User:Elaragirl/articles/Voting

Summary
Voting should always include the reasoning for the vote, which should clarify why a certain course of action is suggested, and will indicate whether true consensus exists on just the result, or in the reasons for that result. If the reasons for a result do not show consensus even if the results do, then there is not a real consensus and discussion should be furthered.

Introduction
There are several catagories of decisions that are made on Wikipedia, usual by consensus, which is achieved through debate, and indicated through a vote. Examples include WP:RFA, WP:AFD, WP:AID, and WP:AFC. There are several somewhat conflicting policies, but true efforts at fixing the problem, such as Discuss, don't vote, are themselves being neutralized by the blur of the difference between voting and consensus. The true compromise is to realize that voting is neccessary for consensus to be formed, but that not all votes equal forming consensus.

Problems With Voting
Many votes are simply given, without explanation, in the course of more controversial topics. Particularly in the cases of RfA, deletion debates, and some other instances, votes are often a simple, expressionless delete/keep or support/oppose. Occasionally some pithy soul will chip in with a per (username), to indicate they support this person's stance.

However, the core of voting towards consensus should be you only vote when you have something to add. If an article is up for deletion, each vote should be one of the following:


 * 1) An explanation of policies, guidelines, or community consensus items that the article/person either adheres to or violates, WITH references (diffs, sources, etc)
 * 2) An amplification of the above, with further support
 * 3) A statement of how to improve a situation with the goal of finding consensus.

Chilling Effect of Voting
Particularly in areas such as AfD, where otherwise good articles can be deleted out-of-process by sheer weight of numbers, the problem of voting vs. voting with a point is particularly lethal to the stated goals of Wikipedia. Although I am a Deletionist myself, I have seen several articles die simply by weight of delete votes, even without good policy to back up such votes. There is no call for what could be improved on the article. Some articles are given a second chance, but it seems that, all too often, the Inclusionists waste time voting on controversial discussions rather than on quality ones.

This has a chilling effect on an editor who sees his first article destroyed without being given a chance to fix it, add sources or references, or improve it. The typical answer is that the article can always be recreated, but there is nothing -- at least, to the new, casual editor -- that would indicate to him it would not be destroyed yet again. At least, if all votes required you to explain why you were voting for a particular position, the editor could examine specific policies.

I am not suggesting that the plethora of AfD votes is bad, so much as it can be pointless. An example can be found at Articles_for_deletion/Brickey_Elementary -- and yes, that is me violating my own idea, it was this vote that led to the creation of this essay. Is it REALLY neccesary to have 20 delete votes? FOUR of those votes had a clear explaination. Half of the rest were just repeating what those four said, and the rest were per nom.

Effects on policy and guidelines
Basing votes for deletion on random, unsupported statements is bad enough. Basing policy on them borders on the insane. And yet, all too often, you see perfectly good policy statements that someone has a problem with, and thus, there is a strawman poll, and a vote, and someone claims it can't be called a policy since there is no consensus, even if the oppose votes are nothing more than disorganized ranting.

Policy should always be the result of long discussion, without the histronics of campainging to vote. Imagine the catastrophe that would have resulted if we were to attempt to vote-ratify things like WP:DICK, WP:NPA, or WP:NPOV. I need not even mention WP:RS. Voting works in society because we have a class of people who do nothing but think up policy, and our only input is to accept or reject. On Wikipedia, when we can WRITE the policy directly, we must also be more direct in our handling of the issue of why we support or oppose it.

Reasoning and Consensus
The main, gargantuan problem with voting is it allows what I like to call anonimity of thought. There is no transparency to the reasoning behind such decisions, so how can there be consensus? If 30 people agree that an article needs to be deleted, but 10 believe it's because it fails WP:V, 10 believe it's because it fails WP:BIO, and 10 believe it's because it isn't notable enough, then we have a problem. Obviously, if an article fails any of those, then it's not a good article, but at the same time, those are problem that can concievably be fixed.

But when the reasoning for an action is not similar, can consensus exist?

Consensus
 * 1) General agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action.
 * 2) A specific method of community decision making where agreement by all parties is required, and one party can block the decision

It depends, doesn't it? If the community has general agreement as to an action, even if the reasons are all different and show no majority opinion, does the consensus really exist? Voting with reasons would expose such things, and allow a deeper discussion of issues.

Conclusion
I am aware lots of people will have a problem with this idea. That's usual. It's just words, and they only mean what you make of them. But so are votes, and strawman polls, and the results of those votes and polls has an effect on the Wikipedia.