Wikipedia:Wisdom of the crowd
This is an essay on interpreting and judging consensus. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: The number of editors forming a consensus matters. The more editors participating the more we can trust the wisdom of the crowd and use the number of editors taking a position to determine the consensus. |
The more editors there are in a discussion, the more certainty there can be about the relative quality of the arguments presented. Stronger arguments will mean more people are persuaded and indicate that position as their preference. Or the fact that there is not a consensus will become clear by relatively equal number of editors coalescing around differing options. The larger the crowd of editors the more this becomes apparent and thus our evidence of consensus is clearer. The wisdom of the crowd can make itself known. While consensus is formed through discussions not votes on Wikipedia there's a point where the discussion ends or becomes repetitive. At that point, the strength of argument can be seen simply by editors bolded choice.
The consensus policy recognizes this quality of consensus by noting that there are