[WikiEN-l] Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship

Sun Jul 3 21:42:19 UTC 2005

On 7/3/05, Nathan J. Yoder <njyoder at energon.org> wrote:
> How is a majority vote NOT consensus?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus

A majority is not consensus.  True consensus requires a unanimous decision.

As the community size becomes large the probability of a unanimous
decision becomes infinitesimal and the ability of one member to block
a decision becomes a target for disruption. Because of this it is
often advantageous to use a near-consensus system in place of a true
consensuses system.  A correctly working near consensus system
achieves the most of the ethical grant of power of a true consensus
system, but with a reduced vulnerability to obstruction.

For many of our votes in the community, Wikipedia uses a two stage
near-consensus process which is highly effective.  For example, VFD:
Members of the community state both their 'vote' and their position
and have an ability to discuss their votes and change their votes in
an open environment that is free of true coercion. Once the vote is
complete, a trusted and experienced member of the community studies
the votes and looks for a highly substantial majority one way or
another, attempts to exclude votes which were probably made in bad
faith or are really voting about something unrelated to the issue. If
this person fails to find a clear consensus they take the action which
is the least harming and most reversible.  The result of that decision
and who made it is visible to the entire community who are entitled to
ask reasonable questions about the decision, and furthermore the
decision can be unilateral undone by any other member in the trusted
subset, after which another stage of near-consensus decision making
may take place.

This process works beautifully as long as a few simple criteria are met.

One is that we don't worry too much about lone objectors, because by
paying too much attention to them grant we would grant them a
fantastic disruptive power... and that in a large open community the
probability of a true lone objector actually having a valid complaint
is fairly low because at least one other person is usually willing to
carry the flag of the oppressed.

The second requirement is that there clearly be a safe way to fail...
Consensus decision making fails when inaction is potentially worse
than action.  I think in general the community realizes this, so you
see the nearness of required consensus vary from subject to subject.