Voting and/or Consensus (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Mother Teresa

Wed Oct 29 12:24:43 UTC 2003

From: Brian Corr <BCorr at NEAction.org>

>A) Seek Consensus, But Vote: For example, most of the
>organizations have a board of director that votes and
>uses majorities when necessary, but most hesitate to
>accept a vote if it is close, and they prefer to
>achieve something approaching consensus, but will
>accept a decision if there is 
>a large majority (this seems similar to Wikipedia).

Nod. Filtered users, older than one month, with more
than 100 major edits are the board.

Perhaps will it be necessary to flag them for easier
management. They could be also those with the right to
"validate" wikipedia for the paper/Cd version.

>C) True Consensus: One organization I work with --
the 
>So it might not be too easy with so many Wikipedians
>who like to argue about *everything* ;-)

You noticed ? :-)
Yes, probably not very usable.

btw, is the new deletion policy being submitted to the
2/3 threshold to be adopted, and to consensus ?

Primarily, I think that we need to think about the
concept of voting and  how it affects group processes.
Wikipedia is an unusual hybrid of Wiki,  NPOV, *and*
altruistic self-interest (i.e., we all get some 
satisfaction  from what we do here, but we also do it
for the good of the  project/community/world). I also
think we need to look at how our  decision-making
processes affect how much we are open or closed -- we 
can  be "open" to everybody, but if only one type of
person can handle being  a  contributor or editor,
what does that really mean for us.

Very true
As well as the limit where those who do not fit well
in that spirit decide to leave under peer pressure, or
because the rules put them away.
Somehow, I think that when a user does not fit well,
it is quite different that people go to him, and try
to explain, and try to negociate, try to convince him
to change for the better

or just drop a boilerplate on his user page, saying
"this is user does not respect regulations #23.3 bis
and TR-W3 ter - user name blocked".

Of course, second choice is much quicker, and likely,
the person putting the boilerplate feels little
responsability since she is just following a legal
rule. Her action is little controversial. That help
going toward more peace and fluidity.

If the choice is to discuss, it is longer, it is more
controversial, it can generate a lot of heat, perhaps
too much heat.

I was thinking here for example of the issue of
refactoring/removing personal attacks versus not.

If removing is not "legalised", it may be that the
cleaner is attacked himself, reverted, has to insist a
lot to clean the place, to fight for his opinion.
Likely to generate much anger between people

If removing is "legalised", when he does, and someone
complain, he just has to say "look, there is a rule.
If you disagree with my doing so, just change the
rule".

So...perhaps would it be best to have few rules when
the community is strong and can handle disagreement,
and on the contrary strong rules when it is chaotic
and diverse ?

>Anyway, I have been reflecting a little bit about
what >I should focus my energy on -- and it seems like
I >should be writing articles and *not* checking Votes
>for deletion fifteen times each day. But I also feel 
>that it is important to pay attention to the
>housekeeping work also, and that often 
>takes me back to VfD and to Recent Changes. But I do
>think that we can 
>bring something positive to articles and be NPOV --
but >I find it hard to decide the balance between
>*contributing* and *housekeeping*.

:-)
When people start, they write contribute mostly
After a while, they do housekeeping
After, perhaps, they teach others to do the
housekeeping :-)

There are many different task in housekeeping
My laundry is waiting btw

>And here's one more good link to check out: 
><http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiLifeCycle>.
I >think we might be somewhere near 17
>(Wiki:DeclineOfCivility -- there are more strangers
>than friends, and AssumeGoodFaith fails as reputation
>is fleeting) and 18 (arrival of the PoliceForces)

http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiLifeCycle is a
good link

>Anyway, that what I'm thinking today -- but tomorrow
>it may all change 
>;+)>

>Brian

That is what make it worth it :-)

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