Wikipedia:Consensus/No consensus RfC 2022

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference.
Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. The policy provision that was to be discussed in this RfC has been removed[1] and the RfC is no longer necessary.--John Cline (talk) 10:43, 1 February 2022 (UTC) [reply]

Shortcut

WP:NCRFC

RfC to determine if the community supports Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3)

Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3) says: "When discussions of contested administrator actions result in no consensus either for the action or for reverting the action, the action is normally reverted." In practice, however, the action is almost never reverted. It has become unclear whether the community supports this policy stipulation or not. Therefore, this RfC asks: Should the policy provision at Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3) be retained?

Background (No consensus RfC)

You may find it useful to know about the hidden text in NOCON:
"This section summarizes existing policies and guidelines. It does not make any new rules. If this page and the more specific policy or guideline disagree, then this one should be changed to conform with the more specific page."

Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3) was added to the policy in 2011.[2] Consensus for its inclusion exists through discussion,[3] and through editing.[4] Please give your response with all due consideration.

Policy v. practice

In practice, when discussions of contested administrator actions result in no consensus either for the action or for reverting the action, the action is normally left standing. — Often called "maintaining the status quo" (where status quo means: the existing state of affairs at the end of the discussion).
In policy, Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3) stipulates a different result, saying: "When discussions of contested administrator actions result in no consensus either for the action or for reverting the action, the action is normally reverted." — Often called "restoring the status quo ante" (where status quo ante means: the state in which [things were] before).

Important points

The policy language, normally reverted, does not mean always reverted, and though examples are not listed, exceptions do exist.
The scope of this RfC is limited to whether Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3) has community support to be retained or not.

The way forward

To resolve the discrepancy between policy and practice, this RfC proposes that we must either:

Change the policy to align with practice.
Consensus not to retain the policy provision changes policy enough to align it with practice.

Or:

Change the practice to align with policy.
Consensus to retain the policy provision necessitates some change in practice (namely the manner of closing discussions of contested administrator actions).

Publishing responses

The RfC question asks the community, in the simplest possible way: should Wikipedia:Consensus § No consensus (point 3) be retained? Accordingly, the simplest way to frame your response is to begin with either yes or no, followed by any additional comments you wish to included. For example:

Yes the policy provision should be retained and discussion closers should begin following it.

Or:

No unused policy is unneeded policy, it should not be retained.

Publish it in the "Responses" section. Threaded discussion underneath responses is allowed but please ensure that the commentary is relevant and necessary. Otherwise, please discuss it in the "General discussion" section. Thank you for participating in this RfC. Best regards.

Responses (No consensus RfC)

General discussion (No consensus RfC)

Demote WP:NOCONSENSUS, the entire section, from the policy. Instead, point to another page that speaks to what to do when consensus is not yet reached. "No consensus", whether the hypothetical case that consensus cannot ever be reached, or a closer's call that the current situation is "no consensus" is out of scope of WP:Consensus, which is a policy about the centrality of consensus, the importance of getting to it, and some guidance on how to get to it.
Wikipedia:Consensus#Determining consensus is bloaty, and its subsection Wikipedia:Consensus#No consensus is especially bloat. It's right that these things are mentioned in the policy, but this policy is not the right page for primary reference of authority on these matters. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:What "no consensus" means#Blocking and other admin actions (an essay) states "When discussing the appropriateness of a block (or other admin action), a discussion that results in "no consensus" should result in the reversal of that admin action.". This will need revising if the outcome of this RfC is to change the policy. Thryduulf (talk) 01:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it more pertinent to find out why this policy point is not followed? If it is policy it should be applied, period. Whether this involves one erroneous practice or a million is immaterial. If practice is wrong, embedding it does not make it right. If policy is wrong/no longer accepted then a wide and deep discussion can establish the way forward. But it probably is not wise to relate policy and practice the way it is asked here. Discuss and decide policy, then apply it to practice. Until it is untenable to do so, for valid reasons. Then go back to discussing policy rather than subverting it in practice. This road is one-way. 69.203.140.37 (talk) 14:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Except, the way we work here is that policy is supposed to reflect practice… so if practice has changed, policy should change as well. That said, has practice actually changed? Some statistics would be helpful. Blueboar (talk) 19:38, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not wanting to get into a chicken-and-egg question, but per WP:POLICY, all policies (including the conduct policy under discussion) "describe best practices", they do not reflect them. It seems practice is result, not cause? 65.88.88.57 (talk) 20:05, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Policies are supposed to "describe best practices", meaning that first there is a best practice, and then that practice gets written down ("described") in a policy page. With rare exceptions, we put reality first, and documentation second. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is that so? Policies codify best practices after presumably thorough, wide discussion. Once a policy is so decided though, practice may not deviate from it except in rare cases that are also presumably scrutinized in detail. Otherwise why have policies? So if a policy point is consistently being subverted/ignored/misapplied in practice, is it going to be thought of as de facto overturned, without any investigation of why this discrepancy between policy & practice exists? Before even we get to asking whether the apposite practice is justified. Also keeping in mind that Wikipedia policies are universal in the sense that they impact directly or indirectly all constituencies. Practices though are restricted to just one small constituency, the editors. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 23:45, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

> after presumably thorough, wide discussion.

Nope. See WP:PGBOLD.

> Once a policy is so decided though, practice may not deviate from it except in rare cases

Nope. See WP:IAR and WP:PGE.

I suspect that you're thinking about real-world policies, like the hiring policies at a responsible business. The wiki-jargon understanding of policy is basically unrelated to real-world understanding of that term. Think of something closer to "18 years ago, some college kid slapped a label on a page, and other editors thought it sounded nice, so they kept it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of Wikipedia policy is what Wikipedia says it is. It is not jargon, it is clear English. They are statements of widely accepted practice formulated by consensus that editors should apply in a common-sense fashion, except in rare cases. Such language is found in several Wikipedia policy/guideline pages. In my almost 2 decades of using Wikipedia, I don't ever recall anyone slapping a "policy" label on a Wikipedia page and this being accepted as such. The WP:PGBOLD is about editing/updating the policy itself, not ignoring it/subverting it in practice. However WP:IAR seems like something a college kid would put together. It is so vague in its justification that it could mean anything. If a "rule" is hindering Wikipedia, why was it put together by its users? This is a whole other subject. If I think WP:IAR hinders Wikipedia am I free to ignore it? Apart from all that, the present discussion is about a policy that is purportedly systematically ignored or subverted in practice. The original question was: If that is true, (and taking into account that this may be the result of WP:IAR) then why is it so? Look for the root cause of the discrepancy before rushing to apply a "solution". 50.74.109.2 (talk) 13:22, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Could we have some examples of the situation this RfC is addressing? Otherwise it seems like a solution looking for a problem.--GRuban (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]