Wikipedia:Discuss and Vote
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Decisions on Wikipedia are made by
Deletion and featuring
Wikipedia has several processes to deal with deletion (e.g.
Because the point of these processes is to form consensus, it is preferable that people include comments and discuss the matter along with voting - that is, people are encouraged to explain their reasonings, respond to others and possibly compromise or change a vote, rather than signing a one-word opinion and not looking back.
Policy and guidelines
Policy and guidelines are ratified through a vote. They may also be imposed by the wikipedia foundation or by Jimbo. However, even in these latter cases, it is appropriate to call a vote or straw poll on a proposed policy or guideline. A successful proposal is made by discussing it, listening to objections, and rewording the proposal accordingly until a compromise is reached that has the support of a supermajority of the people. This vote also validates the claim of consensus. Insisting that votes be denied on a proposal precludes such validation of consensus. A discussion can only validate that consensus has been achieved when there are small groups. Otherwise, it may only suggest consensus. With larger groups or in the case of a strongly divisive issue, consensus is validated by a vote, after substantial discussion. In many consensus may not be achieved without further discussion following the vote.
If a proposal is not controversial, doing a headcount is not necessary; if a proposal is controversial, doing a headcount to see different perspectives will help establish a base point from which to proceed. However, to avoid further polarization it is helpful to reduce a problem to more detailed elements and find areas of common agreement as well as identifying those areas of disagreement. When dealing with disagreements, it is often possible to compromise by referring to Wikipedia Policies such as Neutral Point of View. No consensus can be declared, even in the case of a vote unless there has been a reasonable discussion regarding all points of view. Objections to conducting polls is as much a failure to deliberate as refusal to engage in open and honest discussion of the issues.
Guidelines should rarely be enacted without a vote. Similarly, most policies should be voted upon. Although current policies may not have all been voted on, as wikipedia has grown it has become clear that managing larger groups requires this as part of the process. (Examples include
Standards
Once it has been decided by consensus to standardize an issue (e.g.
People
Whether certain people are trusted for certain functions is put to a community vote, in particular on
Feature requests
Changes to the MediaWiki software are made by the developers and are usually discussed on BugZilla. Votes on feature requests may elicit attention, however votes in this area are trumped by larger issues of economical implementation, programming feasibility and server load.
Arbitration
The ArbCom follows a procedure of listing principles, findings of facts and remedies; individual arbiters vote on these to indicate their assent or dissent.
See also
- Wikipedia is nota democracy