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The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal: Difference between revisions
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::The event is meant to encourage anyone to start contests... it wouldn't be a community-run feature (like Featured Article et al), it would be run by the individual that created it. As long as the concept of the contest is viable and doesn't violate policy, the creator could do pretty much whatever he or she wanted. -- '''[[User:LostInRiverview|<font color="navy">LiR</font>]]<sup> [[User_talk:LostInRiverview|<font color="green">speak</font>]] ~ [[User_blog:LostInRiverview|<font color="green">read</font>]]</sup>''' 16:06, October 8, 2012 (UTC)
:::I guess its worth a shot. I don't see any harm in it. {{WHsig|03:32, October 9, 2012 (UTC)}}
== Defining consensus ==
As most of you know, when we have a discussion/vote on The Sims Wiki, we operate by consensus in order to reach a final decision. According to http://dictionary.com consensus is defined as a "general or widespread agreement" which can incorporate [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making#Decision_rules various different decision rules for consensus].
The reason I'm bringing this up is based on being made aware via IRC of the outcome of a certain vote that took place recently not actually having the support of the ''majority'' of the users who had voted. Having based it on the two-thirds decision rule (which is ideal imo), which would require 66% of support votes for something to pass, the actual percentage of support votes was actually only 47% for that particular vote, which doesn't even accommodate half of those who took part. Please note that this discussion is about consensus in general and not a rehash of any past discussions which have failed to apply consensus - if you want to revisit those then please create a new section on the appropriate page.
Furthermore, I noticed that [[The Sims Wiki:Policy/Participation Policies|our participation policies]] don't even reference how consensus should be applied, even if what should always start as a discussion ends up as a vote (which seems to happen a lot here) and instead gives the impression that we operate under a majority system where 51% support could be enough for something to pass, which is what they do in a democracy and [[The Sims Wiki:What The Sims Wiki is not#The Sims Wiki is not a democracy|we're not a democracy]].
As well as having its advantages with votes, although we try to avoid them altogether, consensus would allow for both sides of the argument to be considered in a discussion, which for us could be beneficial in some cases as it may avoid us having to take things to a vote all the time. I'm all for administrators making decisions at their own discretion, being bold etc. when need be but if a decision is being made to pass something with 51% of users supporting the proposal then that can be seen as a slap in the face to the other 49% who could still make up an integral amount of our userbase.
With this in mind, I'd like to know how everyone feels about consensus and how it should be applied on this wiki. I realise this isn't exactly the most upbeat thing to be bringing up but it's important. I know I'd prefer utilising the two-thirds/66% decision rule but I'm more interested in what everyone else thinks. {{GGsig}} 12:30, October 14, 2012 (UTC)
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