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This forum is fordiscussion closers to discuss theirevaluation of consensus in preparation forclosing specific discussions, such as pendingXfD,RM, orRfC closes. Any editor who intends to close a discussion, and has concerns about how consensus in that discussion should be assessed is welcome to initiate a discussion here.
Please note that this isnot a place to discuss themerits of the underlying matter. It is solely for discussing whether a consensus can be discerned in a discussion, and how the discussion should be closed on the basis of a finding of consensus, or of an absence of consensus. Editors who are involved in discussions of the merits should generally avoid engaging in extensive discussion of how consensus in those discussions should be interpreted.
This is alsonot a venue for review of discussions that have already been closed; the appropriate place for such a request will generally beWikipedia:Move review orWikipedia:Deletion review. This forum is alsonot for requests that a discussion be closed; the appropriate place for such a request will generally beWikipedia:Closure requests.
Someone wants a second opniion on a Bangladesh war close
The following discussion is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The discussion above is closed.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Is there a limit to the scope of consensus, or can it determine literally anything to be true or false?
7In theory, Wikipedia discussions (RfCs, XfDs, et cetera) are generally meant to litigate content and process, not reality. But in practice, an RfC (especially one about about what specific language some article should say) often ends up dictating what an article claims to be true or false, e.g. as close as we can get to the project's "official opinion". That is to say, RfCs will conclude that an article must say some factual claim, or it must not say it, or whatever -- implying that it is true or false.
Usually, when some factual issue is determined by RfC, it is some difficult and subjective issue, like whether some movie had "mixed" or "negative" reception, or whether someone is a "writer" or a "commentator", or whether they are "Canadian-British" or "British-Canadian", or some other jibber-jabber where it is virtually impossible for an objective clear-cut determination of whether it's one or the other.
But are people allowed to just consense whatever?
Like, for example, if a RfC atTalk:Jupiter was overwhelmingly (e.g. 50 to 10) in favor of saying in the lead that "Jupiter is the smallest planet in the Solar System" -- what the hell happens then? Must we put this in the lead?
Assume, arguendo, that the RfC went completely by the book: people brought up the sources, and every commenter said something to the effect of "I looked at all the sources but they were unconvincing and unreliable for the claims", and nobody broke any rules in the course of the discussion (apart from this brief insanity they are model editors).
Is there any remedy for this, other than "someone has to wait a few months and start another RfC and hope those 50 people have stopped being insane"?jp×g🗯️06:36, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The answer to the titular question is that there are some limits to consensus (for example, you cannot decide on Article A to do ____, and then announce that this is a consensus for all articles instead of just Article A). There are also varying strengths of consensus (e.g., compare "Let's try that as a baby step in the right direction" is not the same as "This perfect proposal solves practically all our problems"; compare "weak support" vs "strong support"; compare moderate majority with some okay arguments vs unanimous agreement). And so forth.
There's also "just getting it wrong". That happens some times. Every experienced editors has had that experience in a small discussion, and you've got to do a certain amount of learningWP:How to lose and knowing when to pick your battles, because you can't fight them all. Even some well-attended RFCs produce nonsense results on occasion. In other cases, persistence wins the day. It took us several rounds to settle the lead picture forPregnancy. (If the closing summary is unreasonable, then seeWP:CLOSECHALLENGE. But when the discussion itself is unreasonable, then try again another time.)
But to give you the honest-but-scary answer to your second question: Yes. You are exactly right that editors can and do form whatever agreements they want. We've got quite a lot of structural and norms-based protection built into the system (e.g., ignoring comments from socks, downplaying comments that reject fundamental policies...). But in the end, the wiki way is to see what editors agree to have on the page. In practice there isn't an alternative. There is no higher authority you can appeal to. If most editors are wildly wrong, and they can't see how wrong they are, then the page will be wrong for now.
What you can do is have your say in the discussion, and then refuse toWP:VOLUNTEER to participate in the stupid outcome. This last one is more important than you might think. I have seen editors object to something, and then, in an IMO misguided show of cooperativeness and agreeableness, put the objectionable content on the page themselves. You shouldn't do that. The supporters should be forced to take responsibility for that edit, not the opponents. And one of the reasons I say that is because some of those 50 supporters may be drive-by editors who not only don't know what they're talking about, but also wouldn't come back to the article to make it happen. You're not allowed to edit against consensus, but you sure don't have to do their dirty work for them.WhatamIdoing (talk)07:13, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you say, it usually ends updictating what an article claims to be true or false. Unfortunately, we do need some way of determining that, especially forcontentious topics. So yes, generally speaking, an RfC can determineanything.That said, I think there is a reason we trust administrators to close contentious RfCs. If an RfC is so clearly against the general consensus of the public that it is absurd - as the example you give of an RfC determining Jupiter is the "smallest" planet in theSolar system - we trust administrators to reject (or at least not accept) clearly absurd RfC results. By "clearly absurd" I mean RfC results that do not result from an ecaluation ofall available high-quality sources and/or contradict what is generally accepted as truth (by high quality sources).I understand your point - if the RfC resulted from decent-quality sources and resulted in something that is generally refuted (by other high quality sources), or in other words there is some alternative "reality" that is accepted bysome (but not all) high-quality sources - then it should not be accepted. But that's not how Wikipedia works.The second pillar is what matters here. What you or I believe is the truth - regardless of how much we think our view is supported by sources - we are required by the pillar to accept a neutral point of view as to what the sources say. If there are legitimate, reliable sources that espouse a viewpoint contrary to what we (i.e. you or I) believe is the truth... then we cannot legitimately ignore/avoid those sources.That said, administratorsdo have the responsibility of ensuring that the !votes in a discussion are "legitimate". For your example of Jupiter being the smallest planet, I can't see any way that the only sources that are reasonable to include would say such a thing. But for sake of argument, let's say that the only links/sources provideddid claim that - even if there are otherobvious sources that disagree. The closing administrator has the responsibility, perWP:CLOSING, to conduct at least a cursory evaluation of the arguments (and sources) presented, and to decide whether those sources meet the requirements ofWP:RS and other guidelines, whether the sources presented and considered in the !votes are areasonable assessment of the available sources, and whether there were any opposing/contrary sources presented that were ignored - before closing the discussion. If the closing administrator has valid reason to believe that the discussion was incomplete (either because the sources discussed were unreliable, or because other sources were presented that were reliable but contrary), then they can, per policy, relist the discussion (including a personal comment which includes sources they found that should have been, but were not, discussed, if necessary), or alternatively, can simply refuse to close the discussion and make a personal non-closing comment that includes the sources they found that were not discussed prior.In other words, if a closing administrator believes that the consensus was not "complete", then they have the right to relist the discussion or to comment in the discussion themselves rather than closing it. This should bevery rare - in other words, it should only occur in a situation such as you describe - where there is cherry picking of sources, or ignoring of other sources that are easily accessible but not included, to support a specific outcome. But in such cases, I do firmly believe that administrators, perthe guideline on consensus (and the following section), have the rightand responsibility to not close, but relist (or close as "no change" and recommend a new discussion) a discussion that obviously failed to take into account all pertinent information.In other words - this isn't an issue because we already trust administrators to actuallyreview the whole discussion (including the actual arguments made) before they close a discussion. And while administrators are not expected tofully review the arguments made, they should be expected to at least ensure that the arguments werecomplete. In other words, they are expected to ensure that the arguments made are actually supported by the link(s)/source(s) provided in the !votes... and that those links/sources represent at least adecent proportion of the available sources. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez |me |talk to me!07:17, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I was an administrator and I was looking at such a discussion, I would start looking at all of those supporting making this change with a very critical eye. I would suspect that 50 editors showing up in a discussion and advocating for something like describing Jupiter as the smallest planet were part of some kind of joke, or some kind of brigading effort without good intent.BD2412T00:57, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean this in the most straightforward way possible: if folks are troubled by discussions like these and haven't already, I highly recommend finding and taking a course on the history of philosophy or epistemology in particular. There aren't ever total answers to what we do in these situations—but let's face it, we basically have answers, thanks Aristotle.Remsense ‥ 论01:00, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have assumed that the example is not meant to be taken literally, but as a way of saying that everyone else !votes for something you know to be factually wrong. I could imagine editors, particularly for contentious topics and breaking news, getting the wrong end of the stick occasionally.
For example, all sorts of misinformation has flown around about theCass Review, and especially in the early days after the final report was released, editors have come round and said "We've got to put ____ in the article, because it's really bad that the final report said ____, and here's a news article supporting the claim", only when you look in the report, it says nothing of the sort, and sometimes directly says the exact opposite. And eventually corrections are issued by reputable sources (and articles are written to shame the less reputable ones), and the article content gets resolved, but in the meantime, it's difficult for editors to realize that they've got the wrong end of the stick, and we really could have one of these lopsided !votes in favor of nonsense, with everyone genuinely trying to get it right, but being hampered by bad sources and the voices in their filter bubbles.WhatamIdoing (talk)02:55, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those in favor of omitting believed the claim did not have the requiredWP:Exceptional sourcing. As the discussion progressed, the claim was picked up by several mainstreamWP:ReliableSources, which a mounting amount of supporters cited as sufficient for Exceptional.Since there were no guidelines pointed to indicating that the breadth of mainstream media coverage did not satisfy Exceptional or otherwise were notWP:Due enough for inclusion (only guidelines indicating, the supermajority here indicatesconsensus to include in the article a mention of German intelligence not publishing a report in favor of the lab leak theory in 2020. Note that this is not consensus that the lab leak theory is as probable as the report states.However, the mention to be included is not necessarily the text proposed at the start of this discussion, to which a substantial amount of supporters registered opposition, supporting Suriname0's wording instead. Many supporters also recommended the mention be placed next to the German government's later findings and with attribution, though this aspect was not discussed much and might need further discussion.
Emphasis ("italics") added and will not be present when I paste this draft closure. The emphasized phrase is the biggest thing I'm unsure of. Would this phrase invite objections thatWP:RS was raised to prefer scholarly sources, though that doesn't apply since much more participants agreed that the fact of BND—German intelligence agency—having an unpublished report doesn't equate to contradicting scientific consensus to the extent where MSM coverage is not enough and academic sources are needed? (Should I include this reasoning in the close?) If so, what is the best/a much better way to word this instead?Aaron Liu (talk)23:36, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Aaron Liu, what existing guidelines could be "pointed to" to support an editor's judgment that a given amount+quality+type of coverage does not rise toWP:EXCEPTIONAL orWP:DUE? I don't think any exist, and if I'm correct about that, then "You didn't do something that is literally impossible to do" is probably not what you want to write in a closing summary.WhatamIdoing (talk)01:50, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I meant that since there's no more guideline- or argument-based advantage to be weighed what's left is whether there's a supermajority.Aaron Liu (talk)02:48, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it would be fair to say that we make decisions based on three things:
Rule compliance ("If you want to use DRN, you must follow these steps" or "All direct quotations require an inline citation")
Common-sense arguments/editorial judgement ("This is a good way to explain this complicated situation")
Supermajority votes (e.g.,WP:RFA outcomes or decisions to create a new rule)
The words you italicize above mention #1 but your reply below indicates there were no instances of #2 in the discussion. Is that really true?WhatamIdoing (talk)06:45, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean that I felt like the two common sense arguments that oppose each other were of equal inherent strength: one was that widespread mainstream media coverage was enough to satisfy Exceptional and the other was that it wasn't enough. Thus, to evaluate which argument is stronger, the only thing that remains is which argument gained persuasive favor with the participants, thus which side has a supermajority.Aaron Liu (talk)22:25, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. Have you considered shortening the sentence? Lop off the first half, and say something like "Editors disagreed whether the breadth of mainstream media coverage satisfied..."WhatamIdoing (talk)22:58, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So just "Editors disagreed whether the breadth of mainstream media coverage satisfied WP:Exceptional. There isconsensus to include..." instead of that sentence?Aaron Liu (talk)23:18, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Do you think I should include something in the middle of this sentence saying "and neither argument had a stronger PaG basis. Thus, numerical supermajority indicates..."?Aaron Liu (talk)00:59, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like it's pretty much undisputed in the discussion that reliable sources hardly ever use "revolution", so I wouldn't have moved it to that title. Much of the support for "revolution" was either raw unreasoned votes or personal opinions about what the event should be called, both of which need to be discounted.Extraordinary Writ (talk)05:13, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did account for the latter, but missed the former. I believe the simplest solution will be to undo my close, thank you for the quick feedback.
Old CfD with no comments since September 3. The headline of the discussion is straightforward; there's no consensus on whether to do Options B or C. But what's unclear is what that "no consensus" means; normally no consensus means to keep the status quo ante, but here nobody is really satisfied with the status quo and everyone wants some kind of consistency. Despite "Option C" being named as an alias for "Keep" (somewhat confusingly), the status quo is a mix of all options, and I don't feel I can justify moving any titles that currently follow the Option B format to the Option C format when there wasn't a consensus to do so, that's stretching the idea of bartenders' closes past the breaking point. So what do others think?* Pppery *it has begun...04:31, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a tough situation. Part of me thinks that your best move is to !vote yourself, and thereby let the next admin have an easier time declaring that there is a consensus.WhatamIdoing (talk)04:40, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given that relisting hasn't made consensus any clearer, I've had a look atWP:RMRELIST to see if I could garner any advice from it; and I think the idea of broadening the scope to which the discussion waspublicized to garner more editor opinions would be the next step.Anderlaxe (talk)09:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pppery, first of all, what other editors said. But in the case that no one else comments on the proposal, I'd close as B over C. There's roughly equal support for both, with most of the editors feeling that either would be acceptable. Of the editors that strongly favoured C over B, there was just Just N., who gave no rationale, and NLeeuw, who argued with Οἶδα over whether it sounded more natural. There's no clear case that Foo-language Barian writers is more ambiguous (the -language fairly clearly doesn't refer to nationality) - as PARAKANYAA said C isn't really any clearer. Primarily it seems to boil down to taste. Kaffet i halsen also gave some reasonable arguments as to why B might be better than C. But honestly I think closing as either B or C would be better than letting this discussion stay unclosed. — Qwerfjkltalk20:56, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My reading of the discussion would also put option B as the most favored option, both in terms of volume of support and in strength of argument for support.BD2412T22:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
