Wikibooks:Decision making

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This page documents rules and principles for an official Wikibooks guideline that the Wikibooks community has accepted and Wikibookians should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this guideline.

This policy has an unstable branch for proposing changes.
Previous versions of this guideline, and discussion thereof can be found at Wikibooks:General voting rules/Proposal

Decisions on wikibooks are decided by the community in a variety of ways. The most important tools that wikibookians have to make decisions are compromise and consensus.

Issues at wikibooks can be divided into two different categories, depending on the extent to which they affect the wikibooks community over time. The decisions that have a large, long-term effect on wikibooks are called high impact decisions. Otherwise they are low impact decisions.

Contents

[edit] Be Bold

Main article: Wikibooks:Be bold

Wikibookians are encouraged to be bold in making changes that will benefit the project and the community. However, wikibookians don't always agree on what is best, and so disputes may arise. When wikibookians have different opinions about a single decision, they should employ the tools of compromise and consensus to create a solution.

[edit] Low impact decisions

Low impact decisions involve proposals that express the community's preferences and feelings about issues that fall well below the level of policies and guidelines, and do not affect the long term culture or structure of Wikibooks. For these sorts of decisions, wikibookians are welcome to employ multiple means for decision-making, including consensus, majority votes or 3rd party arbitration. The manner in which a dispute will be settled should be agreed upon before any particular method is employed.

Examples of low impact decisions are:

  1. Determining the following month's book of the month
  2. Determining the following month's collaboration of the month
  3. Determining the following quarter's Wikijunior book of the quarter
  4. Creating or altering the content, structure or scope of a particular book

Some low impact situations, such as nominating votes for the book of the month and the collaboration of the month already have their own set voting rules that should be followed.

Should a decision need to be made that affects a single module, a single book or a single project it will usually use the rules for high impact decisions except where all parties agree to use another basis.

[edit] High impact decisions

High impact decisions involve the adoption, major adaptation or repeal of policies and guidelines that have a long term effect on the culture and structure of Wikibooks. These decisions should always be made through the process of building a community consensus. Such decisions include:

  1. Making a Wikibookian an administrator
  2. Making a Wikibookian a bureaucrat
  3. Giving a Wikibookian checkuser rights
  4. Creating or modifying Wikibooks Policies and operational guidelines
  5. Establishing the voting rules for low impact decisions
  6. Determining whether a page containing substantive content that is not unambiguously outside our inclusion criteria should be deleted

[edit] Terminology

We will use the term proposal here to mean the change that is being discussed by the community. We will use the term discussion to mean the process of wikibookians voicing their opinions and working towards compromise. Wikibookians do not "Vote" on anything, but we discuss points, compromise, and try to reach consensus.

[edit] Who is eligible to discuss

Any Wikibookian may discuss any issue, and voice their opinions. The only exceptions are BOTM and COTM, where other rules may apply. There is only one allowable voice per person, not one voice per username. Users with multiple accounts should not post opinions from more then one account. Remember: comments are judged on their quality, not on their quantity. Comments that are suspected of being cast in bad faith can be discarded.

[edit] How to run a discussion

Each comment in a discussion should be signed (using four tildes: ~~~~), to identify the writer. Anonymous comments will not be given any weight or consideration, and may be removed altogether. Discussions should last long enough that all interested wikibookians are given an opportunity to join in. Important discussions should be publicised in the Wikibooks:Staff lounge and on the Wikibooks:Bulletin board, or other high-traffic areas. For high-impact decisions, discussions and debates should be left open as long as progress towards reaching consensus is being made.

[edit] Community consensus

"Community consensus" is a state of existence arrived at by following a general consensus decision making process. Ultimately the state of "community consensus" involves the vast majority of users agreeing on some decision. Wikibooks is not a democracy, and a simple voter majority is not the default, nor the recommended method of deciding any discussion.

Consensus decision making relies upon users acting in good faith to come to a commonly acceptable decision through negotiation and compromise.

[edit] Process

This is a step-by-step process for outlining a discussion, and working towards consensus.

  1. A proposal is made, and discussion about the proposal is invited. The proposal should be publicised clearly so that all interested Wikibookians are made aware of it.
  2. The proposal is discussed, and initial concerns may be raised.
  3. If initial concerns are raised, these are discussed. The proposal may be modified during these discussions.
  4. A call for consensus regarding the proposal is made in the form of a discussion and subsequent measurement of the degree of consensus with a straw poll.
  5. If there are no objections, the proposal is accepted and affirmative "community consensus" has been reached on the proposal.
  6. If there are still objections, the objections should be discussed and:
    • The proposal may be dropped. Affirmative "community consensus" for the proposal was not reached.
    • The proposal may be modified to address these objections and resubmitted for discussion.
    • A call for the determination of any consensus regarding the proposal may be made, disregarding objections. A call for this second measurement of the degree of consensus should not be made lightly if there are still objections and should only occur after substantive good faith discussion of both the proposal and objections has taken place. The community can:
      • Accept the proposal in spite of objections, and affirmative "community consensus" has been reached.
      • Not accept the proposal as "community consensus" has not been reached and repeat the process if necessary.

[edit] User responses

Users who do not agree with the community decision should accept the decision and, if they feel strongly, have one of the following options open to them:

  1. Propose alternative policies.
  2. Propose alterations to existing policies.
  3. Concede to the community's decision.
  4. Ultimately, if a user is unable to abide the decision, the user may need to reconsider their future participation in the project

[edit] Following this Guideline

Wikibookians are encouraged to be bold when making changes, and they are encouraged to compromise and work as a community to solve problems. There is no single "right way" to achieve community consensus, and the steps outlined above only give a rough example of one version of that process.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Decision_making"
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