conflate minority views with outliers and cranks is an attempt to justify majority rule. The fact that there are sometimes cranks on Wikipedia is not a reason to abandon consensus-seeking. The larger problem is getting editors to reach for unanimity, and if we can we should make a path to it. My proposal at least motivates the majority to offer something to the minority to gain their support. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I will agree that there should be something to handle cranks if you will agree that it should be different from the treatment for minority views. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:54, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

And there is something... it is a Wikipedia policy known as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. The point is, we can exclude material based on consensus... however, that consensus should be based on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, not our own personal opinions. Blueboar (talk) 00:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, not necessarily only on written policies and guidelines, but at least on a proper awareness of what Wikipedia is trying to be and what its principles are - on genuine arguments, in other words.--Kotniski (talk) 10:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so now two candidates are offered as reasons excluding views: views with a point and arguments that are not genuine. The latter gets us no further than "legitimate", right? "Genuine" is in the eye of the beholder in a completely congruent way. Both the minority and the cranks believe they have a genuine argument. I agree, of course, arguments that are not genuine (assuming we can cash that out) must be fake or bogus or ersatz, but it's no progress because we still lack the omniscience that WhatAmIDoing mentioned above. Next to the former: can we invoke a policy to exclude a viewpoint? Yes, we can, I agree. But, sadly, someone has to decide, and there will be disagreements about it. I have noticed that we lack an omniscient agent to decide for us. So, these two tries are both correct and both bound to fail in some cases. Now, I'm unclear if my respected fellow editors made their comments with the awareness that they were not offering a justification to abandon consensus when there is disagreement or if they were aware that these are merely excellent reasons that editors will use to persuade others to accept their own assessments. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying now... But in the absence of an "omniscient agent", we have (supposedly neutral) admins to decide for us (in those cases where we are really unable to decide for ourselves whether consensus has been reached). And then we respect their decision (or challenge it, but we don't just reject it and edit against it - at least, we shouldn't, since that would thwart the whole process and render this policy useless).--Kotniski (talk) 20:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

You were offering 'genuine' as a criterion for 'legitimate', so I pointed out that it gets us nowhere, Kotniski. Not sure about this latest, since a consensus isn't about what an admin decides. Don't expect me to agree that admins can competently decide something important. I might not be able to stop laughing. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, they don't always get it right. But who would you have decide? Or would you leave everything to the edit-warriors to fight things out?--Kotniski (talk) 14:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Who I would have decide are the editors, but I know you agree. I am thinking about how we can bring different views into alignment. An admin can't say what consensus is; that's a job for an expert. Light bulb. --Ring Cinema (talk) 16:29, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Aren't admins (or other "uninvolved editors in good standing") the closest thing we've got to experts, when it comes to matters of deciding Wikipedia "consensus"? (I sometimes disagree with their assessments, but I don't have any better suggestion as to who we can get to do it - of course it's preferable if the involved editors themselves do it, as I guess in most cases they do, but sometimes that turns out not to be possible and we need an outside judge).--Kotniski (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly you are correct. It's like Zuckerberg deciding what is good privacy; at best, he doesn't know what he doesn't know. --Ring Cinema (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Ring, I think we might be having a semantic problem here. You define consensus as all editors' views about what's best for an article being accommodated. That's an acceptable dictionary definition as far as I'm concerned.

On the English Wikipedia, this is not what happens: The views of all editors are not always accommodated, and we don't actually feel much obligation to do so. On the English Wikipedia, what's done to an article is what most (not all) editors believe is best for the article—after discussion, with whatever level of compromise seems appropriate to those participating, and with the determination of which view counts as the "most" view being determined by some uninvolved editor if necessary—even if this means that there are people who completely disagree and whose views are not accommodated in the least.

We have traditionally called this process of listening to everyone and doing what most people want consensus, just like we call labeling Time cube as being pseudoscience is what we call neutral rather than judgmental, although the latter term is probably more accurate according to the dictionary.

Do you agree that (1) this is what actually happens and (2) that most editors call what actually happens consensus? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm well aware of Wikipedia practices. The most prevalent among them is the alacrity with which editors take sides. I'm sure that no one thinks consensus means majority rule, that everywhere it means accommodating as many views as possible, and Wikipedia is no different. Clearly there are many methods used by editors to get things done when unanimity is not possible. Sometimes the minority backs down, sometimes they agree to abide by a straw poll, sometimes compromises are accepted. That's all great. Sure, there is a measurable gap between policy and practice; that is a good thing and makes it possible for superior solutions to bubble up. It would be disastrous to hint that majority rule is okay, because that would short circuit the give and take. Instead, we should use our best efforts to find ways to bring editors together. Today I made contact with an experienced expert in conflict resolution in my area and we are considering that there might be untapped resources and methods available in the literature. --Ring Cinema (talk) 00:36, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

So in your opinion, this kind of practice is actually done, and is actually called consensus, but you don't want WP:Consensus to admit these facts? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Legitimate

I think that we need to kill this "incorporate all legitimate concerns" idea. Here we have an editor asserting that the SOPA-related blackout was anti-consensus because it did not "incorporate all legitimate concerns". The fact is that we call that kind of decision consensual on Wikipedia, even if it completely ignores the legitimate concerns of a sizeable minority of the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

So what if someone wants to say that? Let's agree then that the first legitimate view we ignore will be yours. I expect your support. --Ring Cinema (talk) 06:49, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

We only say we "try to" incorporate all legitimate concerns. In some cases it turns out to be simply impossible to actually achieve that - almost every action has upsides and downsides, and there isn't necessarily a satisfactory compromise available. We can't have a blackout and not have a blackout (and even if there were a middle path, we wouldn't be obliged to choose it).--Kotniski (talk) 08:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

But we have already agreed that pure binaries are different, so again this is just a non sequitur. Please enunciate the principled conditions under which a legitimate viewpoint should be ignored in a way that is not majority rule. "It's too hard" is not a reason. We don't have a problem that we are trying to solve; we have a method that functions well in practice. (Are you okay if we ignore your legitimate viewpoint first? If so, proceed.) --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:47, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The "method that functions well in practice" in effect includes a certain amount of majority rule, because if we waited for universal agreement we would sometimes wait forever. I don't have an exact algorithm for how these things are decided (sometimes different admins will reach different conclusions from the same set of facts). But no-one has a veto, even if his arguments are sound - there might be even sounder arguments (or at least, arguments that convince more editors) for doing the thing he opposes. I really can't think of any better alternative to the kind of qualified majority rule (following good faith discussion) that we effectively use at the moment - can you?--Kotniski (talk) 13:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

And about that whole "can change" bit

This is really poorly stated. What happens is that as more editors participate, as more reliable sources are added, as those sources are more accurately represented, as content includes dissenting views in the same proportions as found in (real) scholarship, "consensus" will achieve stability. If there is an earth-shattering event which turns everything we know about a particular topic upside down, "consensus" will include that and achieve a new point of stability. "Consensus can change" is merely an invitation to attempt to destabilize consensus. For our purposes here, of policy, "consensus" is a PROCESS not a result. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 15:34, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I entirely know what you mean. What "consensus can change" is normally taken to mean, in my experience, is that just because a consensus decision has been made in the past, it doesn't mean that we won't reach a different consensus decision now. The reason might be something that happened in the outside world, but more likely it's just that the editors who are considering the matter now have different views/priorities/approaches/experiences/intelligence than those who considered it then.--Kotniski (talk) 16:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

My point (I hope) is that the statement that "consensus can change" implies it can always take a right or left turn or go completely in reverse. That can happen, perhaps, when arguing over politics, but not when creating well-researched, well-written, objective encyclopedic articles—unless there has been some sea-change in scholarship on whatever the topic is. We should focus on the process by which consensus zeros in on a result; any "change" is en route to an end point, it's not that the end point itself has changed or the article radically altered. That's why I think the current policy is somewhat deficient in its realistic characterization (e.g, diagram) of consensus. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:09, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think you're looking at this from a different altitude, as it were.

When we say that "consensus can change", we're not saying that the overall information presented in an article like WWII is likely to change significantly. That would indeed require a sea change in the scholarship.

Instead, we're looking at much smaller bits and pieces: we may have decided in 2009 that this one book shouldn't be cited in the article, and in 2012, we may decide that it's acceptable. We may have decided once that the best title for an article was ____, and now we decide that it's some other title. We may have decided once that a single article about Condoms was best, but now we decide to split it into Condom and History of condoms. We may have once decided that minority POVs should be limited to a small section in an article, but now we decide to expand our description of those views. We may have once decided to keep an article at AFD, but now we decide to merge it away.

Sometimes these changes are made because different people are involved. Sometimes they are made because we are aware of new sources.

And sometimes they are made simply because our overall approach has been refined. For example, an external link that qualified for inclusion under the 2005 version of that guideline might well fail under the 2012 version of that guideline. Several years ago, we said that it was acceptable to place ref tags before punctuation, and now (last I checked) we recommend that ref tags always be placed after terminal punctuation. Half a dozen years ago, a page was declared a guideline merely by a single editor slapping a template on it. Now, we have a recommended, multi-step process that we normally expect people to follow. When Wikipedia got started, creating a BLP without any sources at all was acceptable; now we regularly delete them. Back in the day, official guidance recommended against including any citations at all in list articles; now we generally encourage them. All of those are examples of the community's consensus changing on some point, and none of those changes have any relationship to the scholarship on the topic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Here is a more concrete example. For several years there were rumors that Micheal Jackson had a involvement with the Music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Originally, the consensus was not to include anything about it since the only coverage came from unreliable sources. Eventually, more reliable sources surfaced a new consensus was formed to include the Micheal Jackson info. This change did not mean that there was a major change in scholarship but simply a case of better sourcing being found after the initial consensus against inclusion.--70.24.206.51 (talk) 23:02, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Well in that case I suppose the reliable sources are the metaphorical equivalent of "scholarship". But another thing could have happened: in the past editors had reached a consensus that certain sources were unreliable, while in the present editors reached a new consensus that exactly the same sources were in fact reliable after all (or vice versa). This is more what I understand the "consensus can change" principle to be referring to - it's not wrong to reconsider an issue on which consensus has been reached in the past.--Kotniski (talk) 09:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Another way that consensus can change: Say an article had three contributors working on it a year ago, and all three agreed that some bit of information was really too trivial to mention in the article. No problem, that was the consensus at that time. Let's say these editors move on to other things, and six months later the article had other editors working on it. This different set of editors decides that the bit of information isn't too trivial and should be mentioned. No problem... consensus can change, and a new consensus was formed. Now, lets say that today yet another group of editors are working on the article, and they decide that the bit of information is in fact too trivial... Again, no problem... we have a new consensus. So... out it goes... unless at some point in the future the consensus changes yet again. Blueboar (talk) 04:26, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• Interestingly, the WP:CCC "concensus can change" bit that was later merged here is the main reason that this page is tagged {{policy}}. Not that by "concensus", we can only realitically mean "apparent consensus". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• What we need to note is that while "consensus can change" it is not prudent to seek to alter a consensus less than a week after one has been arrived at. Yet I have seen that done a number of times - including one day after an AfD was closed as "keep" one of the "losing side" posted that the article should be deleted anyways on the article talk page <g>. And has repeatedly started such sections since. All that does is create a "battleground" which is directly contrary to the principles laid out here. Perhaps we should, instead of mucking about with the CCC language, simply append
  • Continuously fighting for a specific position which was not adopted in the current consensus, and where there is no apparent likelihood of any change being made, is wrong. Collect (talk) 13:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Well it does already say On the other hand, if a subject has been discussed recently, it can be disruptive to bring it up again. Though I've no objection to changing or adding to the wording.--Kotniski (talk) 13:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't think that any amount of additional verbiage will solve any problems here. No matter what we write on this page, people who don't know WP:How to lose will still not know how to lose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

      Very good points - although, it might be helpful to add something that will remind editors of the flip side to "Consensus can change"... which is "Consensus usually remains the same". Blueboar (talk) 17:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

@Blueboar, precisely. I would completely change the sense of the section about "Consensus can change", e.g.,

Consensus should coalesce

Consensus is a process whereby an objective viewpoint is ultimately articulated once sufficient input and discussion have been provided as basis. It is generally counterproductive to repeat prior arguments again in the absence of significant changes in circumstances; to needlessly repeat recent discussions ("shouting louder") tends to be seen as disruptive. Invoking "consensus" to bolster one's personal position or to censor content, contending "according to consensus" or "violates consensus", is not a substitute for discussing the merits of new input to the consensus process.

PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I'm not sure it's necessary to state the obvious, that any sea-change in circumstances can change consensus. The current section title might as well be titled "Consensus can change, or, you're invited to attempt to change consensus any time you don't like it." PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't care for the title and suspect that efforts to remove "CCC" will be opposed by the community. The first sentence is inapplicable to anything except articles. The rest of it seems okay to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The Consensus can change section was stand-alone policy from 2 September 2005. Any attempt to remove it supports its continuation. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

edit reversed as "disruptive"

[19] has the edit summary

it's wrong because it's disruptive, otherwise it's not wrong -- and it is useful to appeal to practicalities when giving advice

How say ye others? Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm really not too bothered - both versions are attempting to say the same (rather vague) thing. I'd rather spell this out in a new section.--Kotniski (talk) 06:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, the section title implies to me that you may have misunderstood Ring's edit summary; I don't think he meant that your change was disruptive; I assume "it" was referring to the behaviour described in the sentence being edited.--Kotniski (talk) 07:28, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I see -- well one well ought not to make edit summaries so readily misunderstood when reverting an entire edit, I would suggest. Collect (talk) 13:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You could learn to bring your ideas here first or you could not learn that. --Ring Cinema (talk) 13:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Inasmuch as I proposed the exact language here first, I fear your admonition is remarkably ill-aimed. Collect (talk) 13:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I was unaware of that proposal, so my apologies. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:29, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

See my more radical, directly above. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 17:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I really do think consensus is better served by describing it consistently as an "arrival" at something without a section worded in a manner which implies the train can just as well leave the station as soon as it arrives. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 02:59, 21 January 2012 (UTC)