Wikipedia:Requests for comment/When there is no consensus either way

When editors are unable to form a consensus either way about including or excluding a particular fact in a Wikipedia article, should they default to including or excluding that fact? (This question is not about living persons.) 02:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The story

(TL;DR)  The only problem with the material is that editors can't agree on whether they want it in this article.

Some say the lack of agreement means it should be kept, and others say the lack of agreement means it should be removed.

Imagine that an editor recently created a new article. The subject is obviously notable, and all of the information in the article is correctly cited to an appropriate reliable source. All editors agree that all of the information in the article is accurate, verifiable, and neutrally phrased.

However, editors currently disagree about whether one particular fact in the new article should be in this article at all. There is no dispute over the wording of the sentence that presents this fact; the dispute is specifically and completely about inclusion or exclusion of the fact at all. (The exact nature of the potentially unwanted information is unimportant, except for the fact that the disputed material has nothing to do with any living person, so Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons does not apply.)

As normal editing and discussions on the talk pages were unable to resolve the question, an RFC was held on the article's talk page, which produced a large number of thoughtful and policy-based comments from a large number of editors. However, at the end, the two sides were equally balanced. At the end of this discussion:

• Both sides had equally strong arguments based on policies, guidelines, common sense, and Wikipedia's values.
• Both sides also had equal numbers of supporters.

After considering both the equal strength of the arguments and the equal numbers, the closing admin felt there was no option except to declare a true case of "no consensus" in the closing summary.

Obviously, if editors had formed a consensus to include this fact, then they would include it, and if they had formed a consensus to exclude it, then they would exclude it. But since they were unable to form a consensus, they are uncertain what to do. These editors are now asking you: When there is no consensus to include information, shouldn't it be removed, because policy A says to remove it? But when there is no consensus to remove information, shouldn't it be retained, because policy B says to retain it?

The Fine Print:

• The dispute centers on Wikipedia:Editorial judgement. Some editors believe the article is better off including it, and other editors believe the article is better off excluding it.
• There are no policies dictating The Right Answer™ for whether this particular fact needs to be in this article.
• The fact in question is already cited to a reliable source, so WP:CHALLENGE (which is for uncited material only) does not apply.
• The objections cannot be solved through copyediting. No amount of re-wording is necessary, wanted, or helpful. Everyone agrees that it's already a very nicely worded sentence. The problem is not the wording. The problem is that half of them have good reasons for removing that fact from this article, and the other half of them have good reasons for keeping that fact in the article. If the fact is to be kept in the article, then everyone agrees that this sentence would be a very good way to present the fact.
• The sentence in question was added in the first version of the article, and it has been disputed ever since. All editors agree that there is no "stable version" or "status quo" version. There are only disputed versions available, in which some editors remove it and the other editors restore it.
  • Also, WP:STATUSQUO (go read it!) only applies during a discussion or other dispute resolution process; it doesn't say what to do when dispute resolution processes have ended.
• You don't need to personally evaluate whether the reasons editors gave are any good (in your opinion) or if the editors made policy-based arguments. The admin already did that part and determined that the strength of the arguments are exactly equal.
• The article does not qualify for deletion (the subject is notable, the text is not a copyvio, it is not an attack page, etc.), so you can't avoid the problem by trying to get rid of the whole article.
• "Have another discussion!" will not result in a different outcome. Editors want your advice for what to do now, not in some magical future when their views have changed.

The problem

(TL;DR)  Some policies and guidelines don't agree about what editors should do in this edge case.

To resolve the conflict between the policies, we need editors to tell us what they believe, in principle, the best approach would be.

Usually, when article content is disputed, it's easy for editors to reach an agreement ("consensus") about what to do. In rare instances, even after extensive discussion, editors are unable to make a decision. Several policies and guidelines provide advice about the default actions in such cases. For example, contested ==External links== are removed, and an Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussion ending in no consensus results in the article being kept.

We have attempted to create a central list of what to do in cases of no consensus. However, in the course of doing this, we have inadvertently created a conflict between two policies. One policy says content without consensus is usually kept, and the other says content without consensus should be removed. According to our policy on conflicting written rules, we need to figure out what the best practice is and make all of the relevant advice pages match the right thing to do. If we are able to reach a consensus about what the best practice is, then we will later be able to make specific proposals about which page(s) to change and what those changes should be.

(NB: We don't need you to tell us what the policies currently say, because we already know what they say, and – since they conflict with each other – at least one of them is currently wrong. Just tell us what you believe the best practice is.)

How to respond

(TL;DR)  Don't tell us what this or that policy says; we've already read them. Instead, tell us what you personally believe is the best thing for editors to do when they can't reach consensus.

Please add your viewpoint in the #Responses section.

• In this discussion, it's more important to think about common sense, practicalities, and Wikipedia's values than about which line of policy or guideline you'd quote in such an RFC. The goal for this discussion is to figure out what editors believe the best practice is, in principle, when there is no consensus about whether to include or exclude non-BLP-related material in a particular article.
• The policy What Wikipedia is not says "the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected...Furthermore, policies and guidelines themselves may be changed to reflect evolving consensus." This RFC is trying to figure out what the current community consensus is. Once we know what the current community consensus is, we will be prepared to accurately document the community's best practice in the written rules.
• If you decide to cite a policy, guideline, essay, or other page that matches your view, please read it first, to make sure your memory of the page matches its current contents. (Previous discussions have seen editors linking pages that don't actually say what they thought it said.)
• The key and immutable point is that there is no consensus. Responses that reject this premise (e.g., "I need to know what the arguments were, because one side always has better arguments, so the admin was wrong to say the reasons each side gave were exactly equal in strength" or "The side with the stronger argument should get what they want") will not help us answer the real question.

Discussion

Do you have questions? Do you have ideas? Do you want to share some thoughts with other editors while you contemplate possible #Responses? Post them here. RFCs operate under the normal rules for discussions. If you have meta-comments about the RFC (e.g., Why is it happening on this page? Can I notify page X? Why didn't you give me specific examples?), then please post those on the talk page.

---

I'm having trouble making up my mind. I think that it's best for Wikipedia to include more information. If people are looking for encyclopedic information (broadly defined), I'd like them to be able to find it here. However, I worry about certain kinds of claims, such as health claims ("One study showed that Wonderpam™ kills cancer cells in a petri dish") or geopolitical disputes ("Blue Country says that Orange Country smells bad"). Usually, I think it would be okay. If the material is obviously bad, we'll form a consensus against it. However, every now and again, we make really odd decisions. Of course, those decisions tend not to last very long, so perhaps it doesn't matter that much if disputed content is included until a consensus is formed against it.

OTOH, the approach we take to WP:BLPs is to remove contentious material until there is a consensus to include it, and why shouldn't we take a similar level of care for other subjects?

Colin's comment about not preserving the old is a good one. WP:QUO is a fine approach during a dispute, to the extent that it discourages edit warring, but it's bad to extend it beyond that point. I've been catching up on my watchlist after years of neglect, and it has been discouraging to find articles editing 25 times over 25 months, without even a single sentence being added or removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

It's been my general impression that this is what a maintenance phase looks like. We get oodles of smol gnomings as editors flit around fixing whatever is in their maintenance tasklist, and every once in awhile an article will undergo a complete rewrite over the course of weeks, without much action taking place in the space between.

My sample may be biased, and my memory might be faulty, but on my watchlist I very rarely see an edit that adds one or a few sentences of sourced information to an established article. Creation and repair seem to be the major spheres of mainspace editorial activity, with expansion and updating barely visible in the distance. Folly Mox (talk) 02:01, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Responses

It's impossible to answer this because important information is missing. I need to know...

This is the place to say "I can't answer this, because you didn't say __________" (e.g., whether there were more admins on one side, whether the material in this new article is considered 'long-standing', what the article's subject area is, whether the material could realistically be moved to a different article, or whatever else is on your mind).

Feel free to ping WhatamIdoing (who wrote the hypothetical story above) in your comment, if you think she could supply the information you need.

• Your comment here...

We have enough information. In principle, when there is truly no consensus, I believe we should err on the side of...

Most responses to this will probably be either exclusion or inclusion, though you should not feel constrained by those options. Please consider explaining your view with:

• an example from articles you edit (e.g., "In articles about geography, editors might reasonably disagree about whether to mention _____, and in such cases I believe..."),
• a common-sense or practical explanation (e.g., "In my experience with Wikipedia:Contentious topics, what helps settle difficult disputes is...") , or
• a values-based explanation about what you think is best for Wikipedia's editing community and/or Wikipedia's readers ("In line with my favorite of our shared Wikipedia:Principles, namely...").

Remember, we're looking for editors' own opinions about what, in principle, is the normally right thing to do, when editors really can't form a consensus.

• I think most such cases are caused by a combination of a) not many people responding to the discussion/Rfc and b) the issue reflecting some contentious issue, especially where nationalism(s) are involved (usually the worst cases of pov editing in my experience). If there is a disagreement over facts, and lots of RS of equally appropriate weight (but perhaps from different countries) supporting each position, then both sides should probably be put in the article. If there is no disagreement over facts, but simply an issue of WP:UNDUE, different placing in the article, and examination of how RS treat the matter, will usually sort the matter. If a) is a big factor, a rerun with more publicity is probably best - vast numbers of Cfd discussions are these days relisted, often several times, because there are far fewer participants than there used to be. Johnbod (talk) 17:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• To answer the question as posed (true no consensus, equal strength of arguments on both sides, etc), I personally believe we should err on the side of inclusion. We're an educational resource and more information ceteris paribus improves the encyclopaedia. I guess if I have to bluelink some WP:SHIBBOLETHs I'd pick WP:5P1 or WP:5P5? It's a personal value, as requested. In many actual cases it might be a good idea to have a second person take a look by opening a close review discussion at wherever we do those these days (still WP:AN I think?). This seems likely to occur anyway assuming the criteria in the problem statement are all met. Folly Mox (talk) 18:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• I don't think the scenario here is common and is more of an intellectual exercise to make people not give unhelpful answers like "they should just keep arguing till they get consensus". If editors have been following the rules and have a decent and representative opinion, then their arguments have been about the encyclopaedic content on the page If then they truly cannot agree on whether it should stay or go or which version it should be, then there is no correct answer that is better than another, just do something arbitrary so we can all move on and do something else. What matters far more is the informal dispute between two editors or just a few editors. Are we to insist all such disputes must keep arguing and growing till they achieve the story on this page that after four RFCs and 50 editors of outstanding ability they still are absolutely at a stalemate? No, we shouldn't. We should figure out what to do when these two editors cannot agree and don't really want to argue more but want a solution that works and they can move on. Currently some of the time people say we preserve the status quo that existed before dispute (should such exist). Or some of the time people say explicit consensus is required to include text, otherwise we default to removal.

I think the former, the default to what we had before you came along, is bad for the project. It is based on an "old hands" mindset that has crept in that thinks all us old hands have created something wonderful and all these new editors are just making it worse. I think that is fundamentally against the principles upon which Wikipedia was founded and preserved at WP:5P3: any contributions can and may be mercilessly edited and our default should be to try to incorporate and improve those edits. Our Wikipedia:Editing policy says "Even the best articles should not be considered complete, as each new editor can offer new insights on how to enhance and improve the content in it at any time."

Wrt the latter, that content has to justify itself and get consensus to be added or kept if challenged, I think on balance that is better than the opposite, that we make it really really hard to remove or keep out the shit. Not all additions are useful, educational or encyclopaedic information. Some of it is bad data. Some of it misleading. Some of it just doesn't belong on this project. Nearly of our policies are about keeping the bad out. There's a reason for that. Our heart wants to keep adding but our heads know we have to keep a check on it. So, when there's a dispute, and editors can't agree, we should go with keeping it out. -- Colin°^Talk 22:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• (Saw this on Iri's talkpage, hope no one minds me chipping in). Mostly as per Colin. Everything that someone reads on Wikipedia should be proportionate, useful and relevant, as well as being simply verifiable. This is what makes us the type of encyclopedia we have agreed to be, and not all of the things that we are WP:NOT. In this scenario the content is immediately challenged for what appear to be legitimate reasons, which means that at least some editors think it unsuitable and those who disagree are unable to get enough support to demonstrate otherwise. In my opinion, if editors can't agree if the content is good or not, I believe the harm of presenting a fact that may not be encyclopedic is greater than the potential benefit. So, exclude in such cases until a consensus is found to include. Scribolt (talk) 08:21, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
• Your comment here...