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The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal: Difference between revisions
→Consensus on 'Consensus'
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It occurs to me that we've had a number of, for lack of a better word, 'votes' on issues that are meant to be determined by community consensus. Examples include the vote on closing down Wikia Chat, opening up Requests for Administration/Bureaucrat, and the current (at the time of writing) vote on whether or not to lock the Fanon namespace to anonymous editors.
There are a number of issues with this, at least in my opinion, the first of which is that [[The Sims Wiki:Policy/Participation Policies#Voting Procedures|Wiki Policy]] states that "<nowiki>[v]</nowiki>oting as a means to determine consensus for a decision should be avoided unless absolutely necessary." In other words, a vote should only occur if it would be impossible or very difficult to determine consensus otherwise, such as through the general discussion that we currently engage in.
Additional problems I see with voting come from when the options available are unclear, change midway through voting, or don't offer a 'status quo' solution. For example, in the vote about whether to lock the Fanon namespace, the two 'stated' options are to either lock it or to implement a grace period for anonymous editors putting content there - there is no option available to keep it the way it is. Preferably, through the discussion process an idea would come forward about what we want; in the example of the Fanon namespace, the discussion might yield support for locking the namespace, in which case the vote should be between whether to lock the namespace or not, not between locking and a third option. Just as easily, the discussion could lean towards a grace period solution, in which case the vote held should be between a grace period option or the status quo.
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:::Obviously with a majority vote, the positives and negatives of the proposal ''should'' be taken into account when voting. Maybe it can be brought up in the discussion for others to see which can help to prevent "significant opposition" to a proposal but other than that, I'd rather go with a majority vote - it just seems more effective most of the time...or in other words, keep everything how it is now and change almost nothing. {{GGsig}} 19:37, March 17, 2012 (UTC)
::::Frankly, then, we're at an impasse. I do not believe that a majority is sufficient to make a decision (see [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:What_is_consensus?#Not_a_majority_vote|here]]). In fact, even using the term 'vote' interchangeably with 'consensus' dirties the idea of what consensus really is - a general agreement on a course of action, as opposed to what it isn't - a majority vote, or indeed any vote at all. Certainly just because the answer to the problem of dying discussions hasn't become apparent doesn't mean that the status quo is the best solution, so I'd encourage everyone (including myself) to be open minded in searching and discussing possible solutions, rather than sticking with the status quo simply because it's the most convenient and ''appears to be'' the most suitable of our options. -- '''[[User:LostInRiverview|<font color="green">LostInRiverview</font>]]<sup> [[User_talk:LostInRiverview|<font color="navy">talk</font>]] · [[User_blog:LostInRiverview|<font color="navy">blog</font>]]</sup>''' 20:35, March 17, 2012 (UTC)
::::::I agree with Georgie, a majority vote seems to be more effective at the time being as I don't think there is any other option - discussions get slow, many people seem to share their views with others but many don't as well. So, votes are quicker and more effective, but what I suggest is: whenever a vote occurs and something comes up (a solution), after a significant amount of time since the vote ended, we should begin a discussion concerning the solution that was decided in the vote to see if the community is actually satisfied with it or not. --[[User:RoseGui|<span style="color:orange">RoseGui</span>]][[File:Thanks rose.png]] <small>([[User talk:RoseGui|<span style="color:orange">talk here</span>]])</small>
:::::::I like RoseGui's suggestion. Even if something wasn't everyone's cup of tea, it at least allows them to evaluate the change and they can voice their opinions whether they've changed or not. {{GGsig}} 21:55, March 17, 2012 (UTC)
::::::::If we are to stick with voting, then I insist and repeat that a majority simply is not good enough when dealing with major changes. When we've done 'consensus drives' in the past (the example I will link to, the Fanon Namespace creation final consensus, visible [[The Sims Wiki talk:Community Portal/Fanon_Namespace#Final_consensus_on_proposal|here]]) was, in my opinion, an ideal application of what we more-or-less perform now. That is, over a period of time an option, in this example case the creation of the Fanon namespace, was determined then the community was asked to formally show their support or opposition to it. Taking the results of the formal consensus-gathering, [[User blog:LostInRiverview/Update on the Fanon Namespace|I as an administrator at the time determined]] that consensus for the creation of the Fanon namespace did exist, despite well-articulated objection from some users. The final margin of support/opposition in that decision is somewhat irrelevant, as what mattered - whether the community by-in-large accepted and consented to the idea - was ultimately decided.
::::::::I would like to quote what I said at the time: "However, measuring consensus is not the same as voting, and consensus cannot be provided by a simple majority vote, but through stronger support from the community. Consensus is not like a vote total; it can't be quantified and analyzed deeply, since everyone will have different opinions and different strength of support or opposition (or neutrality) towards an idea." Two people who at the time opposed the creation of the Fanon Namespace - [[User:RoseGui|RoseGui]]
::::::::Thinking back to that vote, though, I'd like to hypothesize what might have been the case if I or another admin at the time had 'ruled' a consensus drive to have been successful if only a narrow majority supported the outcome. I know I personally was concerned that even the margin that had been given in that consensus was too narrow to justify creation, so had I been presented with the hypothetical 'slim majority' I can certainly say that I would not have agreed that community consent had been given, even despite my own bias in favor of a particular outcome. So, I'm concerned that if the hypothetical slim majority decision were to occur nowadays, that we would see a different outcome that might very wrongly ignore serious concerns and doubts by a minority - but a ''sizable'' minority - of the wiki simply because they couldn't get 51% support. That to me is unpalatable and unacceptable, and very much a reason to make a change to the present system, or '''at the very least''' a reason to ensure that a simple majority cannot be construed to indicate community consensus. -- '''[[User:LostInRiverview|<font color="green">LostInRiverview</font>]]<sup> [[User_talk:LostInRiverview|<font color="navy">talk</font>]] · [[User_blog:LostInRiverview|<font color="navy">blog</font>]]</sup>''' 23:30, March 17, 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::IMO, the reason why a discussion dries up so quickly is because they have no more interest or anything to say merely because that's not really the subject they have a knack for. People in general might only stop by and think, "That's not really a bad idea, why not? Whatever." The thing is, what's discussed doesn't really impact to their knowledge.
:::::::::What GG said makes sense, but what LiR said wasn't wrong too. Voting ''is not'' always needed or major, and it might not be that necessary after all. If we are discussing about a particular subject that general people might not really have any idea about the impact, voting might no longer be possible. Instead, we could ask community opinions about what they think about the idea and what they suggest, and then we consider about it, instead of asking whether they should choose option A or B, and no other solutions could possibly appear. I think it's the community opinion and consideration what matters and is important, not how many votes people have chosen for certain options. [[User:Nikel23|'''<span style="color:#007FFF; text-shadow: #ACE5EE 0 4px 4px;">Nikel</span>''']] [[User talk:Nikel23|<span style="color: #30D5C8 ; text-shadow: #00FFEF 0 4px 4px;"><sub>''Talk''</sub></span>]] 12:42, March 20, 2012 (UTC)
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