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I've heard it claimed that democracy tends to achieve the correct decision in the long run, but with the drawback of taking a lot of time and effort. This case

by lmkg 17y ago

I've heard it claimed that democracy tends to achieve the correct decision in the long run, but with the drawback of taking a lot of time and effort. This case is certainly supporting evidence for all of those points.

tptacek 17y ago
Is Wikipedia a directory of note-worthy open source software, or does it strictly cover software with actual notability? How do you decide what a reliable source is for a topic that gets most of its coverage in a medium where anyone can write about the topic? This seems like one of those AfD's that will either hold back a flood of other articles, or open the floodgates. It looks to me like the process is working, but I've only read 4 minutes worth of the discussion.
Perceval 17y ago
Wikipedia's AFD procedure is explicitly not democratic. The voting does not determine the outcome--it's a heuristic meant to help the admin. The criterion for keeping or deleting is consensus and the weight of the arguments on either side (insofar as they are relevant to Wikipedia's general principles). Do not mistake this admin's overview for a summary of a vote--it is not a democracy, and that's not a bad thing.
- lmkg 17y ago
  Whether it's a democracy depends on what you think a democracy is. My view is that a democracy is a system where all voices are encouraged to speak up, are heard, given due consideration, and approved or rejected by a community. The whole voting thing is one particular implementation of democracy. It's not necessarily a good approximation of those democratic ideals, but it's practical and it scales well, which makes it Good Enough(tm). Wikipedia's policy of considering arguments rather than votes for page-level decisions is something I would call more democratic than straight-up vote-counting, given the scale that it operates at, the strict (and explicit--rule of law is important) guidelines by which positions are weighed, and the general good-faith of those making the judgments. YMMV. The definition of democracy is probably worth a thread in its own right. However, regardless of whatever label we each choose to call those policies, we're in accord that those policies are generally well-designed.

by lmkg 17y ago

tptacek 17y ago

Is Wikipedia a directory of note-worthy open source software, or does it strictly cover software with actual notability? How do you decide what a reliable source is for a topic that gets most of its coverage in a medium where anyone can write about the topic? This seems like one of those AfD's that will either hold back a flood of other articles, or open the floodgates. It looks to me like the process is working, but I've only read 4 minutes worth of the discussion.

Perceval 17y ago

Wikipedia's AFD procedure is explicitly not democratic. The voting does not determine the outcome--it's a heuristic meant to help the admin. The criterion for keeping or deleting is consensus and the weight of the arguments on either side (insofar as they are relevant to Wikipedia's general principles). Do not mistake this admin's overview for a summary of a vote--it is not a democracy, and that's not a bad thing.

lmkg 17y ago
Whether it's a democracy depends on what you think a democracy is. My view is that a democracy is a system where all voices are encouraged to speak up, are heard, given due consideration, and approved or rejected by a community. The whole voting thing is one particular implementation of democracy. It's not necessarily a good approximation of those democratic ideals, but it's practical and it scales well, which makes it Good Enough(tm). Wikipedia's policy of considering arguments rather than votes for page-level decisions is something I would call more democratic than straight-up vote-counting, given the scale that it operates at, the strict (and explicit--rule of law is important) guidelines by which positions are weighed, and the general good-faith of those making the judgments. YMMV. The definition of democracy is probably worth a thread in its own right. However, regardless of whatever label we each choose to call those policies, we're in accord that those policies are generally well-designed.