Re:Wikimedia Enterprise – APIs for LLMs, AI Training, and More
by grape_surgeon on Wednesday May 22, 2024 @03:27AM
(#40438247)
If I'm interpreting your comment correctly, I don't think your presentation of the role of popular consensus on Wikipedia is accurate. Read this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus.
Wikipedia doesn't establish consensus by pure numbers or voting, although it is a contributing factor. In disputes, it has moderated discussions with verdicts given by elevated users, including admins. Things like statistics and even (perhaps especially) precedent all weigh in. Popularity of a side can be weighted, but ruling purely based on popularity is actively discouraged.
This can lead to scenarios where 90% of users want something, but the moderater rules along with the 10%. Often, this happens when the discussion was initially among a bunch of relatively new users who aren't aware of some policy, and a more experienced editor points that a dispute is clearly not in line with some policy. This happens very regularly and is often a source of drama with long discussions.
This process actually arguably works better on popular and contentious pages; you get eyes and discussions of substance on those. Most boring pages are virtually ghost towns and are counterintuitively more susceptable to popularity-based consensus. Whatever you put up will likely stick, so it's just a matter of how many people and who will protect the page for the longest.
The second page addresses your concern about not giving too much weight to fringe theories. It's not enforced as well as it could be in many places though; it can be hard to judge what's due or undue weight.
Wikipedia doesn't establish consensus by pure numbers or voting, although it is a contributing factor. In disputes, it has moderated discussions with verdicts given by elevated users, including admins. Things like statistics and even (perhaps especially) precedent all weigh in. Popularity of a side can be weighted, but ruling purely based on popularity is actively discouraged.
This can lead to scenarios where 90% of users want something, but the moderater rules along with the 10%. Often, this happens when the discussion was initially among a bunch of relatively new users who aren't aware of some policy, and a more experienced editor points that a dispute is clearly not in line with some policy. This happens very regularly and is often a source of drama with long discussions.
This process actually arguably works better on popular and contentious pages; you get eyes and discussions of substance on those. Most boring pages are virtually ghost towns and are counterintuitively more susceptable to popularity-based consensus. Whatever you put up will likely stick, so it's just a matter of how many people and who will protect the page for the longest.
Also read this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie....
The second page addresses your concern about not giving too much weight to fringe theories. It's not enforced as well as it could be in many places though; it can be hard to judge what's due or undue weight.