EipWiki:Consensus

Project:Consensus is the grand illusion that this wiki makes decisions by agreement. In reality, consensus usually means "whoever shouted the loudest on the talk page," or "whoever reverted the article the most times until everyone else gave up."

Definition

Consensus is supposedly the shared agreement of editors after polite discussion. In practice it often looks like:

• Two people arguing endlessly while everyone else quietly watches.
• One determined editor deciding they are "the community."
• A complete lack of participation, which magically transforms silence into agreement.

How it is reached

• Discussion: Ideally, editors discuss proposed changes on talk pages. In reality, they post walls of text nobody reads.
• Voting: While technically "not a vote," discussions often devolve into people writing "Support" or "Oppose" with no reasoning.
• Edit wars: The time-honored tradition of fighting through reverts until exhaustion sets in.
• Administrator fiat: When all else fails, eip takes precedence and tells everyone else to fuck off.

Consensus in practice

• If you want something changed: write a paragraph and wait six months.
• If you want nothing changed: say "per consensus" and walk away.
• If nobody shows up: congratulations, you have unanimous support.
• If too many people show up: the conversation will spiral until it quietly dies, leaving everything as it was.

Examples

• Changing the stub template text from "This article is a stub" to "This article is a stub, but who cares?" required fourteen talk page posts, two reverts, and one person rage-quitting.
• Deciding whether Dumpster fire should be categorized under "Metaphors" or "Trash" took three weeks and solved nothing.
• Every spelling dispute ever.

Etiquette

• Assume good faith, even when the other person is clearly trolling.
• Try to be civil, but remember that sarcasm is technically not against the rules.
• Never cite "consensus" without a link, unless you want to start the whole fight again.

See also

• Project:Talk page
• Help:Undo
• Flaming piece of garbage

References

[1] Any talk page longer than the article it is about. [2] eip.