Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The Challenges of Consensus 

In this chapter, It says to us that it identifies the difficulties of consensus decision making, and its meaning and practice for collaboration at the English Wikipedia.

 

The Case of Disambiguation

In the history of the encyclopedia much has been made of the attempts to organize knowledge and how that dream was eventually superseded by simple alphabetical order.

It is really interesting fact. Even though we naturally see the encyclopedia now, it is gathering of alphabet. It is great thing. but, we don't appreciate.

In the case of a collision Wikipedia will likely offer the reader a “disambiguation” link at the top of an article or a whole page with a list of links to more specific articles, or both.

“Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single title could be associated with more than one article.

However, should these disambiguators be applied in every case for consistency’s sake, or just those for which there is already a preexisting article? Answering this question, and thousands of others like it, is an integral part of Wikipedia collaboration.

So then, what is consensus and how do you know you’ve reached it? This question eventually reached the Arbitration Committee: “a panel of experienced users that exists to impose binding solutions to Wikipedia disputes that neither communal discussion, administrators, nor mediation have been able to resolve.”

 

“Rough” Consensus

The Wiktionary definitions for consensus speak of “general agreement,” “without active opposition to the proposed course of action.”

consensus is overwhelming agreement “which does not mean unanimity"

consensus certainly seems like an appropriate means for decision making in a community with egalitarian values and a culture of good faith.

The IETF is one of the oldest existing collaborative institutions on the Internet — it can be said to have built the Internet. And the W3C might be thought of as an institutional fork resulting from, in part, frustration over the slow pace of work at the IETF.

This “IETF Credo” would become one of the foundational aphorisms of collaborative culture on the Internet. Furthermore, this simple statement reflects the egalitarianism.

I first listen to this word "IETF", "W3C" . IETF is abbreviation of Internet Engineering Task Force.

It developes Internet standards to facilitate the use of the Internet in the United States. and W3C is abbreviation of World Wide Web Consortium.
I am interesting about IETF, W3C. these keep order in internet. 

 

Deliberation and Openness

There are many methods for making group decisions; one is flip a coin, vote, or seek consensus.

As Wikipedia’s “Consensus” policy notes: “Achieving consensus requires serious treatment of every group member’s considered opinion…. In the ideal case, those who wish to take up some action want to hear those who oppose it, because they count on the fact that the ensuing debate will improve the consensus.”

Its openness is particularly problematic because it is susceptible to trolling and “forum shopping.”

 

It is very easy to create the appearance of a changing consensus simply by asking again and hoping that a different and more sympathetic group of people will discuss the issue.”

Wikipedia’s decisions are not based on the number of people who showed up and voted a particular way on a particular day.

 

Time and Precedence

Consider a Wikipedia discussion related to how annoying it is when a bookmark or link to a Web page no longer works.

As in many of the issues facing Wikipedia, Wikipedians must achieve a delicate balance, this time between rehashing tired issues and reconsidering vital ones.

The IETF and W3C have some means for judging the merit of an issue.

First, working group charters are carefully constructed in order to focus on issues that are amenable to resolution within a specified time frame.

Second, the working group chair has a critical job in summarizing and recording discussion.

Despite all the focus on conversation and the cacophony that sometimes accompanies the consensus process, silence is one of the greatest challenges successful decision making

 

The Facilitator 

A poll which is now visible here included a question of whether television episode articles should only be disambiguated when necessary.

The poll was well-publicized. Nonetheless, a few members of the minority have declared that there was no consensus and that the dispute is still open.

Of course, consensus does not mean unanimity, but as long as we were short of unanimity,

The core issue of this debate, how to name articles about television episodes, is really quite unimportant in the greater scheme of Wikipedia.

Most importantly, how Wikipedians can convince a recalcitrant minority when this is the case?

As Yaksha noted, he believed there was consensus and began to rename articles to disambiguate only when necessary,

but “Elonka, however, claimed that there was no consensus, to move the articles, and that the moves were disruptive.” And so the “edit war” began

Yaksha and Elonka is minority.

The final decision notes that “It is the responsibility of the administrators and other responsible parties to close extended policy discussions they are involved in.”

An established and respected user who is not an administrator could close a discussion.

However, it is still difficult to see how this situation could have been avoided

Fortunately, Wikipedian Ace Class Shadow advise some useful advice while recognizing there is no perfect solution:

one could use templates to mark that a discussion page is now archived, or one could “ask an impartial closer to do the deed, stating that you’ll respect their common sense judgment.

I don't know in detail about wikipedia. So, Which part does discussion of wikipedia mean? Even though I don't know that which part means, there are some ways to solution. I learned how to solution conflict of discussion in detail.

 

Polling and Voting

Consensus is the preferred method of making decisions at Wikipedia

Yet, polling is an available technique within the consensus process.

How is polling different from voting? While people may confuse polling with voting.

polling should prompt and shape discussion, rather than finish it.

Voting is one of the best ways to quantify opinions in a large group.

For each member of the group, there’s a certain likelihood that he disagrees with one of the existing members.

The likelihood of conflict between two individuals grows geometrically.

And while voting may be appropriate in some circumstances, or at least a last resort. if consensus fails, the openness of Wikipedia, again, contributes to the sentiment that voting “is evil.”

 

 

Conclusion

people naturally look for means by which difficulties can be clearly dissected and neatly dispatched. But, given its reliance upon an assumption of good faith and a preference for consensus in its decision making, one can conclude that the Wikipedia community is relatively tolerant of the ambiguities inherent to collaborating on a world encyclopedia and rather trusting of human judgment over the long run.

In another “WikiSpeak” entry consensus is defined as “one of the three states that can be reached at the end of a discussion after all parties have become thoroughly fed up with it; the alternatives are no consensus or for pity’s sake, he wishes he’d never gotten involved in this.”

 

 

I don't know in detail about wikipedia. So, Which part does discussion of wikipedia mean? Through this reading, I learn how to overcome confliction of discussion.

Even though I learn this solution of confliction, I don't know why conflict form.

I learned about discussion in wikipedia in class before. That was about article.

The discussion is about "does the article delete or keep?"

I want to know this discussion subject is all or another discussion subject exists.

I would like to know more in detail about this parts .