[WikiEN-l] Quality vs. consensus (was: Meanwhile, AfD grinds on)

Wed Oct 19 23:48:23 UTC 2005

> I think the word you're looking for is "irony". Alphax was making the
> ironic observation that an overwhelming number of Wikipedians are more
> concerned with consensus than with quality.

Maybe, but there are also those of us who believe that in the long run
reaching consensus is the way to achieve quality. In fact, reaching
consensus and reaching an NPOV in many ways go hand in hand, and NPOV is a
"non-negotiable" qualitative measure.

Of course, I'm not sure the majority of Wikipedians care that much about
consensus. In fact, I'd say the majority of vocal Wikipedians don't even
know what consensus means (or intentionally abuse the term). When conflict
rolls around it's more often solved by voting and other forms of the
majority forcing its opinion on the minority (such as that enacted by the
three revert rule), rather than being solved through compromise and
consensus decision-making.