Wikipedia:Consensus/Village Pump discussion

Consensus Decision making

(previously named Categorization proposal with examples)

I've posted a proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Categorization proposal with examples. It is partially about policy, so I thought I'd mention it here also. It is also at Wikipedia talk:Categorization. This is the first time Im trying to change something major, and the process is confusing. Is there a page that describes how changes happen and talks about what types of changes get decided, where they get decided, and by who? Is my proposal in the correct place?

(BTW, At times in my life I have had facilitator training and have facilitated meetings. There were clear rules for consensus. Wikipedia talks about consensus quite a bit without describing the process all that clearly (perhaps it is there and I haven't found it). It often seems that the formal version of consensus decision making that I learned and practiced does not really apply to Wikipedia. The process here is more of a straw poll of interested parties. Most discussions seem to peter out unresolved with people expressing strong opinions. The status quo rules. I think this all needs some thought!) -- Samuel Wantman 11:39, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

More precisely, is there an existing page that explains Wikipedia's approach to consensus methods? And if not, let's start one. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:23, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

There certainly should be a page about it. No, there's no formal process, and people have resisted formalizing one -- partly out of apathy and partly out of an affectionate reliance on the "wiki way". To my understanding, Wikipedia consensus means talking and talking, adapting solutions to address every objection, until there are no more objections. In that way, a consensus solution does reflect everyone's opinion. For the most part it has worked very well in the past, and still does in most places, but there are a few areas where it seems to break down -- or at least, where users don't seem willing to participate in a consensus process. One is for large issues that affect the entire wiki, where not everyone participates in the discussion -- either through lack of knowledge that the issue is on the table, lack of time to participate, or simply the fact that sometimes a decision must be made quickly, without months and months and pages and pages of debate. This leads to accusations of cabals and minorities imposing their will upon the masses. Another is for those controversial issues that Will Not Die: articles on Israel and Palestine for example. In these cases, it's very hard (not impossible, but very hard) to find compromises that die-hard opponents will accept, so it's much harder to find consensus. A third problem is the ongoing nature of the WP process. There are innumerable places where long and difficult discussions have finally led to a carefully balanced compromise, only to have the fires flare up again when a new wave of contributors finds the article or policy and begins the discussion anew. Sometimes pointing them to the earlier debate will win them over to the existing consensus (much easier when someone has written a succinct description of the consensus and the points it addresses), but often the whole process must repeat itself with the new group.

One thing I think we should continue to resist is the desire to solve everything with polls. It's obviously useful in some cases (deciding on a logo, for example), but it should not be the default method for decision-making, especially for content issues and for deciding WP policy. It's easy, and therefore attractive, but I don't think the results are nearly as good as consensus-building, and it creates a confrontational "us-versus-them" environment. It's also hard to hold new contributors who disagree to the results of a vote that was made before they arrived, unless you harden the process into "it's policy, it's set in stone, we voted on it", which is the first step towards bureaucratic death.

Consensus decision-making CAN scale well as WP grows, but it requires determined effort from everyone involved -- which is why I think a page on the concept should be created (or found and more prominently linked) and promoted as one of our core principles. — Catherine\^talk 13:01, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Great points. 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'd be happy to work with others on this. Any other volunteers? -- Samuel Wantman 09:27, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Samuel. I have argued for this before, and would certainly support any such move. At the moment, I do not believe that there is any real belief in consensus decision making here at all, inasmuch as most people seem to think that qualified majority voting equals consensus. The result can be a frustrated minority who feel ignored and who might, on the odd occasion, even be right. Filiocht 12:17, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

Strongly support this. Some wiki members believe that if you cannot reach a consensus debate should be stifled, and the status quo accepted. These people make it very difficult to change things. What is consensus? A slim majority vote? Should debate be stifled when consensus is not reached? Should people be forced to source their claims? If they don't, should their views be accepted? I for one have been threatened with the arbitration committee by another member for wanting to continue a debate when there has been no consensus reached, whereas this person thought that as there is no consensus we must keep the status quo for 6 months, and not try to reach a consensus. See here. So please can we have a policy, whatever that policy may be. --SqueakBox 18:49, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

There is a page at Wikipedia:Consensus but what we've been talking about has not been fully addressed. I just wrote quite a bit on that page. Perhaps the discussion can continue over there. -- 09:35, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)