Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Axon (talk | contribs) at 15:29, 4 March 2005 (→Consensus is not unanimity). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

well i like the way this is starting. I'm quite fond of a good consensus! Erich 05:42, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I like how this page thinks about the problems of consensus in big groups. We are seeing this on policy pages, where it is increasingly difficult to change things because of the sheer weight of numbers. This doesn't often affect article pages, thank goodness. Pcb21| Pete 11:22, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Unavoidable conflict

Misplaced Pages is a consensus. Since anyone may edit, anyone has veto power. This may seemingly be "over ridden" by the collective will of the wikicommunity, but if a minority of one editor participates in the process at all, it once again resembles consensus.

Consensus, like most relationships, is easiest when few people are involved. There are two potential consequences of this:

1. Wikipedians may attempt to discourage growth or new users in an attempt to facilitate consensus
2. Consensus may become impossible to maintain as ever growing numbers of new people toss articles around

Thus wikipedia should institute practices which facilitate consensus. An additional benifit may be that initially hostile new users may realize there is a system set up not with the purpose of blocking them, but with facilitating their edits. Links:

• Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view
• Misplaced Pages:How to create policy

Hyacinth 05:08, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As has been stated numerous times, consensus is not unanimity. →Raul654 16:20, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

Then I would be wrong, wikipedia does not run on consensus but on unanimity.Hyacinth 00:30, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You are wrong. Misplaced Pages does run on consensus, not unanimity, because unanimity is paralyzing (as you have observed). →Raul654 09:37, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)

not wanting to call anyone wrong... but... it seems to me that Misplaced Pages runs on neither unanimity or consensus. Too many people must walk away from debates feeling frustrated. I suspect we never even here from most of them... they just walk away frustrated or not that interested. Whether they are a silent minority or a silent majority we don't know. The absense of rules, and mass action makes wikipedia a very political business. To achieve your goals you need to impress people, make allies, form alliances, and most of all persist. The most persistent with the most allies is the most successful.

either that or you avoid conflict. Erich 11:46, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Conflict, in the sense of disagreements about article content, is absolutely necessary for the existance and improvement of wikipedia, and thus unavoidable, avoidance is not even desireable. Conflict, in the sense of fighting, while undesireable, is also often unavoidable: Misplaced Pages:Wikihate. Hyacinth 21:13, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So, to correct: "Misplaced Pages, when it works, works on consensus."? Hyacinth 21:17, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

agree with the above. soo.. it seems we agree:

1. debate is healthy
2. consensus is the ideal method of forming articles
3. avoiding conflict is undesirable
4. Misplaced Pages has scope to improve in the way debate, consensus and conflict are manged

or do we? as for point 4... I guess that's why we're here! Erich 23:18, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have a point that belongs there too. Too many people think that their ideas are valid just because they believe them - the idea that you must use reasoning and logic to back up your position is foreign to them. On Misplaced Pages, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to back up your assertions with actual reasoning, not "this is my opinion and Misplaced Pages should be open to all ideas so then it should be included" (which is something you are apt to hear quite often). →Raul654 00:23, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. I've never heard that argument, in fact, the opposite is true. People attempt to align their personal believes with a Scientific Objectivity that is, in the eye's of wikipedia policy, the same thing. Hyacinth 00:27, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Just read anything written by Plautus Satire, or Drbalaji md, etc. And for the record, wikipedia (like scientific objectivity) rests on proof, not faith and opinion. Misplaced Pages's policy most definitely makes a distinction between the two. →Raul654 00:47, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, an opinion is a fact. Hyacinth 01:02, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A statement of opinion ("My favorite color is red") is a fact. An opinion ("Chocolate cake is the best kind of cake") is not a fact. →Raul654 01:08, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

Every opinion express an indirect fact about its author vision. There is an implicit ("I think that") before each statement of opinion. anyways, such a fact is not relevant on wikipedia Izwalito

Correct, and to quote Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view:

• "The neutral point of view policy states that one should write articles without bias, representing all views fairly...The policy doesn't assume that it's possible to write an article from just a single unbiased, "objective" point of view."

I didn't say that a single POV should be represented, I said that not all of them should be - that's when you get conspiracy theorists and alike. That's also why we require evidence to back it claims. Furthermore, it leads to terrible prose and cross-fire like debates within articles. That was the issue dealt with when Plautus satire was banned. →Raul654 02:13, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

Consensus is not unanimity

OK, so what is it? According to Misplaced Pages:

The process of achieving consensus involves serious treatment of every group member's considered opinion, and a collective trust in each member's discretion in follow-up action. In the ideal case, those who wish to take up some action want to hear those who oppose it, because they count on the fact that the ensuing debate will improve the consensus. In theory, action without resolution of considered opposition will be rare, and done with attention to minimize damage to relationships.

Yes, that's not unanimity, but it's a lot closer to unanimity than what we see in many Misplaced Pages policies, which often come down to some sort of supermajority vote.

anthony (see warning) 13:26, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A consensus is a general agreement of the members of a group, which make a decision possible without the need to vote. A consensus can be uninamity, but is not obligatorily uninamity. Consensus as a method of deciding, tries to put in light on the validity of each participant opinion, to take in count every valid opinion and refuses to validate a choice when someone has a valid disagrement to object.Izwalito

Consensus is not precisely defined in official Misplaced Pages policy, but it is widely accepted that 80% is a fair threshold; by this definition, the minimum number of people that can build a non-unanimous consensus is five (a 4 to 1 vote means that 80% agree). ~leif ☺ _HELO 04:13, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There's no consensus at all if the fifth doesn't feel satisfied with the conclusion. That's the point. As far as that's concerned, consensus is unanimity. It certainly isn't the majority steamrollering the minority -- at least, not in the real world.Dr Zen 11:44, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Accordingly U-3 and lesser degrees of unanimity are usually lumped in with statistical measures of agreement, such as "80%, mean plus one sigma, Two-Thirds, 50% plus one" levels of agreement. Such measures do not fit within the definition of consensus given at the beginning of this article." Consensus decision-making. Should be required reading for anyone who thinks a poll creates consensus.Dr Zen 11:47, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's insane to think that methods of community consensus will port to Misplaced Pages, where 'community' itself is ill-defined. Voting works here because the marginal difference that one vote makes is seldom the deciding factor, so there's not the same sort of motivation to try and game the system. 80% is not consensus by the definition given above, but the definition above leads to madness, and doom. grendel|khan 05:26, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)

Well, would there be anything wrong with that? I always liked doom, myself. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 06:36, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I wonder whether Grendel would like to have a go at making that POV sound less like something ey pulled from eis arse? I think consensus can be "ported" here. Yes, the coming and going of members makes the community rather fluid, and yes, that type of "consensus" is much easier to create than it would be in a smaller group (although one reminds oneself that it is precisely the decision-making method in diplomacy, where treaty wordings are most usually decided by consensus -- although, of course, one wouldn't forget that treaty language is circumscribed). But look at Blankfaze's proposal to expand CSD as an example. There is consensus that "something needs to be done". Ey could have proposed changes, looked at any opposition, incorporated others' views and in time built a policy that all involved felt was satisfactory (even if it wasn't precisely what any of them wanted). Instead, ey has gone for a series of votes, which, if any were to pass, say, by 80-20, giving the percentage Grendel suggests represents "consensus", there will be 20 editors who were interested enough to vote and do not want the policy (plus however many of the 80 who voted in favour who might have rather had a somewhat different policy but plumped for what was on offer). How is that "consensus" under any definition, let alone the one that leads this article?Dr Zen 10:07, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Unanimity: "everyone being of one mind". Consensus: "general agreement or accord". It's a judgement call whether 80/20 represents "general agreement". Dbenbenn 00:12, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's not very "general". I'd describe that as "most agree" rather than "generally agreed". When we talk about a consensus in science, we mean things like quantum theory or evolution by natural selection. These are very widely agreed, not just by four-fifths of the community.Dr Zen 01:17, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

To reiterate some of the above points: In consensus everyone has veto power. Despite this it is not unanimity because opponents may wish to abstain from using their veto power, and often do. Thus 80/20 is not consensus, 100/0 is. Hyacinth 00:19, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather you address the issues I raise and not my "arse", Dr Zen. NPOV states that We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people deserved as much attention as a majority view. Look, we already have instances in which consent doesn't work, because the process is inherently adversarial---debates on deletion and featuring, for instance. I did not mean to suggest, also, that 80/20 is consensus. It's not. I take issue with the idea of... well, what do you do when one person demands that movies from 1980 be in Category:1980_films and another resolutely demands that they be in Category:1980_movies? There isn't a useful gray area in every debate. What do we do---do we even need a rigorous model? Is there one that fits, and is useful? What is the place of a consensus process on Misplaced Pages? grendel|khan 05:44, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

In my opinion it is very rare that decisions are bipolar. I think that we tend to build simplifying models of the world that yield such bipoles but there are usuallu other options and it is the surfacing of those options that is the strength of consensus. Consider cross-mapping synonomous categories for the movies/films, for example. --Theo (Talk) 10:22, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just came across this discussion. My $.02: Consensus does not require unanimity, but it does require that there be no objections or vetoes. 80/20 is not consensus. 100/0 is unanimity. 90/0/10 (yes/no/abstain) is consenus without unanimity. Consensus is an "ideal". Some wise soul once said something to the effect of "Ideals are like the stars, you can use them to guide you, but you never actually reach the stars." I think we have to keep in mind that the goal of Misplaced Pages is producing a 💕--like the wiki software, consensus is merely a means for achieving that goal. This point is reated to the notion found at Misplaced Pages:What_Wikipedia is not#Misplaced Pages is not an experiment in anarchy. Ideally, all parties should be able to reach agreement through consensus on every issue. Unfortunately that is not the reality. Attempting to reach consensus should always be the first avenue for resolving issues, but some issues are intractable (or in cases, some individuals are simply unwilling to compromise). Voting should be a last resort for resolving such intractable issues, because the policking that often accompanies voting can produce ill will between factions. But I'd like to think of voting and the roughly 80% threshold as something like exercising cloture in the U.S. Senate. Rather than allow a determined minority to hold proceedings hostage, a super-majority can determine to go ahead despite the objections of the minority. However, it should be an exceptional procedure to be used only after it is clear that consensus cannot be acheived and there is a substantial majority with a coherent position. Ideally (there's that concept again), the objections of the minority should somehow be noted rather than entirely discarded. older≠wiser 03:36, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

I think you mean consensus is not always possible, that constant consensus is an ideal. Hyacinth 03:03, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good point. But actually, given the radically open and fluid constituency of Misplaced Pages, I honestly think true consensus IS impossible for MOST community-wide issues and for SOME deeply-felt content issues. True consensus, when it works, works through trust, which is built over time. With a radically open constituency, where a significant portion is transient--it is very difficult to establish the sort of trust required to reach consensus. For issues affecting the entire community, achieving true consensus is most often impossible and supermajority voting (after a period of discussion and debate to attempt to reach the most acceptable phrasing) may be the best we can do to demonstrate approval of new proposals. For content issues, I think consensus is at least possible in most cases and voting on versions should be a last resort. older≠wiser 13:55, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Consensus is a far cry from anarchy. I think that if Misplaced Pages, like anything, is to use consensus it must require it always. The only way movies from 1980 would be categorized in this scenario is through compromise, abstenion, or being blocked or banned for refusing to participate in consensus. In this case consensus isn't impossible.

The relevant policies in the opposite scenario, no consensus, would be Misplaced Pages:Compromise and Misplaced Pages:Co-operation.

I ask: Would we rather people be blocked, banned, or otherwise, for refusing to participate in consensus than quit because their concerns where over riden, or be blocked or banned for attempting to have their concerns addressed? I'm not sure. Hyacinth 03:23, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The reason I mentioned [[Misplaced Pages is not an experiment in anarchy is because Misplaced Pages is similarly not an experiment in consensus decision making. We shouldn't let ideological considerations of consensus distract from the practical goal of producing a 💕. I'm not sure I understand your last comments about blocking, banning, etc. Blocking and banning should be reserved for disruptive or abusive behaviors. If persons become abusive or disruptive they should be blocked, and if necessary banned. Building trust goes both ways, and if a minority position is not able to present sufficiently persuasive arguments in support of their position in a civil manner and resorts to abusive or disruptive behaviors, that is unnacceptable. older≠wiser 13:55, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if this isn't my place, but it occurs to me that subject consensus building could be interperted to directly contradict Misplaced Pages's priamry policy on NPOV. The neutral position isn't always the majority or even unanimous position. --Axon 13:21, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The neutral position may not be the one held by the majority but it can be one that everyone can live with. If X says "x" and Y says "y", which are opposed, then the neutral position is to say 'X says "x" and Y says "y"'. In general, however, the problem for consensus is when Z, a lone voice, says "Z", a strongly held position that other participants consider to be irrelevant and that Z insists must be considered. An absurd example: In a discussion about the colour of the sea, some people call it blue, some call it green, some say it varies with the prevailing conditions and Z says that Brighton is by the sea. Consensus can not be reached until Z understands why Brighton is not relevant. A more subtle case is when Z insists that the sea sometimes has electric pink polka dots. --Theo (Talk) 11:04, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How does one objectively differentiate the above situation from a situation where Z is the more neutral position but in minority? In the second case, consensus is actually non-neutral. --Axon 17:13, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A thought-provoking question. Ultimately, however, is that not the premise of my first sentence; just recast it to replace "then the neutral position is to say" with "and Z says , which is the neutral position". To reach consensus, the neutral position must acknowledge the views of the substantial vocal groups. --Theo (Talk) 17:42, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, and thank you for your equally thought-provoking response. Apologies, but I'm not quite sure I understood your point. The situation I'm am contrasting is where X says "x" and Y says "y", which are opposed, then the neutral position is to say 'X says "x" and Y says "y"', but Z says 'z' which contradicts the 'neutral' position then how do we determine if Z is a crank or genuinely represents the neutral position but is merely in minority. Also, are we talking in terms of groups within Misplaced Pages? If so, then we shoudn't we discount the consensus within Misplaced Pages: it is the consensus outside of Misplaced Pages in the "real world" we should be reflecting? --Axon 18:16, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I do not understand how "z" can contradict 'X says "x" and Y says "y"' without dissembling. In this case the neutral statement is objective and demonstrable. Assuming, however, that it is possible for Z to make an honest statement such as you describe, we need to assume that Misplaced Pages broadly reflects a world-view (palpable nonsense in some senses: we exclude the set of people with no Internet access, for example). Wikipedians in good faith will attempt to represent the NPOV as they see it but the size of the community should encourage accurate representation of the larger constituency. --Theo (Talk) 00:30, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For example, "z" could state that X does not mean "x" and/or Y does not actually say "y". Chances are this could be dissembling but there could be cases where this is not always true.

I think the real question here is whether the consensus within Misplaced Pages reflects the consensus, and thus the NPOV, without. As you state, not only does Misplaced Pages merely represent the (very small, priviliged) minority of the world's population with Internet access, but the even smaller, self-selecting group of those who are motivated to edit Misplaced Pages. This is, by no means, representative.

OTOH, perhaps we could rely upon sufficient numbers within Misplaced Pages to make up a balanced consensus, but I think this would only hold for popular topics and would fail for obscure topics where the consensus could easily be ignorant of wider issues. --Axon 11:32, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

ULtimately, I believe that we must rely on Wikipedians to do the best that they can. NPOV is such an essential policy that it is hard to imagine anyone remaining unaware of it for long. There is nothing that we can do to make non-contributors contribute any more than we can give everyone Internet access: even Coca-Cola only aspires to reach everyone in the world. I like to think that enough editors are already doing a great job doing what they think is right, and that this tendency can only grow—I think that we are already at critical mass. --Theo (Talk) 14:26, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The issue here is not trusting editors but whether we should rely upon consensus as a mechanism to determine the neutrality of articles. My point was that consensus can only work fairly if there is sufficient numbers of informed participants that are representative of wider opinion and that this cannot always be the case given that Misplaced Pages is not a random sampling of all opinion. This was not meant as a slur against Wikipedians, merely as an observation. Consensus may work in the general case of popular articles but, as I've stated above, may fall down in the case of obscure articles, not necesarily through any malicious fault of editors, but possibly through ignorance or lack of interest. --Axon 15:29, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just found this page, and a proposal on how to proceed

Recently, at Village pump (policy) I brought up the issue of a lack of policy on consensus, not knowing that work had already started at this page. Please take a look: Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Consensus Decision making

Several people responded positively, so I thought I'd start a wikipedia page about consensus. I typed in "Misplaced Pages:Consensus" and ended up here. I'm glad to see that work has already begun and glad to see familiar names attached to the comments on this page.

I have 28 years of experience with structured consensus decision making starting back in 1977 with the Clamshell Alliance (just discovered another article I have to write), and continuing with non-profits and community groups that run on consensus decision making. I have taken some facilitation training workshops over the years. I would call myself very experienced, but not quite an expert.

I've read through the project page and this discussion, and here's what I'm thinking:

1. We need to concisely define what wikipedia's version of consensus is.
2. We have to explain how consensus works.
3. We have to create tools for implementing the process when needed.
4. Once approved, the process has to be incorporated into all the other wikipedia policy pages in a way that it promotes the consensus decision making process.
5. Clearly, when this topic comes up, people bring their own understanding of what consensus is, and that varies widely. While many people do not have experience with structured consensus decision making, almost everyone thinks they know what consensus is.
6. While Misplaced Pages may not have been designed as an experiment in consensus decision making, it cannot avoid being one. I think that is a good thing.
7. The process of consensus decision making will be different in different situations. We should think about how the process is to be applied, from the smallest editing conflict to the largest policy decisions.
8. Consensus functions by "quiet consent". This means that not saying anything implies acceptance. This is the norm at wikipedia. Whenever anyone makes an editing change and it is not reverted, that is consensus in its simplest manifestation.
9. Acceptance does not mean that you agree. Consensus can be reached without everyone agreeing. People that abstain are realizing that their concerns are not important enough to block a decision. It is often valuable for everyone else to know why people are abstaining.
10. Consensus is about finding common ground. It is the duty of the majority to listen to the concerns of the minority and try to adjust their solution to address those concerns. There are ways to incorporate multiple views into solutions.
11. Consensus does not trump the truth. It is the duty of those who are certain of the facts to convince everyone else of their mistake or be proven wrong.
12. Blocking consensus is a rare event. If you block consensus you should be prepared to prove the validity of your position, and to show that the proposed consensus is bad for the group. People who abuse the process by blocking consensus regularly without cause loose their credibility.
13. There are known techniques for helping groups reaching consensus.

I've been thinking about creating a framework for decisions that would get plugged in whenever necessary. This would be the work that a facilitator would normally do, but in our case, it can be done collectively. Something like:

• Solicit opinions
• Brainstorm possible solutions
• Create a rough proposal
• Hear people's concerns
• Modify proposal to address concerns
• Call for consensus
• Ways to resolve blocked consensus
• Moving on

Each step would have links to pages to help people through the process. A template could be created whenever the process needs to be invoked. It would outline the process, and have links to more detail. That way, everyone would get familiar with the method quickly.

I propose that we start by creating the process for making policy. AND I propose that we use that very same process for creating the process. In other words, I think we should modify what we write based on the experiences we have among ourselves trying to write it.

I volunteer to help facilitate this along, but pretty soon I hope that it is self-facilitating.

So the first step, which I just took, is to float an idea and Solicit opinions about the idea. What I am looking for is what things trigger the process. In most case I think it is an individual recognizing that there is a conflict and trying to solve it. That person writes a proposal in broad terms and asks for comments from others. At this stage, people should be having discussions. The important thing is not to say "I'm in favor" or I'm opposed" but to define the problem well. This means exploring all the manifestations of the problem and creating criteria for any possible solution.

So what do you think? I'd like your opinions.

OK. I've written enough for now --Samuel Wantman 08:50, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

By "creating the process for making policy" you talking about changing Misplaced Pages:Policy and Misplaced Pages:How to create policy as we write Misplaced Pages:Consensus or just writing Misplaced Pages:consensus using consensus?

Misplaced Pages:How to create policy is incomplete. It just outlines the BEGINNING of the process. If you just write a policy and post it, that doesn't mean it will be accepted and implemented. I think that page was probably all that was needed in past years, but it needs more now. More often than not the problem now is about how to CHANGE policy. If you have a great idea for a change and just post it, it will be reverted almost immediately. If you post the change in a talk page, you might get a few comments. If it is a big change, it might be dismissed as "this is not the way things work here". The status quo rules. I'm constantly reading about users who are frustrated by this.

Misplaced Pages is supposed to run by consensus, but how should that be played out? I know I am not the only person who has thought of a change for Misplaced Pages that I think will make it much better, and then been at a loss for how to proceed. If something is posted on the Village pump, how does it become policy? I think this should be clear. What I think we should be doing is formalizing how consensus works within Misplaced Pages. Not just what consensus is, but how it works in specific cases.

So while we are thinking about how consensus should work, we should also be thinking about how it applies to different areas of Misplaced Pages. Perhaps we can use certain pages as examples. The process for deciding on a major overhaul of an article is probably not as involved as the process for deciding on a major change of policy. But they should both be clearly spelled out.

By "self-facilitating" are you proposing an automated built-in (mandatory) facilitation process, or a spectrum of users with various levels of involvement in facilitation and variously contributing to the process? Hyacinth 01:02, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it would require any additional programming. Facilitators have several responsibilities:

• They help direct the process: Templates could be used to help the process. Anyone creating a proposal could include a template that references discussion on how the process works, adds the proposal to a wikipedia proposal category, etc... For example, each item in the bulleted list above could have a template. So when the decision making process gets to that point, a corresponding template could be added to the discussion.
• They educate everyone about how the process works: The templates would have links to pages that could help instruct people on how the process should work, and suggestions of techniques for moving the group toward consensus. Anyone could add the templates, so it would be, in a sense, self-facilitating. As these templates begin to show up on more and more pages, people would become much more familiar with how the consensus process works.
• They keep things moving: Typically, the big problem in facilitating large groups is having enough time for everyone to be heard. We probably need time guidelines for every step of the process.
• They remain impartial and try to look for middle ground: Anyone can take on this role. This is very much like the current mediation process. The community can maintain a list of people to call on to help sort out any controversial issues.
• They keep things civil and fair: Everyone can help with this.

--Samuel Wantman 07:36, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)