Wikibooks talk:Decision making

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

All the previous discussions on this page dealt with an older version of this policy which has been completely replaced by the current text. Older discussions for this policy are still available in the history of this page. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Majority, consensus and unanimity

The discussion here has shown that no-one wants a simple majority voting system for anything but the most basic market research issues such as BOTM. It has also shown that everyone understands that a single user who endlessly blocks a decision for malicious or wierd reasons should not be allowed to do so forever. Hence the term "consensus" has been bandied about as the solution to decision taking.

I agree that consensus is a good idea. However I am deeply opposed to gang rule. The idea that there will always be a group of Wikibookians who are reasonable and objective and who will coalesce to guide a decision to an appropriate conclusion is pure fiction. What actually happens is that a dialectic occurs in which chance remarks and objectionable style cause people to polarise into groups. Without any constitutional constraints the strongest group wins. Gang rule occurs. After the most powerful group has accomplished its polarised aims Festinger's Dissonance Theory applies and the winning group construes itself to be all sweetness, reason and light and incapable of anything but a justified decision.

The current guidelines attempt to avoid this problem by constitutionalising the process. All advanced organisations do this, it is only the most rabid dictatorships and transient anarchies such as the school playground and revolutionary groups that would ever contemplate operating without a constitutional method for decision taking. RobinH 09:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but I'm not quite sure what the point of the above is.

I for the most part liked you recent edits to the policy wording, but removed the bit about the majority rule in the third round. There was no consensus of this in the debate before the guideline went official (strictly speaking, you probably shouldn't have done any changes in wording before discussing it on the talk page .. but I won't fret over the ones I agree with ;-)).

My concern over using the majority rule as a last vent rises from the fear that it will reduce the willingness of a majority for compromise. If all you have to do to get your way is wait till the third round, why should you even engage in dialogue. --Swift 11:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The point of this section is that the word "consensus" is being bandied about without anyone being clear about what it means. In practice there are only majority votes (50%,60%, 100% or some other fraction) and imposed decisions. There is no magical "consensus" that can be used for decisions, the word "consensus" without qualification just covers bullying or use of power.

There was no consensus that the wording should become an accepted guideline.

Yes, the majority could wait until the third round. Alternatively, with the version after your edit, the dissenters could just continue to dissent until they kill the decision making process. RobinH 11:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree, This topic has recently been under [(19-20 March 2007) discussion] on my talk page so I'm reactivating this topic. Consensus doesn't support ignoring objections and must be part of an open process. I'm still working on an essay on Decision making and Community consensus on Wikibooks that fully addresses the problems, I have found so far. I take the change to call attention to the Hang on a sec post on the archive to anyone discussing the proposed drafted text. --Panic 03:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "a" process

The process outlined is only one potential process for developing consensus. If it's "the" (only) process then we should have used it once or twice by now. (I couldn't find where we have.) RfD's VfD's certainly don't follow the letter of that process and yet the RfD VfD process isn't broken and I don't suggest changing it. Instead I suggest keeping that process as an example process but not a mandated one. I did this by changing the word "the" to "a" because I believe that this reflects the current practice of the guideline better. --xixtas ^talk 03:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think in the end it is simplistic to suggest that one decision making process for every aspect of Wikibooks (or other Wikis) is going to work. In the end there will always be judgment calls to be made. In theory (?!) admins are trusted to make these calls (or 'crats - there was an RfA on Commons that caused some stir recently) and everything is reversible (some bits are harder than others - removing sysop rights for instance). While guidance is great "rules" can hamper things considerable (I'm quite good at following guidance, please don't ask me about rules!).

An interesting aspect is the use of (and importantly the counting of) "neutral" votes. I read quite a bit on quite a few Wikis. I tend to vote "yes" or "no" - however sometimes I vote "neutral". It is a conscious decision. The answer on Commons (FWIW) is that they do not count but can be influential - probably a reasonable answer (IMO). However it adds a dimension to the complexity of decision making --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this change. Even if this is a policy or a guideline, we want wikibookians to be able to use their judgment with preference towards this method. Wikibookians are not robots, and we cant expect them to act in a single specific way in every situation. The main point of this page is that wikibooks is not strictly a democracy, and a majority should never be free to ignore and trample on a minority. This is not to say that a consensus cannot be achieved with outstanding objections, only that those objections need to be considered before rendering a verdict. Even on VfD, if everybody votes to delete a particular page, and one person votes to keep, we will frequently not delete that book so that the one dissenter can work to improve it. The process is not reversed however, we won't "try" deleting a book if only one person votes that way. The idea of this method is to preserve the status quo unless there is overwhelming opinion to make change. The burden always falls on those who want to change the status quo, which leads to an inherent unfairness in the system: People who want to make change need to do alot more work then those who want to oppose it. So long as these principles are held, i dont really care how wikibookians go about making decisions. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No Outside Authority

I wanted to maybe add a note to this page about stewards and outside authority. I want to point out that there really isn't any outside appeals that can be made if a situation here is not handled satisfactorily. I am leaving this message in response to a message on the administrator's noticeboard that stewards are administrative only, and do not hold any particular authority to make decisions. I would also like to point out that the WMF board has taken a largely laissez-faire approach to the projects, which means that even if we send them a complaint, they are hihgly unlikely to get involved. Plus, for the board to get involved in a dispute here, they would open themselves up to getting dragged into disputes on many thousands of projects.

I think that there is some assumption that there really is a last-ditch external appeal that can be made in a dispute, but I want to make clear that this isn't the case. Wikibookians really need to be self-reliant, and we need to make our own decisions without being able to appeal to an external authority. In some cases it might be acceptable to bring in a neutral arbiter, but that's a topic that really can be left up to the disputants. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I definitely agree that something like this should be mentioned in the policy. Previous situations have taken wrong turns on this assumption and we need to make it clear that the Wikibooks word is final. -withinfocus 22:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, it's not really a change in our policy, it's mostly just a clarification of a point that we've been mistaken on in the past. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Howabout text like this:

I know it's a little long-winded, but it really does cover all the points we need to make: The wikibooks community is the final authority on any issue, no decision is "final" and can always be revisted by the community, neutral third parties can be imported from outside the project to act as arbiters, and people outside wikibooks have no authority to make binding decisions concerning wikibooks. I do acquiesce that certain global decisions can be made by the board concerning all projects, but they aren't decisions on which Wikibooks is likely to have any control over, nor any input on anyway. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that this is the case. There is little reason to believe that the WMF or any other group (appointed or elected from a multi-project basis) would ever even listen to any arbitration decision without it having "gone through the process" of any local or individual project decision process. This by itself should stop anybody from trying to "appeal directly to the top" for a decision before the rest of the community has had a chance to step in and voice their opinions on the topic.

Still, such actions "from the top" have happened here on Wikibooks in the past, and often at times at odds with what most of the community wanted to see happen. Content has been removed, substantial content, without so much as a VfD discussion reviewing the merits of that content. And recently as well, by people who weren't even regular Wikibooks administrators. There may have been very good reasons for doing that, but the point is that there is a "higher authority" in action here, even if you don't want to acknowledge it. Writing a policy that denies the existance of this "higher authority" is going to be a great disservice to new Wikibookians who read this policy, only to discover that another reality actualy exists.

I do disagree that the WMF board won't listen to legitimate cries of intervention for gross cases of abuse. They have done so in the past, and I have no reason to believe that they won't in the future. That they choose (wisely, I might add) to not get involved with the situation started by the dispute with Panic is besides the point. If you compare this to the U.S. Supreme Court (one I'm a little familiar with), they get thousands of appeal requests each year. They only "hear" about 30-40 cases, and even then don't necessarily make a final decision on all of them. Quite often, they remand them to a lower jurisdiction with only a comment about one or two fine points of law for that court to consider. A meta-arbitration board certainly could do just this sort of activity if it is ever set up.

Indeed, I would point out that some of the problems that came up with Jimbo's intervention on Wikibooks in the past was precisely because a few individuals did "appeal" directly to the top (Jimbo) and demand some sort of action to happen immediately. Without any sort of community input first. That is not what I'm talking about.

Ultimately, authority to act as an administrator, bureaucrat, steward, or any other "leadership" position has its authority derived from the WMF board of trustees. Legitimacy comes from the user community, but the real power is the one who controls the ability to pull the plug from the servers we are using. That is the WMF board. Any fanciful policy statement to the contrary is not going to change that fact, unless we become completely independent of the WMF board. And even then it is still something that is up to whomever has the ability to physically operate the hardware (at least directly paying the bills for the hardware and is legally responsible for it) that can force the decisions to be made.

Basically, not only do I disagree that this ammendment to the decision making policy should be made, I don't think legitimately there is even grounds to suggest such a policy in the first place. Decisions by a group of administrators is not the final "court of appeal" on this or any other Wikimedia project. --Rob Horning 04:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Rob, I think you're really splitting hairs here and are missing the point of this proposed change. Nobody really cares who has the power to "pull the plug", it is out of our hands, but it's also out of our minds. We don't discuss closing wikibooks down here, and so it doesnt matter under whose authority such a thing could happen. What I'm looking to do with the amendment is to prevent people from looking beyond wikibooks to seek solutions. We have all the mechanisms here for resolving disputes, making decisions, and collaborating together. There is no need to try and go beyond the system, and so we should take steps to discourage attempts to do that. The WMF board has said on numerous occasions that it wouldn't get involved in community disputes. Hell, the WMF refuses to even play a helpful role in the selection of a new logo for this project.

Second, the kinds of "from the top" actions that you are discussing happened long in the past and are unlikely to happen again. However, we can take rudimentary steps to prevent it by making policy that states that the wikibooks community has final authority around here. Jimbo doesnt play the role that he once did in the WMF, and none of the current board members are interested in taking the kind of proactive stance that Jimbo took with the projects. The fact is, and something that you need to accept, is that the kinds of things that you're worried about simply arent an issue here anymore. We dont have to worry about the radical power abuses that happen on some of the smaller projects, and we dont have to worry about heavenly intercessions from the board into our daily affairs. The buck, for all intents and purposes starts and stops here with the wikibooks community, and I can't see a reasonable situation where outside assistance would either be asked for legitimately (as the decision making process is pretty comprehensive) or given (as the board is unlikely to intevene in any case). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 04:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not where I'm living in the past, as you seem to be implying, but facing a reality here. The WMF board of trustees really does have the ultimate authority, and I think it is wise to note that. And they have acted in the past, and have not made any statement showing they won't act in the future. Indeed, some significant policy decisions (this is policy admittedly) have been made even over this past year which has had perhaps even a modest impact on Wikibook. And while it may be buried under a pile of more mundane day to day administrator actions, there have been actions by board members and stewards here on Wikibooks that involved both content and user accounts over this past year that could have gone through the community decision processes (aka the VfD page and similar community forii) but weren't. This is my point, that appeals have been made and decisions reached that did not involve the Wikibooks community, because this isn't the ultimate authority. That I happen to agree with the actions performed by these individuals is one reason I haven't raised a stink about it on community pages... or at least haven't tried to reverse the actions myself. I'm not talking the distant past or something that happened two or three years ago. I also haven't seen any formal policy pronoucement on the part of the WMF board to suggest anything has really changed, other than perhaps the WMF board trusts the en.wikibooks community to more or less take care of itself at the moment, and are generally pleased with what policies we have come up with on our own. But that is not the same as suggesting "we" have the ultimate authority and there is no room for appeal.

In addition, I find it somewhat comforting to know there are avenues of appeal in the case of abuse. Even if it is a seldom used option and something that would only be of value in cases of blatant abuse of authority. At the very least, having avenues of appeal on decisions like a user block would be useful if only to acknowledge that sometimes people do make mistakes, and are very human in their actions with personal prejudice and pride. I would hope that no one individual (including myself) would have ultimate supreme authority on any matter, and that actions could be reversed. To acknowledge that the WMF board is very unlikely to get involved in all but the most blatant abuses of authority may be true, but I still think it is reasonable to mention the possibility. Meta Arbitration Committees have been mentioned in the past on Foundation-l as well, and this is something that may happen in the future.

I should note here that this is a difference in opinion, however, and I do understand more or less what you are trying to get at Whiteknight. Authority of action, however, is the issue here, and I am suggesting that the authority is from the WMF board, not the "community" of generally active Wikibooks users. Ultimately, there is "outside authority" that is superior to any decision reached by the Wikibooks community, and that authority shouldn't be ignored or dismissed. --Rob Horning 13:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean any offense by my "living in the past" comment, I only was trying to point out that the kinds of things you seem to be worrying about don't pose a present danger to our community. I would be interested to see what kinds of steward actions in the recent past you are talking about. There were a handful of times in the past year or so when my internet connection was unreliable, but I was able to contact stewards to act on my behalf via IRC. It is a frustrating situation when I can watch a vandal operate on the RC feed, but can't log on to the website to do anything about it!

If a person is blocked unfairly, they can always appeal the situation to the community. In that way, all admins are kept in check, because if one admin is blocking improperly, other admins will come in and correct that. The flip side of the coin is where the community as a whole does something that is deemed to be "unfair", but I would tend to say that a "I'm right and everybody else is wrong" situation is just an error of perception from the "victim". I would really like to see the steward or board member with large enough cajones to come in here and say "the entire community is wrong on this issue, and i'm going to unilaterally correct it". I don't feel like such a situation would end well, and it would be in our best interests not to even leave that option available. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Corrections to the text:

• Reworked some of the wording made some thing more Wikibooks related and clear that the decisions we are talking are reached by the decision-making process.
• Removed "Neither of these groups is likely to respond to such requests anyway." it isn't up to us to comment or infer on other groups actions or intentions.
• Removed "neutral" as classification of the arbiter if it is by mutual agreement we shouldn't attempt to enforce a trait (it is up to the parties to do the selection and agree on it).
• Removed limit of arbiters (they may be free to agree on the number also).

I haven't changed the "However, such arbiters can only help to reach a conclusion, and cannot enforce a binding decision without consensus from the general Wikibooks community." but I strongly disagree with it. It may be part of the request to ask the arbiter(s) to reach a conclusion and it should be up for the community to validate the proceeding and determine that the conclusion is enforcible if not in opposition to an existing policy, this will reduce the noise level and void processes, as to save all parties time and provide a quicker resolution. As an apart, I consider stewards and even the Wikimedia Board of Trustees members of the Wikibooks community. I understand what the text is attempting to avoid but I think that the idea is not expressed correctly. --Panic 05:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I changed a sentence to sound better, but I don't think the message is any different. Also, if you or anyone else wish to extract the idea that Stewards, Trustees, etc. are Wikibooks community members, then the above text needs to change to something like "established Wikibooks editors" or something similar. There's no way I would support this text if people try to find loopholes or other interpretation issues like how "everyone is a part of the community". I don't think that view is correct in the first place, but if others do believe such things then it needs to get cut or re-worded. -withinfocus 12:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Did small correction on the wording and removed duplication of meanings. As for the definition of the Wikibooks community, I don't like your idea to reduce it only to "established Wikibooks editors" that is also a minority group of Wikibookians, you must keep in mind that to be able to express an opinion and participate on a decission one must only register an account (at least for now). As for the stewards and other "top echelons", they fall outside of the need to register as they by default can act and even in cases change or drastically alter, decide or affect decisions or actions taken here. I would agree that most would abstain to participate in minor local discussions but probably would be willing and mostly welcomed and useful to more complex issues. I prefer inclusion to exclusion and think that this view is beneficial to the project... --Panic 17:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I meant to suggest some words that would limit the definition of community to members that are here at the project and did not mean that the editors needed to be experienced. The term "established" defines that they have a presence here only. It only takes an account creation to establish one's self here. If a Steward starts to do anything here then yes they are a Wikibooks community member, but they are no longer any more important than another user really and shouldn't be considered a path to further appeal. -withinfocus 20:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think "appealing" should be in this (or any) policy at all. Nor anything about eschelons, really. Nor criteria for what makes a contributor "established". Stewards, foundation members, admins, longtime users and new contributors should all simply be treated as interested participants, and their views weighed according to the strength of their arguments. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 20:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset)

My 2 cents worth:

I reworded it some, since participants through mutual agreement can ask anyone from the outside to be arbiters, just nobody is obligated to do so, which I believe was the issue that was being brought up in regards to stewards and the board of trustees. I believe saying "don't do this" in this case is a bit too instructional and may only encourage people to do it. I believe "binding until reversed by the same process" is enough, anything else is outside Wikibooks' control.

That said I see a few problems with any suggested changes so far that isn't addressed and admittedly I'm not sure yet how to address it. I don't believe a decision made by a single lone contributor should be considered binding nor should a decision be considered binding if there is nobody around to care. Under any of the proposed changes, for example someone could start a book and could retain "control" over a book through scaring potential participants away who disagree with there POV, because there decision would be considered binding. This would encourage book "ownership" rather then cooperation. Also since this doesn't address abandoned book it seems to imply any decision made would be binding even on abandon books, so someone who wants to adopt a book would under this proposed change, it would seem be required to follow any previous decisions since there would be no active contributors to discuss it with in order to reverse a previous decision. --darklama 23:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, how do we make the point that people shouldn't go "crying to mommy" at meta or foundation-l every time they don't get their way? My biggest point with even bringing up this whole issue is that people should not be looking outside Wikibooks for solutions, when all the solutions or the mechanisms to derive solutions all all available here on Wikibooks already. We have a decision-making process that does not have a finite end point on purpose, it's a process that is never considered "finished" or "final" in any respect. To that effect, because no decision is ever final, you can't leave the system to find a better resolution, you are forced to work in the system and with the system to improve things for everybody.

To address your concern as well, a single contributor is never really considered "the community". But then again, if only one person votes on an issue, the result will always be 100% in favor of that person's opinion. It's only when other people get involved in a discussion do other possibilities emerge. Also, we are not likely to suffer trolls or control freaks very well, and if we find people who are chasing off new users, we will act as a community to stop that. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

w:WP:BEANS. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 01:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

w:WP:REICHSTAG - This may not even be all that applicable, but it has to be linked. Has to. -withinfocus 02:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)