Wikipedia talk:What is consensus?

Comment

How about "Consensus is not always comprehensive"? I've been in several multi-issue disputes in which the editors agree on A, but one person refuses to allow A to be implemented because an unrelated item B is still under dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I think this is a good point. Aside from the title, how would you phrase the advice? Maybe you could show me one of these discussions? It sounds like it would be an interesting case study. Randomran (talk) 21:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

WT:MEDRS is the obvious example, but I doubt that you'd like to read through that very, very long and very, very tedious discussion (which spread to other pages, such as WT:CONSENSUS) as well). There were two completely unrelated content disputes:

• whether you should rely primarily on major textbooks and review articles instead of original research papers (a "review article" is a major scholarly work that reviews and summarizes all the good scientific work in an area; original research papers can be very weak, such as case reports involving a single patient and the writer's best guess about what the problem was), and
• how much to trust the mass media about scientific work. For example, if a scientific paper is published, and the newspaper writes a story about the publication, you should actually read (and cite) the scientific paper itself, or just assume that the journalist got everything exactly right, with no misrepresentations or typos?

Both of what I'll call the "losing sides" repeatedly cited the existence of the other dispute as proof that their own concerns were valid, even though they didn't actually support the "losing side" in the other dispute. The thinking appeared to be For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all -- or at least that if you can't muster a valid argument for your side, then the best thing to do is to say that everybody's unhappy about the guideline in general, and where there's noise, there must be sense. It was not conducive to resolving either dispute.

The eventual resolutions were that the person disputing the first point needed to actually read the guideline as written (he apparently thought "based upon secondary sources" meant "you can't ever use anything except secondary sources") and the person disputing the second point (a professional science journalist) appears to have given up, and has been replaced by a pair of people editing from an anti-psychiatry POV (who are obviously unhappy to have scientific work deemed more reliable for scientific facts and figures (note the limitation in the guideline) than the writings of various anti-psychiatry activists). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

That definitely clarifies it, thanks a lot! I added a section that consensus is "not all or nothing". Feel free to make changes. (Also, just because I think being concise is a lost art, I'd encourage you to replace sentences if you feel I'm missing something. Add new sentences only if absolutely necessary.) Randomran (talk) 23:26, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Definitions via NOTs

Definitions via NOTs are intellectually weak. We should seek to say what consensus IS, not what it is NOT. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, consensus is an art and not a science. It's hard to define. The introduction opens with what consensus is. But truthfully, some people follow this very nuanced definition to extreme conclusions: that its' a bare majority preference, or that it's absolute unanimity, or what not. Call it intellectually weak, but it's probably useful to provide the basic definition, and then try to clear up the misconceptions one by one. Randomran (talk) 04:15, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking on this problem of a postive definition for a long time. It's hard. What you've done is pretty good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:50, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate that. For what it's worth, if you come up with any way to clarify the positive definition, it certainly couldn't hurt. Randomran (talk) 04:57, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

In a rush a keystrokes the other day I wrote this [1]:

Consensus is not unanimity, supermajority, majority, or anything that can be measured by numbers. Consensus is about agreement, about modifying the proposal, often watering-down, to take account of all valid positions.

Unanimity gives absolute power to every individual to block. Supermajority allows for the partitioning and ignoring of a minority view. These decision rules undermine consensus building. Consensus is about weighing arguments, recognising opposing viewpoints, and collective judgment on the debate. The conclusion of a consensus building debate will necessarily be NPOV, our most important policy, which is why consensus works so well for wikipedia (when it works).

Perhaps it could help in expressing a positive definition of wikipedia-consensus. What I wrote feels trues, but I am uncomfortable with it being dissimilar to any sourceable definations that I can find. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:18, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a useful summary. It's still largely a definition by "nots" (not unanimity, not supermajority). But "consensus is about weighting arguments..." goes a step further, towards what consensus is. I'd be comfortable with you incorporating those parts into the lead. A new section would be okay too. NPOV is a little trickier, because NPOV applies to content, but consensus also guides policy, guidelines, and other meta-discussions like AFDs. So I would leave that part out. (Unless we can find a better way to say what you're saying.) Randomran (talk) 22:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

As someone who came to this page looking for a definition of "consensus", this page was completely worthless. Negative definitions are almost completely useless and you should retitle it "what consensus is not" because its current title is misleading at best. (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 17:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

Consensus is unanimity not Paradise

29-Nov-2008: This essay still states, as a section title, that consensus is "Not unanimity" (as of November 29, 2008). Well, that's called "partial consensus" instead. Consensus actually IS a unanimous agreement, often some type of compromise. Proofs:

• Everyone is asked to reach an agreement; you can't claim someone's consent if they don't consent to the agreement.
• Consider 2 people debating to reach a consensus, but it fails: one person decides that consensus has been reached, even though the other person disagrees. That proof is called "reductio ad absurdum" (a reduction to absurdity). Instead, both people must agree in a consensus: there is no "one-person consensus".
• A consensus is a marriage of agreement: it's not a marriage unless they both say, "I do".

I hope all those proofs help to clarify the concept. It is quite common in society for people to claim, "We've reached an agreement," as though they speak for the people who oppose the group. Wikipedians aren't unusual for claiming to have reached a consensus, despite the opposite reality. So, well, no wonder, some Wikipedians have declared, "We have a consensus that consensus doesn't mean everyone." Wow, that is so convenient, so much easier than getting everyone to agree. However, in a true consensus, everyone agrees 100% to accept the group decision, and when there is grumbling, there is often a compromise to allow some other action, or to promise that the consensus will expire, or be re-negotiated later, or such. A consensus is not the same as "Paradise" (not everyone is super-happy with the decision), but if one person is violently opposed, that is not "consensus" but, rather, "partial consensus minus one". I think the main problem has been: Wikipedia policies haven't had an easy way to handle failed consensus, so the result has been to pretend disgruntled writers can be ignored and declare a consensus anyway. Bullying is so much easier than many other alternatives. Working with people of opposite mindsets can be very, very tedious. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Saying that consensus is unanimity misses out on the nuance. If you read a little bit about consensus decision making, they'll tell you that it's not only inaccurate, but disruptive: unanimity puts everyone else at the mercy of a single filibuster-er. In essence, that's why we have the three revert rule: so that one person can't just block what a pile of people feel is best. Now, saying it's not unanimity doesn't give you carte blance to just steamroll minority opinion. It's not a majority, let alone a supermajority. It requires everyone to enter into the process in good faith. Randomran (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Something that may not be obvious: This page attempts to document what counts as "consensus" for the purpose of complying with various other Wikipedia rules. If the Wikipedia-specific use of this term is slightly different from other uses of this term, that's unimportant for the purpose of this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's any difference anyway. Most definitions of consensus are distinct from unanimity. And because of rules like WP:GAME and WP:3RR, Wikipedia doesn't let someone stonewall a discussion by insisting on unanimity either. Randomran (talk) 04:51, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Added dissenting opinion on unanimity

I have added an alternate viewpoint about consensus requiring unanimity of remaining members, when excluding others for bad faith efforts. The added box is below:

That was the text-box added to the essay. However, I will be quite blunt, here, about the concept:

A failed consensus that functions as an implicit vote under majority rule is NOT a consensus at all: it is called "a waste of time negotiating" when a simple vote would be much faster.

Either treat a consensus as a unanimous decision, or else stop wasting people's time with weasel words for a type of voting. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• It's not a majority vote OR unanimity, because it's first and foremost a discussion. Unanimity is an unworkable standard on Wikipedia. It's not how things work at RFA or AFD. We have a three-revert rule to prevent one person from stonewalling things. On Wikipedia, sometimes dissenters don't get their own way. Randomran (talk) 06:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• Consensus is what happens when a group agrees. If there is not initial agreement, then it may result after negotiation. Consensus is a fuzzy thing. A unanimous vote demonstrates a consensus, but a divided vote doesn’t necessarily mean there is not consensus. The divided vote might merely reflect that the question was a bad question. That said, it does happen on wikipedia that majority positions win the day by exhausting the opposition. Perhaps it would be helpful to list such cases? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Makes sense to me. It doesn't take much more than a look at AFD to find situations where there's a consensus, despite some level of division. Randomran (talk) 08:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Minimum numbers / minimum time spent seeking alternative views?

I came to this article looking for an answer to a specific question, and although I learned useful stuff, the original question wasn't quite answered. I've proposed a merge. Both articles are low-traffic, and in effect I'm the only active editor (I created one of the articles). I've invited comments from the relevant WikiProject (and received one). What I want to know about consensus is, how long is reasonable to wait, or how many opinions is it reasonable to wait for, before I can rightly claim to be acting on consensus rather than on my own initiative? I know about being bold, but merging someone else's article into one that I've created might be seen as bad behavior if done as a solo effort. I don't expect a single numerical answer, but a guideline for this situation would be great. MartinPoulter (talk) 22:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like there is much interest in either article at this point. If you think it would improve the articles by merging them together, I would say do it. You might get more input if you just do the merge. --A new name 2008 (talk) 23:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Defacto vetos

A user has attempted to justftify mass deltions on the grouonds that he has to agree to something for it to achive consensus, effectvly operating a veto, he has now been blocked for one week but perhaps something needs to be said on this matter. I propose something like.

"consensus does not give an editor an effective right of veto just by refusing to agree to consensus". Or something like that.Slatersteven (talk) 23:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• He doesn't have to agree. He just has to not disagree with the actual outcome, or at least not have good reasons to disagree with the actual outcome. How do you decide whether his reason are good? I suggest deciding (on whether the reasons are good) by letting uninvolved editors (not the disagreer, nor those he disagreed with) decide. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

How not to achieve consensus

Just a comment and a potential edit for the section "How not to achieve consensus". Each of the guidelines listed begins with "don't", e.g. "don't edit war", "don't question the other party's intention", etc. The main issue I see with this, though, is that it creates a double negative, or a conflict between section title and contents. That is to say if you put "don't edit war" in a section entitled "how not to achieve consensus", what you're saying is "to achieve consensus, edit war". So perhaps the things in this section should either be change to a positive form by removing the "don't" from each one, or simple merged with the section on "how to achieve consensus" in their current negative forms. Hope this isn't to nitpicky and grammar-nazi-y. TDiNardo (talk) 00:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to comment

Matters related to WP:What is consensus? are discussed in the essay WP:Avoiding talk-page disruption and an RfC has been posted requesting comments here. Please provide your advice. Brews ohare (talk) 16:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)