User:Eleanorg/2.2/Annotation: Wikipedia:Consensus

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus

Wikipedia:Consensus is a Wikipedia policy page, describing its Consensus policy for editing page content. It explains the consensus editing process whereby "Decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's norms." (Wikipedia Editors, 2013). Its two main sections cover Achieving Consensus and Determining Consensus. Subsequent sections provide related notes and policies.

Achieving consensus can happen in three ways: through editing, through discussion, and (in cases of conflict) through consensus-building.

  • Consensus through editing: This is the default and most desired form. "Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus." (ibid). A related essay linked from this statement, 'Silence and Consensus' (Wikipedia Editors, 2013a) - though not a policy document - comments that "Consensus can be presumed to exist until voiced disagreement becomes evident... [because] In wiki-editing, it is difficult to get positive affirmation for your edits..." (ibid).
  • Consensus through discussion: This process begins "When agreement cannot be reached through editing alone" (Wikipedia Editors, 2013). Here "editors open a section on the talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion. Here editors try to persuade others... they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns. The result might be an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution." (ibid).
  • Consensus-building: This phrase covers various processes "for resolving intractable disputes"(Wikipedia Editors, 2013). Firstly through discussion in Talk pages and making helpful edits; secondly through soliciting outside opinions (including facilities such as the Wikipedia (2013a) Dispute Resolution Noticeboard); and administrator intervention (where policy needs to be enforced).

The article's second section, Determining Consensus, is more ambiguous. It firstly offers the summary that "Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy" (Wikipedia Editors, 2013). [1] It goes on to give a more explicit caveat, that "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." (ibid). It then summarizes the normal course of action in cases where consent has not been reached. In some cases, (including debates on whether to delete content, and on longstanding article titles), no consensus means the status-quo is maintained. In others, (contested actions by admins, contentious content about living people), no consensus means the controversial content or action is reverted. A later section of the article gives further exceptions to the Consensus policy, concerning executive decisions made by the WikiMedia Foundation, which "take precedence over, and preempt, consensus" (ibid).

  1. This is notable as it is an unusual definition of consensus process, where consensus would normally be understood to be an agreement among participants - rather than determined by pre-existing concepts such as 'quality'.


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