@Peter Gulutzan, I see your edit summary saying "An RfC can be a consensus among a limited group of editors". Wikipedia:Requests for comment, on the other hand, says "A request for comment (RfC) is a way to ask the Wikipedia community for input on an issue." What makes you think that "a way to ask the Wikipedia community for input" would result in "a consensus among a limited group of editors", instead of "a consensus formed by the Wikipedia community"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:25, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what does 'limited group' mean? Everything ever decided on Wikipedia ever was by a 'limited group' technically. Is the intent to imply 'unrepresentative group' or 'illegitimate group'? Bon courage (talk) 16:31, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just because you ask the community, doesn't mean any significant proportion of the community responds. If an RfC has three !votes, that is a limited group of editors. Most people would reserve the term "community consensus" for a more representative sample (although per BC there isn't really a numeric cutoff). Nikkimaria (talk) 16:35, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, I showed you in thread CONLEVEL as any level that agrees with me, that RfCs can be closed with a tiny number of editors. Your policy change was "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right (e.g., as evidenced by a request for comment) ..." where that "e.g." is your addition. I interpret that as a suggestion that any RfC's existence indicates a broader-community exception, and since I believe that a tiny number is a limited number I reverted your policy change with -- quoting my edit summary more fully -- "An RfC can be a consensus among a limited group of editors, so it shouldn't be mentioned here as an exception about a consensus among a limited group of editors." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think one of things being missed here is that sometimes not many editors care about something, and for the purposes of establishing consensus those who don't, are immaterial. For niche topics consensus is often quite properly decided by a tiny number of editors. Bon courage (talk) 17:26, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even if qui tacet consentire videtur were applicable somewhere sometime, it wouldn't be here. The objection isn't solely about whether such RfCs should result in "no consensus due to lack of participation" (though I'd probably like that). It's about a policy change saying that such groups are the "broader community", "community consensus", etc. It's about whether it makes sense to say a limited group doesn't matter but matters if a limited group says so. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter Gulutzan, I wonder if you could give an example/description of a group of editors who are able to make a decision about an article's contents, that you might disagree with the decision, but that you would not describe as a local consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No because the term "local consensus" isn't part of the disputed wording. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:46, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem I want to address is people claiming that any and every discussion that ends with the Wrong™ Result is "just a local consensus".

The understanding I had of the term when I wrote that originally had characteristics like these:

• an unadvertised discussion (e.g., a normal discussion on a talk page),
• participated in only by self-selected people (e.g., members of a WikiProject),
• on a lower-profile page (e.g., on a WikiProject page, not on a Village pump or a central noticeboard),
• resulting in a decision to reject the normal guidelines (e.g., the community's guidelines say that infoboxes should be decided case-by-case, but we reject that and decide to ban all infoboxes in one fell swoop), and
• affecting a large number of pages (e.g., all the articles within the scope of a WikiProject).

That's what I meant when I wrote this originally. An RFC, as it is the canonical opposite of "an unadvertised discussion", would obviously not be a "local consensus". An RFC that attracted participants from outside the original group would also not be a "local consensus".

From your comments here, I don't think that we have the same understanding of what the term means, and I don't think we have the same understanding of how that relates to forming a consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, my understanding is that this thread is about my objection to your addition of a phrase in the policy text, because you started the thread by addressing me and quoting a snippet of my edit summary explaining the reversion. But you want to talk about the definition of the term "local consensus", which is not in that phrase or in my edit summary or indeed anywhere in the policy text. So yes we have a misunderstanding. Perhaps you can clear it up by changing the heading to e.g. "Definition of local consensus which has nothing to do with the recent edits", or starting a new thread? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:47, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The phrasing in question here was attempting to provide an example of how a limited group of editors can "convince the broader community that such action is right". Peter, you are essentially saying that an RfC is not a good example, because occasionally an RfC does not have wide participation. Wouldn't the easy fix be to adjust the statement to read, "(e.g. as evidenced by a request for comment with wide participation)", or something craftier along those lines? If you don't want to see an example in running text, we could easily place it into an {{efn}} with the added benefit of being able to elaborate further. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter Gulutzan, I don't think I'm understanding your view. What process do you believe editors can engage in, to find out what the "broader community" or "community consensus" is? If it's not an unadvertised discussion among partisans on a talk page (what LOCALCON has rejected from its first moment) and it's not an RFC (what you objected to here), what's left? Votes during keynote sessions at Wikimania? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, once again I can't make you understand, okay. But that doesn't mean the onus is on me to propose an alternative phrase when I believe no phrase is appropriate there. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GoneIn60: Thank you for understanding, although I didn't emphatically say "occasionally". Yes, adding "with wide participation" would handle the objection that the phrase conflicts with the sentence start. But why there? If the idea is to praise RfCs, that could be a sentence at the end of the Levels of consensus section e.g. "RfCs with wide participation might be considered to have a higher level of consensus." Instead putting them in the sentence about WikiProjects implies that making such an RfC will make it okay for a WikiProject to override a policy, which I think is rare (anybody know any example?) and which I think is inferior to the alternative (why not change the policy?). Anyway, if you still think the phrase can be saved, then I know a way to proceed with the dispute: an RfC. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RFCs often happen on WikiProject pages. If groups of editors ("WikiProjects") start a community-wide discussion ("an RFC"), then why wouldn't that be treated the same as anyone else creating a community-wide discussion?

The problem that is described in LOCALCON is that a group of editors can have such a discussion without the broader community being notified. Then you add an infobox to an article, and someone from WP:COMPOSERS reverts you and says basically that their group had a quiet little conversation several years ago and decided to ban infoboxes in "their" articles without telling the rest of the community. It is the exclusion of the rest of the community that is the problem. RFCs, because they are deliberately advertised to the whole community, do not exclude the rest of the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It’s rare, but I think an RFC can be an example of a local consensus - although the closer would have to have very good reason for rejecting it on that ground.

For example, see talk:First_statute_of_the_IMRO#RfC:_Note_about_Internal_Macedonian_Revolutionary's_Organization's_first_name - this is one I closed as no consensus on the grounds of local consensus, for reasons that I felt were very good. BilledMammal (talk) 21:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That discussion does not appear to have attracted any comments from editors outside the original dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. There is an ArbCom discussion with one of the main topics being consensus. It is at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Consensus process, censorship, administrators' warnings and blocks in dispute, and responses to appeals. Your input is welcome. This notice is placed to attract objective input (whether in favor or against) of uninvolved editors related to the interest of the consensus policy page. It is not canvassing,

In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus.

Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 06:09, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When Galileo was sentenced to death, the consensus was against what he said.

Recently someone asked me to gain consensus first even though I cited a strong, universally accepted reference for the material.

What if the right number of editors to reach consensus on a certain topic of an article is absent from participating that discussion?

How does WikiPedia fight fallacy of popular opinions? Kawrno Baba (talk) 07:10, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kawrno Baba Please be specific and provide a link to where you were asked to gain consensus. Doug Weller talk 10:49, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Doug Weller, please read the notice-box on top of here. Kawrno Baba (talk) 11:01, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You really should have told User talk:StarkReport you were posting here. Have you read the page for which is the talk page carefully? Doug Weller talk 11:38, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a new editor I was trying to understand the concept of 'consensus during editing' myself first. Kawrno Baba (talk) 12:01, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, when discussing the substance of articles, it's not editors that we formally rely on (so not what's popular to them), although it's still their job to understandably and in summary fashion relate the relevant body of reliable literature, see generally WP:DUE, so that's what they either have agreement on or need to resolve. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:05, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone with a new idea that gets lots of opposition thinks themselves Galileo, the vast majority are just wrong. The Galileo fallacy is also a thing.
If an editor disagrees with you the first thing is to try discussion on the articles talk page, failing that WP:Dispute resolution is a useful guide to other options available. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:21, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]