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== Guideline status ==
Also, has wikipedia decided to change the process? Voting on content, or positions, is kinda different than voting on whether to merge or not. Some things do come down to a yea/nay. Move or don't move. Merge or not. Disambig page, or mentions at the top of the page.<br>
{{archivetop|See box. ] (]) 18:16, 7 July 2014 (UTC)}}
I've also used voting as a way to clarify positions, and I've (nor other people I've seen) never felt bound by the positions put out. Many times I've seen voting break down into, "Yes, but..." And some great clarifications have taken place. I'm thinking about the voting on banning US House IP addresses from editting pages about themselves.<br>
{{quotation|Result: '''Demote to essay status'''.
~ender 2006-03-26 19:59:PM MST
:There has been a de facto shift toward voting, which is unfortunate but may not be preventable. This page should probably be updated to reflect this trend.
:I think you are right that many votes generate useful discussions and deeper understanding -- but that is only insofar as they are not really votes, or insofar as the members choose to subvert the voting process. But when we go ''into'' a discussion expecting to vote rather than talk, or when a trial-balloon proposal is greeted with a chorus of automatic "Oppose" votes, real violence is done to the wikiprocess.
:Idea: Saying "X is evil" is not really a very helpful guideline. Could this page be redefined as something like ], a how-to guide on facilitating thoughtful dialogue in the face of the "let's-vote-on-it" mentality? -- ] 12:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
==Mathematics of voting: all systems are broken.==
* Mathematics of voting: all systems are broken. see ].
I removed the above because it is false. A yes/no vote on a single question is not mathematically broken. I guess that the author of the statement was thinking of multicandidate elections and ].--] 04:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
==When was this page authorized by consensus?==
I looked at the history of the page. It seems that the page is a copy of an essay from Meta-Wiki. When was this page authorized by consensus? How can it be a guideline without any consensus? ] 19:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


3 editors supported the status of this page as a guideline, 8 opposed it and 1 was neutral. Surely that's all anyone needs to know? However, just in case...
==Ballots are the devil's work?==
This has got to be one of the oddest-titled policy-related pages I have seen. The title of this article, if taken seriously, is not suitable for a policy-related document (and if not to be taken seriously, is not suitable for a policy-related document). The article is also fundamentally self-contradictory, as verifying consensus requires some sort of majority vote for an option. It is a useful rule (expressed by ], for one) that if you ever wish to state something in a negative way, attempt to turn it into a positive before you say it. Following this principle, I come up with the following statements: '''"Reasoned discussion is good"''' and '''"Consensus is good"'''.


Demoting a guideline is not a minor step, particularly if the guideline has been in place for a long time. So, it should require a very clear consensus. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that this guideline was created without consensus and has been persistently controversial. That doesn't erase its legitimacy, but might mean that a less cautious approach can be taken with regard to altering its status.
On reflection it might be useful to have a procedure for decision making which has two distinct phases. In the first stage, participants are prohibited from indicating their preferred option, but are allowed to state relevant facts and inferences and discuss them with each other. When discussion has died down the second phase, a vote on the alternatives, can take place. ] 13:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


One support vote simply stated that it was a legitimate guideline and the user was comfortable with that. This is not an invalid viewpoint, but it also doesn't offer a very strong argument. The second support vote was made on the basis that "Polling is not a substitute for discussion" reflects consensus on en.wp. That's very arguable, but other editors in the discussion seem to wish to add caveats to that statement, and it is not self-evident that they are wrong. I'm also not sure that we should take a position that a guideline should be preserved merely on the basis that ''the page title'' rings true, without considering the contents of the page. A third support was made on the basis that removing the guideline would mean we wanted everything to be decided based purely on numbers. That seems to me like a false premise, because ] is policy. Moreover, it seems completely obvious that this is not the view of the community and that removing the guideline would not make it so. No-one in this discussion, for example, appears to take such a view.
== Doesn't this "Essay" violate "Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox" and "NPOV"? ==


Overall, the supports, as well as being inferior in number, do not offer compelling arguments.
I'm a little confused by this "essay" about polls and voting. Doesn't this very article violate some of the central tenants of Misplaced Pages? First, it's just a soapbox for people who don't like polls and/or voting on content. Second, it only presents one point of view--that polls/voting are satanic.


Opposes suggested that the page is written like an essay. This is a fair point. It is much longer and more detailed than we usually expect a guideline to be, offers more in the way of observation and, quite possibly, more that might be contentious. It is also argued that polling actually plays a significant role in the development of the project, so it is not desirable to be very prescriptive about its use. On the one hand, this may not be entirely fair on the guideline, which does make clear that there is a place for polling. On the other, a number of users in the discussion express a desire for flexibility where prescription is not needed. From this perspective, it can again be observed that the guideline contains greater detail than guidelines normally have. It is more in line, perhaps, with what the community expects from an essay. Some participants to the discussion indicate a feeling that the guideline strikes a tone which is too cautious about voting and fails to reflect the reality that voting (with or without a !) is something many Wikipedians value. This also seems to me to be an opinion with validity.
I've seen in many places that simply categorizing discussion into "yea" and "nea" camps helps editors come to a consensus... the neatness makes the discussion easy to follow instead of being a jumbled mess. I'm not saying that voting should be binding; I'm saying that it simply helps move a discussion forward and makes it easy to contribute.


Please note that this RfC close is not a funeral rite. Content from the guideline may be suitable for canibalisation or adaption for other policy and guideline pages, which is something that editors who might be unhappy about this close can pursue if they wish.}}
I vote to remove this one-sided essay. (Just kidding).
--] 02:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
:Misplaced Pages's articlespace is not a soap box, but the metapedia portions such as out userspaces, here, and the Vote for Deletion areas are under no such restriction. The concept of essays is that they are POV, but since they exist in order to provoke thought, it's all right. Essays are not encyclopedic material, they are opinions of certain users on how we should run the Wiki. (Additionally, you are quite capable of adding a dissenting opinion if you so desire.) Also, I think you misunderstand the point of the essay, which isn't that voting has no place whatsoever, it's that it is overused. The whole "evil" thing is a joke. --] 03:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


I just read this page, and was surprised to find such a guideline. I then wondered how this could get a guideline status and proceeded to spend an hour reading discussions. I haven't read all discussions, but skimmed over them and am trying to give a summary of the situation.
== Misunderstanding the word "vote" ==


This page's status has been discussed over and over again, as soon as ]. As I write this, it is presented as a guideline. The issue is complexified by renames and numerous proposals to merge with similar pages. There are many discussions that followed, but here are the main (feel free to add those I missed):
According to my dictionary:
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]


2 general issues were pointed out. This page was created by copying the Meta essay ().
:''vote. (1)(a) A formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue. (b) A means by which such a preference is made known, such as a raised hand or a marked ballot.''
First, this was tagged as a guideline from its creation, without following the proper guidelines life cycle. Therefore, this is not officially a guideline. However, as far as I can see, the last time the guideline tag was removed or marked as disputed was 5 years ago (last dispute ended with , although the page was then protected). Therefore, this could be considered as a de facto guideline.
Second, Polls are evil is and has always been an essay written as an essay. This page was originally titled "Discuss, don't vote". This was further enhanced to the current "Polling is not a substitute for discussion", which I consider perfectly neutral. Nevertheless, the content still reflects the personal tone of the original essay, although the tone is much more moderate now. The current content still looks more like a demonization of polls than praise for discussion. As I write this, the page's first sentence is "Polls lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to... suffering.", presented as a quote.


To go forward, we would need to decide whether this should keep the personal and living tone of an essay or if we should continue to turn it into a neutral piece. If there is consensus to make it an essay, the status could be changed. If there is consensus to make it a guideline, an RFC could be opened. If there is no consensus, perhaps this needs to become 2 pages.
Or in other words, many WP procedures (such as AfDs) are what is known as "votes", and the people who participate in them are what is known as "voters". There is an odd canard that floats around Misplaced Pages where people mutter the mantra "(Something) is not a vote", with an apparent ignorance of the meaning of the word "vote".
I am personally not familiar enough with the other pages with which a merge is proposed to say what would be best in the long term. Meanwhile, I have simply restored the disputed tag. --] (]) 05:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


:Disputes that haven't been touched in a year or more may be fairly said to be inactive. You may not like this being a guideline, and you are welcome to start a new discussion on its status, but I'm comfortable with it being a guideline. -- ] 14:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I suspect a lot of these editors have a particularly constricted experience with decision processes in the world, and were taught rather narrow civics classes (or just picked it up from poor newspaper writers). I think what they have in mind is something like the incorrect notion that "vote" means "decision by simple majority", or at least "decision by exact pre-specified super-majority (or plurality)". Obviously, not much on Misplaced Pages is those things. At the same time, an admin who claims not to count votes on an AfD or other procedural process is either being daft in misrepresenting what they do... or they're being something much worse than daft if they actually ''do not'' count the votes. Sure, votes should be contextualized in various ways: are they new editors? are they sockpuppets? do they make useful comments? is there a trend in the voting pattern? did outside events (such as page improvements) occur between one vote and another vote? But to claim innumeracy as some sort of inherent virtue is extremely harmful to process, to fairness, and to consensus.


::To clarify, I didn't mean to say that the dispute is active, nor that this shouldn't become a guideline. As I said, I did not check related pages enough to give an informed opinion on the best course in the long term. I just quickly checked ]. It could be decided that this page addresses a subtopic of polls and that some content from Straw polls should be moved here. I believe Straw polls would then become an informative page without normative content. In this case, the question of whether this page should become an essay or a guideline remains.
In defense of this essay, however, it is not principally concerned with those procedures that need be votes. An AfD or an RfA really cannot ever be anything else. However, things like quick polls on article talk pages exist only at the discretion of the editors of those articles. A quick poll may be, and often is, a useful way to gauge sentiment about some editorial issue, but it ''need not occur''; other mechanisms for discussion and agreement exist, notably simple threaded discussion. Inasmuch as this essay recommends that a quick poll should not the automatic, the default, nor the most definitive mechanism for reaching decisions and consensus, it is entirely right. Editors have an collection of tools to use in discussion, and polls are just one among many, and are only the right tool for some jobs. <font color="darkgreen">]</font>×<font color="darkred" size="-2">]</font> 20:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
::Then, it was also suggested to merge with ]. I don't have an opinion on this at this time. --] (]) 03:41, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


]... well, the closer said that "keep" arguments are strong but not strong enough to deal with blurry intersection, and even superior amount of "delete" votes does not overcome the "keep". Even I, myself, voted "delete". Moreover, another closer said that failure to meet one guideline is not a strong reason to delete. I wonder if NOTVOTE guideline (or disputed guideline) applies to this discussion. Nevertheless, this guideline is conflicted by stronger points in renaming discussions. ] because of readers' interests and intentions to read one article or another. See ]. --] (]) 18:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
==I would like to propose this for inclusion==


:::I just looked here because I was pointing to it in another discussion, and I was very surprised to see the "under discussion" tag. Although I do realize that a certain amount of discussions are essentially closed by vote-counting, particularly when the responses are clearly one-sided, I really think that there is strong community consensus that Misplaced Pages reaches consensus through discussion and not through voting. If there ends up being any serious interest in changing the status here, I would strongly urge a community-wide RfC in order to get, um, discussion, from more than just a few editors. --] (]) 19:41, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
The following statement was placed in this article to avoid NPOV and create balance. It was removed by ], who feels that balanced here is not appropriate. I would appriciate commentary.


*'''Support''' formal adoption of this principle as a guideline (no, I've not fully read the entire page recently). The demonstrated consensus (e.g. in determining AfD outcomes) is indeed that {{tq|polling is not a substitute for discussion}}. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">-- ]</span> (]) 12:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
The Statement
*'''Oppose:''' Not that with the message traffic here people seem to care all that much, but it's plain that there are many areas of Misplaced Pages which DO use polls. Aside from those AfDs which are flooded by anon IPs, it is seldom the case where a closing admin will dare to rule for policy over consensus, and most of those cases go straight to DRV. RfA is absolutely a head count, pure and simple; as I documented a couple years ago, almost no admin candidate who hits the 75% threshold and fails to withdraw is ever denied admin status, and almost no candidate who fails to hit 70% is ever promoted. Unless people are willing to truly apply this principle, ''across Misplaced Pages,'' there is no sense in enacting it. ] 20:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
*'''Polls are evil''' - I love that there is a poll about a page on polling. - Anyway, This should be an '''Essay'''. It's how it's written. ] exists for those who want a project guideline. If anything, '''reverse-merge''' to ]. - <b>]</b> 20:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
:Consensus method is seen by many as inherently unfair, as there is no proper adjudication of the issue at hand. After much (or little) discussion, one or more parties may simply declare "Now that we've discussed things, it is clear everyone agrees with me, we have consensus." Only in cases where two or more strong personalities exist within the group will this be challenged. Even if challenged, the result is usually the declarer or challenger being expunged from the group. This is Alpha Male politics at it's worst.
*:'''Note:'''This user actually means '''Demote to essay'''.] (]) 14:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
*::This user actually meant what this user wrote : )
:In it's original form, consensus method has some viablity as it requires that there is no consensus unless there are no objectors, hence the parlamentary term "Consent Agenda". If even one member of a group is opposed, consensus does not exist, and deliberations must continue. However, this version is rarely practiced.
*::Comments in an RfC need not be emboldened text : )
*::(and yes, the irony here doesn't escape me : ) - <b>]</b> 22:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
:Using voting and polls, the support among the group is clearly measured, and defined in a mathematical way. While politics, preference and bias may factor in voting, that is no less true in concensus method
*<s>'''Demote to essay'''</s> - Weighing on consensus is very hard, especially for those not familiar with policies and essays. With recent events, such as ], maybe majority vote is becoming more important than article quality and rules, as some deletion-ists have good arguments. Also, move requests rely more on vote counts, as rules may change. --] (]) 20:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
*'''Demote''' ] is an adequate explanation of the subject at hand. Yes, it's a bit vague, but so is the (US) Constitution; wiggle room is desirable. Admins are free to give as much or as little weight to poll results as desired, and I certainly wouldn't want this page to discourage anyone from voting because he or she doesn't think it matters. --] (]) 15:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
'''Support as a guideline''' Logic and reason have ''got'' to be worth more than how many people sign their name to something. The only reason to demote this would be if we don't believe in that anymore and we want AFDs, RFCs, etc to be closed based solely on majority rule. Does that sound like a good idea to anyone? ] (]) 18:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
* If you want this guideline to stay as a guideline, must requested moves be exempted from this guideline? --] (]) 18:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
* It doesn't sound like a good idea ... but it does seem to reflect current Misplaced Pages practice. There are many areas where headcounts are what carries the day, and there are some areas - like RfA - where majority vote is the tacit rule. If this guideline is enforced, then it should remain one. If it isn't, then it should be demoted. And it isn't. ] 20:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
* '''Comment''' - While common sense is used to ignore this guideline, I have never seen such demeaning mentality over one simple thing, title X vs. title Y, in ]. Therefore, I've crossed out my vote, so I'll be '''neutral''' for now. --] (]) 15:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
* '''Demote''' We can't have a guideline contradicting ]. ]<sup>]. ]</sup> 16:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
* '''Demote''' We have voting system''s'' in Misplaced Pages. Even FA elections are somewhat more like polling than consensus. Meanwhile, this guideline demeans the benefits of voting, such as efficiency and reflection of group intelligence. Per users above, common sense has been used for billions of times to ignore this. It does looks like copied from an essay as well. By the way, should some admins come and close this? This discussion is sooo inactive. P.S. If we use vote-counting here, the result is a perfect tie.] (]) 13:31, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
* '''Demote to essay''' We need fewer guidelines not more. ] (]) 00:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
::], I'd suggesst using stronger arguments, as consensus concerns about the quality of argument more.] (]) 14:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
:::Are you saying that a desire for a small set of consistent rules rather than the current rambling musings of the community is not a strong argument, then you have misunderstood the last 300 years of scientific reductionism. ] (]) 08:09, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
:::I thought you could explain more on why there should be fewer guidelines, not really saying it is not a good reason.] (]) 09:13, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
* '''Demote'''. Polling is not a substitute for discussion. Discussion is not a substitute for polling. This is trivially true: the two do different things and get used in different ways in Misplaced Pages. Right now Misplaced Pages works remarkably well by being flexible about everything (sometimes excruciatingly so!). Anything that acts against this is probably unwise, particularly if it encourages category errors of the kind implicit in the wording of this discussion. (You'll note that my response is a weird hybrid of both a poll response and a discussion response. A pure poll or a pure discussion wouldn't allow this sort of mixed response, but by having both a great deal of flexibility is obtained.) ] (]) 06:59, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
{{archivebottom}}


== RfC: Guideline status ==
{{unsigned|72.92.152.161}}
{{Archive top|result= This RfC was closed because no one leaves comment at all. ] (]) 06:28, 7 July 2014 (UTC) }}
As there is a tied and inactive discussion on whether to retain ] as a guideline. I would like to have outsiders' opinion here. Thanks!] (]) 14:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


:Update: It looks like a consensus on demoting this guideline is forming. Before requesting for closure, I hope some more people can give their opinion here.] (]) 08:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
=== Support inclusion ===
{{archive bottom}}
#
#


=== Oppose inclusion === == Voting is evil! ==
# <font color="darkgreen">]</font>×<font color="darkred" size="-2">]</font> 19:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC). To my mind, this editorial statement is more-or-less diametrically opposite the sentiment advanced in the essay. Well, maybe not quite "diametric", but definitely a very different position. This type of material would be better fleshed out in another essay such as ].
#'''Oppose''' as it has practically no bearing on the essay at hand. It's also wrong, but that's beside the point. --] 21:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
#'''Oppose''' as the reasoning is insufficiently rigorous and the writing not tight enough. The sentiment itself validly has some place in the article as a minority opinion, I think. ] 08:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


If this is true, then what is Misplaced Pages? A monarchy?! --]] 16:44, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
===Discussion===
:It is a problematic policy. Who decides if an argument is "good"? Misplaced Pages is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.--] (]) 01:58, 14 July 2016 (UTC)


== Explanatory supplement ==
JA: I need more clarification of what exactly is being proposed here. Is it the inclusion of the quoted statement on the main page ], or something more than that? Thanks, ] 13:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


This should be an ]. Several policies and guidelines link to the essay to supplement and clarify their meaning.--] (]) 20:20, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
:The quick poll is on the inclusion of the quoted statement in the essay. That's it. <font color="darkgreen">]</font>×<font color="darkred" size="-2">]</font> 16:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


===Removal of Support and Oppose sections=== == Usage of !vote ==


According to ] which links to a section of this article, {{tq|Wikipedians often use the expression "!vote" (read as "not-vote"). The "!" symbol is used in various fields as a symbol for logical negation and was introduced in this way on English Misplaced Pages in 2006. So a reference to a "!vote" or "!voting" is a reminder and affirmation that the writer's comments in a poll, and the comments by others, are not voting, but are just offering individual views in a consensus-building discussion.}} However, in practice, I feel like it is much more common to see people use the phrase "!vote" to refer to their actual votes. Perhaps the text on this page should also include a comment that this phrase is often used in a way at odds with the original intent of the term? <sub>signed, </sub>] <sup>]</sup> 00:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Wikpedia Policy sates:

<blockquote>
'''Responding to RfCs'''
<p>
Try not to be confrontational. Be friendly and keep calm.
'''''Specifically, do not create "disendorsement" sections on RfCs.''''' If you disagree with something someone else has said, you may add your own separate statement discussing how you disagree. Do not create a "Users who do not agree with this summary" section, or the equivalent. This tends be a confrontational act and usually creates more heat than light.
Mediate where possible - identify common ground, attempt to draw editors together rather than push them apart.
If necessary, educate users by referring to the appropriate Misplaced Pages policies. {{unsigned|72.92.152.161}}
</blockquote>

== Guideline ==

This was common practice back when it was a page on META rather than EnWiki. It describes the common outcome of a common process, which by definition equates to consensus. ''Therefore'' it is a guideline. --] 16:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
:Whether we want to say that consensus is determined by discussion or by voting of established users, it is clear that consensus is not determined unilaterally. A claim by one editor that something is an accepted or common practice does not constitute consensus. In fact, there is precedent for the use of voting of established users to adopt policies. For instance, the ] was enacted as a result of the ]. Since this is a contentious issue, it might be advisable to discuss the conversion of ] into a guideline before decreeing it to be so. ] 16:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*You are, I hope, aware that that vote was two and a half years ago? Also, this guideline does not ''forbid'' voting, it strongly argues against it. This ''is'' accepted and common practice; for reference, you can watch the categories for proposals and guidelines. It seems to me that your argument boils down to "we have voted at some point in the past and therefore we may not recommend against it". --] 17:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, we have voted on two major policies in the past -- see ] as well. In any case, my argument is ''not'' "we have voted at some point in the past and therefore we may not recommend against it". My argument is that, given the fact that two major policies have been created as a result of votes, if we want to recommend against voting now, we should have a discussion about adopting ] as a guideline, rather than simply stating that ] has long been a common practice. Furthermore, a discussion to determine consensus to adopt a guideline would require participation by many editors, not merely two. ] 17:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*You are being overly ] over the issue. A statement that describes common practice is a ''de facto'' guideline; see ] for how the process works, or as Kim Bruning. We have voted on some policies in the past, and more recently ''not'' voted on a larger number of policies. And WhatLinksHere for this guideline shows that it is heavily in use. So yes, it is consensual. --] 17:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Radiant that the non-bureaucratic nature of Misplaced Pages is at the heart of this. To say that something is a guideline is merely to describe its function on Misplaced Pages. Sticking the tag on it is merely a recognition of a ''de facto'' state of affairs. We don't need to hold a big discussion prior to sticking the tag on, we just say "this is what we do on Misplaced Pages so it's a guideline." There has to be a compelling reason ''not'' to put the tag on in such circumstances. --] 17:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony at least has heard my opinion on de facto rules already: they shouldn't exist. By attempting to unilateraly declare something policy, you undercut the support in the process by the lack of openness. The "non-bureacratic nature" of Misplaced Pages is found in the openness of the processes it uses. Dictatorship is of course also non-bureacratic, but I don't believe that's what you meant by the nature of Misplaced Pages.

However, since this essay definitely does approach guideline status in its use, I support a ''consensus'' of this officially being made a guideline. --] 18:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' conversion of this essay into a guideline. A complete avoidance of votes to illustrate consensus leaves us without any clear evidence of what the consensus actually is. We are thus left with edit wars in which each opposing side claims -- and legitimately believes -- that their version of a page is the consensus version. The avoidance of votes on policy matters creates problems such as those exhibited on ], where there is an edit war over whether the page is actually a guideline or a proposal, whether there is a consensus for enacting the proposal as a guideline, etc. Due to this dispute, the page is now protected. There is even ! A vote of established users would be an excellent way to resolve the deadlock as to whether ] is really a guideline. A classic objection to polls is the possibility of sockpuppetry -- however, by limiting voting to established users, almost all sockpuppetry can be prevented. If we declare that "voting is evil" as an official guideline, we will cause many edit wars and other disputes simply because nobody will really know what the consensus actually is. ] 18:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*See the ]: Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Nobody here suggests a "complete avoidance of votes", soyour argument is a straw man. A vote would be an awful way to resolve WP:DENY, for the very reasons discussed on this page. ] 19:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*Indeed, enacting ] as a guideline wouldn't really produce "a complete avoidence of votes", it would produce an ''almost'' complete avoidence of votes. Which would create all of the problems that I previously described -- most issues that were deadlocked due to an inability to discern consensus still wouldn't be resolved by voting. ] 19:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
::A vote doesn't solve that. It is quite valid that a majority vote is not be binding, regardless of whether it was ensured to be purely a vote of established users. It would still be claimed, validly, that a bad policy is still a bad policy; a vote wouldn't solve an edit war over that, only an agreement, which can only be produced by discussion. Your theory of sockpuppets is likewise novel, but the fact remains that while it is trivially simple to discount obvious sockpuppets, there are numerous supposedly established users that are in fact sockpuppets; similarly, any host of tendentious article editors or others with an agenda on this openly accessible and quite popular encyclopedia can easily game the vote. Even if you were to somehow magically ensure that all voters had the fundamental principles of Misplaced Pages at heart, you cannot ensure that they know an issue well enough or have read the discussion about it to make an informed vote. I won't continue now with the several other problems with voting. The only way to make valid decisions is through reasons with reference to the principles of Misplaced Pages. Voting is a romantic but increasingly unworkable notion. —]→]&nbsp;&bull; 20:19, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
:We cannot always act on the basis of "an agreement, which can only be produced by discussion" because there are some issues upon which there will never be any agreement. Of course we attempt to "make valid decisions... through reasons with reference to the principles of Misplaced Pages", but this does not constitute a ''method'' of making decisions because there will disagreements how the principles of Misplaced Pages should be upheld in particular cases. If there were really "numerous supposedly established users that are in fact sockpuppets", then it would seem that the use of voting in ] would produce a dysfunctional process -- supposedly, ] is not a vote, of course, but very rarely does the candidate become an administrator after receiving the support of less than 75% of the established editors commenting on their candidacy. Similarly, pages are rarely deleted if a majority of established editors endorse keeping them. We have employed vote-like mechanisms in these situations because there is really no other way to produce an outcome that will be widely regarded as correct. Of course, where ] has shown leadership on certain questions, his judgment must be respected. What I take issue with, however, is the "anti-voting thesis" that ordinary editors are somehow empowered to act against the wishes of most editors, to create policy that most editors do not want, and to delete pages that most editors want to keep, based on the claim that the principles of Misplaced Pages are somehow being advanced. Since we disagree on how to apply the principles, the "anti-voting thesis" inevitably leads to anarchy, with every editor edit warring for the version of the page that they favor, and every administrator wheel warring over page deletions based on their personal views of these pages' merits. Editors or administrators who wish to do something that most editors won't like have three avenues of appeal: to ], to ], and to the arbitration committee. Misplaced Pages has, and needs, leaders, who are free to act against the majority if necessary. However, we cannot endure a situation where all editors proclaim themselves to be leaders in their own right. ] 21:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
::Appeal to '''Danny'''? Dude, where did that come from? ] (]) 23:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*What you have written here is a clear essay against the ]. The point of VIE is the exact opposite: if you vote, whatever the threshold is, one party loses. Discussion, on the other hand, makes people draw up a meaningful compromise, which means that everybody wins. And that's why one should not vote. ] 21:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
::Or, even worse, because both parties were too busy pushing and rallying votes, they didn't discuss different possibilities and the reasons for them, so everyone loses. —]→]&nbsp;&bull; 21:55, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*I do not see ] as a means by which ordinary editors may act against the will of the majority. Instead, ] simply accounts for the fact that the rules are necessarily written in broad and sweeping language, and cannot possibly anticipate every situation. Thus, there are some occasions upon which it is a good idea to ignore the text of the rules in order to act in the best interests of Misplaced Pages -- ''when it is apparent that ignoring the rules in question would be widely regarded as the correct action to take under the circumstances'' (no actual voting is necessary, but what is known about the opinions of most Misplaced Pages editors must be respected). The claim that <blockquote>Discussion, on the other hand, makes people draw up a meaningful compromise, which means that everybody wins.</blockquote>is an attractive theory; however, many practical applications of ], such as the speedy deletion of the ] even though most established editors in the second MFD nomination supported keeping it, mean that most people lose. ] 22:14, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*If you are under the impression that MFD is a vote, you are sorely mistaken. ] 22:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
*I also '''Oppose''' per ] ] 22:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
**If you are under the impression that ''this'' is a vote, you are also sorely mistaken. ] 23:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
***I was hoping that was witty irony. ]·] 23:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I think we have some misconceptions to address here. First, no amount of arguing here will make this page ''not'' a guideline (or policy or whatever): it is already generally agreed upon and in practice, and, most importantly, ''very sensible''. The second misconception seems to be that voting and process are the same; this is very wrong. None of the various XfD processes, or RfA, RfM, etc., or even policy creation, while they are processes, are voting processes. In fact, ''none'' of our valuable processes are voting at all, for some very good, agreed-upon reasons, which can be conveniently found at ], and none of them are intended to be by the community. ] and CVU are red herrings; if we accept that they were out-of-process, that is a far cry from accepting that VIE is flawed or without support. The speedy deletion of any page cannot reasonably be an application of VIE. The concept applies only to the decision-making process. It goes like this: "How shall we decide?" "Well, not by voting on it, that's for sure." It doesn't suggest ''against the commuity's will'' but rather, that voting is not a valid way of determining such. (What you are referring to is a disputed application of ].) This page should be marked as a guideline. ]·] 23:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
::The CVU deletion is an application of ]. The closing administrator in the second MFD nomination stated that "This is not a vote. Arguments do count" -- in other words, arguments for the deletion of the CVU, advanced by an indefinitely banned vandal, were more important than the opinions of most legitimate users. This is "voting is evil" at its worst. ] 23:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
:::It wasn't a vote. The arguments did count. That's a ''fact'', and anyone who disputes that clearly has no idea how decision making processes on Misplaced Pages work.--] | ] 23:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not sure whether "voting is evil" is a guideline or a policy, but it's clearly one or the other. I'm perfectly happy with it being labeled as a guideline. Or a policy. Or whatever. Doesn't really matter, since, well, voting is evil, no matter what template tag you stick on this page. ] (]) 23:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Clearly if one is vote-stacking and vote-canvassing (such as the gentleman above), voting is essential in order to win by numbers. How charming. Please stop. ] ] 23:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
:Actually, it is an accepted and common practice to post information about ongoing discussions on project pages in boldface type -- for example, see , as well as the many other postings about ongoing AFD discussions accessible from the page history of ]. It does not appear that administrators have removed these postings, or that members of ] have been warned to refrain from such postings -- despite the fact that ] is explicitly partisan as to the preferred outcome of AFD discussions. Why, then, is information about ongoing discussions posted on ] removed, and why am I warned that ? ] 00:08, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
::You're right, except that they're supposed to be related. The Counter-Vandalism Unit and Voting Is Evil have about as much to do with each other as a streetcar and a herd of cows. Look, you got caught vote canvassing fair and square because you thought, wrongly, that what was happening here had something to do with the CVU. It doesn't. It has plenty to with *fD, but the CVU isn't a deletion process. ] ] 00:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Have we got rid of any guidelines in the last week? In no then standard opistiontion to adding more guidelines applies.] 23:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

:Errm, if I understand you right, that's a ].
:Anyway, calling this a guideline will encourage people to jump ahead of the process to set any consensus we reach in stone when it is applicable. Generally we have discussions first, decide what to do then, and finally reach a point where we can be satisfied that most people would support it in a formal poll based on the understanding reached in previous discussions. The danger in making this a guideline is that it would remove the verification process. We need to know that when someone says "the final decision is X" that they aren't ]. What we need to do is make a page about the recommended way to make decisions on proposals, (including content about ] ''and its counterpoint'' ],) and then make that page a guideline.
:Cover all the bases. Do it the Right Way. --]]] 00:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

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Guideline status

See box. Formerip (talk) 18:16, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Result: Demote to essay status.

3 editors supported the status of this page as a guideline, 8 opposed it and 1 was neutral. Surely that's all anyone needs to know? However, just in case...

Demoting a guideline is not a minor step, particularly if the guideline has been in place for a long time. So, it should require a very clear consensus. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that this guideline was created without consensus and has been persistently controversial. That doesn't erase its legitimacy, but might mean that a less cautious approach can be taken with regard to altering its status.

One support vote simply stated that it was a legitimate guideline and the user was comfortable with that. This is not an invalid viewpoint, but it also doesn't offer a very strong argument. The second support vote was made on the basis that "Polling is not a substitute for discussion" reflects consensus on en.wp. That's very arguable, but other editors in the discussion seem to wish to add caveats to that statement, and it is not self-evident that they are wrong. I'm also not sure that we should take a position that a guideline should be preserved merely on the basis that the page title rings true, without considering the contents of the page. A third support was made on the basis that removing the guideline would mean we wanted everything to be decided based purely on numbers. That seems to me like a false premise, because WP:NOTDEMOCRACY is policy. Moreover, it seems completely obvious that this is not the view of the community and that removing the guideline would not make it so. No-one in this discussion, for example, appears to take such a view.

Overall, the supports, as well as being inferior in number, do not offer compelling arguments.

Opposes suggested that the page is written like an essay. This is a fair point. It is much longer and more detailed than we usually expect a guideline to be, offers more in the way of observation and, quite possibly, more that might be contentious. It is also argued that polling actually plays a significant role in the development of the project, so it is not desirable to be very prescriptive about its use. On the one hand, this may not be entirely fair on the guideline, which does make clear that there is a place for polling. On the other, a number of users in the discussion express a desire for flexibility where prescription is not needed. From this perspective, it can again be observed that the guideline contains greater detail than guidelines normally have. It is more in line, perhaps, with what the community expects from an essay. Some participants to the discussion indicate a feeling that the guideline strikes a tone which is too cautious about voting and fails to reflect the reality that voting (with or without a !) is something many Wikipedians value. This also seems to me to be an opinion with validity.

Please note that this RfC close is not a funeral rite. Content from the guideline may be suitable for canibalisation or adaption for other policy and guideline pages, which is something that editors who might be unhappy about this close can pursue if they wish.

I just read this page, and was surprised to find such a guideline. I then wondered how this could get a guideline status and proceeded to spend an hour reading discussions. I haven't read all discussions, but skimmed over them and am trying to give a summary of the situation.

This page's status has been discussed over and over again, as soon as When was this page authorized by consensus?. As I write this, it is presented as a guideline. The issue is complexified by renames and numerous proposals to merge with similar pages. There are many discussions that followed, but here are the main (feel free to add those I missed):

2 general issues were pointed out. This page was created by copying the Meta essay Polls are evil (). First, this was tagged as a guideline from its creation, without following the proper guidelines life cycle. Therefore, this is not officially a guideline. However, as far as I can see, the last time the guideline tag was removed or marked as disputed was 5 years ago (last dispute ended with , although the page was then protected). Therefore, this could be considered as a de facto guideline. Second, Polls are evil is and has always been an essay written as an essay. This page was originally titled "Discuss, don't vote". This was further enhanced to the current "Polling is not a substitute for discussion", which I consider perfectly neutral. Nevertheless, the content still reflects the personal tone of the original essay, although the tone is much more moderate now. The current content still looks more like a demonization of polls than praise for discussion. As I write this, the page's first sentence is "Polls lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to... suffering.", presented as a quote.

To go forward, we would need to decide whether this should keep the personal and living tone of an essay or if we should continue to turn it into a neutral piece. If there is consensus to make it an essay, the status could be changed. If there is consensus to make it a guideline, an RFC could be opened. If there is no consensus, perhaps this needs to become 2 pages. I am personally not familiar enough with the other pages with which a merge is proposed to say what would be best in the long term. Meanwhile, I have simply restored the disputed tag. --Chealer (talk) 05:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Disputes that haven't been touched in a year or more may be fairly said to be inactive. You may not like this being a guideline, and you are welcome to start a new discussion on its status, but I'm comfortable with it being a guideline. -- Donald Albury 14:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
To clarify, I didn't mean to say that the dispute is active, nor that this shouldn't become a guideline. As I said, I did not check related pages enough to give an informed opinion on the best course in the long term. I just quickly checked Misplaced Pages:Straw polls. It could be decided that this page addresses a subtopic of polls and that some content from Straw polls should be moved here. I believe Straw polls would then become an informative page without normative content. In this case, the question of whether this page should become an essay or a guideline remains.
Then, it was also suggested to merge with Misplaced Pages:Consensus. I don't have an opinion on this at this time. --Chealer (talk) 03:41, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:articles for deletion/Olivia Hack... well, the closer said that "keep" arguments are strong but not strong enough to deal with blurry intersection, and even superior amount of "delete" votes does not overcome the "keep". Even I, myself, voted "delete". Moreover, another closer said that failure to meet one guideline is not a strong reason to delete. I wonder if NOTVOTE guideline (or disputed guideline) applies to this discussion. Nevertheless, this guideline is conflicted by stronger points in renaming discussions. I tend to ignore this guideline because of readers' interests and intentions to read one article or another. See Talk:Doctor Zhivago. --George Ho (talk) 18:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I just looked here because I was pointing to it in another discussion, and I was very surprised to see the "under discussion" tag. Although I do realize that a certain amount of discussions are essentially closed by vote-counting, particularly when the responses are clearly one-sided, I really think that there is strong community consensus that Misplaced Pages reaches consensus through discussion and not through voting. If there ends up being any serious interest in changing the status here, I would strongly urge a community-wide RfC in order to get, um, discussion, from more than just a few editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Support formal adoption of this principle as a guideline (no, I've not fully read the entire page recently). The demonstrated consensus (e.g. in determining AfD outcomes) is indeed that polling is not a substitute for discussion. -- Trevj (talk) 12:00, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Not that with the message traffic here people seem to care all that much, but it's plain that there are many areas of Misplaced Pages which DO use polls. Aside from those AfDs which are flooded by anon IPs, it is seldom the case where a closing admin will dare to rule for policy over consensus, and most of those cases go straight to DRV. RfA is absolutely a head count, pure and simple; as I documented a couple years ago, almost no admin candidate who hits the 75% threshold and fails to withdraw is ever denied admin status, and almost no candidate who fails to hit 70% is ever promoted. Unless people are willing to truly apply this principle, across Misplaced Pages, there is no sense in enacting it. Ravenswing 20:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Polls are evil - I love that there is a poll about a page on polling. - Anyway, This should be an Essay. It's how it's written. Misplaced Pages:Straw polls exists for those who want a project guideline. If anything, reverse-merge to Misplaced Pages:Straw polls. - jc37 20:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
    Note:This user actually means Demote to essay.Forbidden User (talk) 14:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    This user actually meant what this user wrote : )
    Comments in an RfC need not be emboldened text : )
    (and yes, the irony here doesn't escape me : ) - jc37 22:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Demote to essay - Weighing on consensus is very hard, especially for those not familiar with policies and essays. With recent events, such as Justin Bieber on Twitter, maybe majority vote is becoming more important than article quality and rules, as some deletion-ists have good arguments. Also, move requests rely more on vote counts, as rules may change. --George Ho (talk) 20:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Demote WP:NOTDEMOCRACY is an adequate explanation of the subject at hand. Yes, it's a bit vague, but so is the (US) Constitution; wiggle room is desirable. Admins are free to give as much or as little weight to poll results as desired, and I certainly wouldn't want this page to discourage anyone from voting because he or she doesn't think it matters. --BDD (talk) 15:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Support as a guideline Logic and reason have got to be worth more than how many people sign their name to something. The only reason to demote this would be if we don't believe in that anymore and we want AFDs, RFCs, etc to be closed based solely on majority rule. Does that sound like a good idea to anyone? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

  • If you want this guideline to stay as a guideline, must requested moves be exempted from this guideline? --George Ho (talk) 18:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
  • It doesn't sound like a good idea ... but it does seem to reflect current Misplaced Pages practice. There are many areas where headcounts are what carries the day, and there are some areas - like RfA - where majority vote is the tacit rule. If this guideline is enforced, then it should remain one. If it isn't, then it should be demoted. And it isn't. Ravenswing 20:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - While common sense is used to ignore this guideline, I have never seen such demeaning mentality over one simple thing, title X vs. title Y, in WP:move review. Therefore, I've crossed out my vote, so I'll be neutral for now. --George Ho (talk) 15:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Demote We can't have a guideline contradicting a policy. 2Awwsome 16:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Demote We have voting systems in Misplaced Pages. Even FA elections are somewhat more like polling than consensus. Meanwhile, this guideline demeans the benefits of voting, such as efficiency and reflection of group intelligence. Per users above, common sense has been used for billions of times to ignore this. It does looks like copied from an essay as well. By the way, should some admins come and close this? This discussion is sooo inactive. P.S. If we use vote-counting here, the result is a perfect tie.Forbidden User (talk) 13:31, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Demote to essay We need fewer guidelines not more. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Stuartyeates, I'd suggesst using stronger arguments, as consensus concerns about the quality of argument more.Forbidden User (talk) 14:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
Are you saying that a desire for a small set of consistent rules rather than the current rambling musings of the community is not a strong argument, then you have misunderstood the last 300 years of scientific reductionism. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:09, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
I thought you could explain more on why there should be fewer guidelines, not really saying it is not a good reason.Forbidden User (talk) 09:13, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Demote. Polling is not a substitute for discussion. Discussion is not a substitute for polling. This is trivially true: the two do different things and get used in different ways in Misplaced Pages. Right now Misplaced Pages works remarkably well by being flexible about everything (sometimes excruciatingly so!). Anything that acts against this is probably unwise, particularly if it encourages category errors of the kind implicit in the wording of this discussion. (You'll note that my response is a weird hybrid of both a poll response and a discussion response. A pure poll or a pure discussion wouldn't allow this sort of mixed response, but by having both a great deal of flexibility is obtained.) RomanSpa (talk) 06:59, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: Guideline status

This RfC was closed because no one leaves comment at all. Forbidden User (talk) 06:28, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As there is a tied and inactive discussion on whether to retain Misplaced Pages:Polling is not a substitute for discussion as a guideline. I would like to have outsiders' opinion here. Thanks!Forbidden User (talk) 14:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Update: It looks like a consensus on demoting this guideline is forming. Before requesting for closure, I hope some more people can give their opinion here.Forbidden User (talk) 08:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Voting is evil!

If this is true, then what is Misplaced Pages? A monarchy?! --MurderByDeletionism 16:44, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

It is a problematic policy. Who decides if an argument is "good"? Misplaced Pages is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:58, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Explanatory supplement

This should be an Explanatory supplement. Several policies and guidelines link to the essay to supplement and clarify their meaning.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 20:20, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Usage of !vote

According to WP:!VOTE which links to a section of this article, Wikipedians often use the expression "!vote" (read as "not-vote"). The "!" symbol is used in various fields as a symbol for logical negation and was introduced in this way on English Misplaced Pages in 2006. So a reference to a "!vote" or "!voting" is a reminder and affirmation that the writer's comments in a poll, and the comments by others, are not voting, but are just offering individual views in a consensus-building discussion. However, in practice, I feel like it is much more common to see people use the phrase "!vote" to refer to their actual votes. Perhaps the text on this page should also include a comment that this phrase is often used in a way at odds with the original intent of the term? signed, Rosguill 00:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

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