User:DGG/No naming editors

All collaborative decision making prohibits directing discussion to or about participants, and prohibits naming editors. There are some situations where this is not practical, for example during Arbitration Committee discussions and some other discussions which are not threaded and require responding only in your own section. In this case it is common to begin by adding @Someone to indicate which section of the discussion is being commented upon. In all other discussions, naming another editor is not done, because it directs attention away from the topic, personalizes the discussion, and slows the decision making process.

This is basically a tutorial on threaded discussion, and why naming another editor is not appropriate.

All decisions on Wikipedia are made by consensus. With small groups, dissenting parties either stand aside, allowing a consensus, or be recorded as dissenting, allowing a consensus, or can often block a consensus, requiring a new proposal to accommodate the concerns of the blocking party. Wikipedia incorporates none of these devices to reach consensus, and instead consensus is assessed by an individual or group of individuals closing the discussion and announcing the result. A "no consensus" decision leaves the status quo and invites the possibility for further discussion.

With large groups actual consensus is virtually impossible as it can be anticipated that someone will always dissent, regardless of the issue.

The origin of consensus decision-making is from groups who thought that there was only one correct decision, and the only purpose of the process was to learn what that correct decision was. At the time the most common form of decision making was dictatorial, which by the 19th century had largely been replaced by the other form of collaborative decision making, parliamentary procedure, which also prohibits discussion to or about participants. The difference though, is that in consensus decision making, all discussion is directed to the group, while in parliamentary procedure, all discussion is directed to the chair, or moderator. Both forms of collaborative decision making, consensus and parliamentary, avoid discussion to and about participants for the same reason: it diverts from the decision making process and alienates the participants.

In a threaded discussion, we use a section heading to introduce the topic. This must be neutrally worded, and must not include an editor's name (username), unless the discussion is specifically about that editor in an appropriate location, such as WP:AN or WP:ANI. Inappropriate headings may be changed to a neutral wording by any editor.

After introducing the topic, editors either reply, by indenting discussion, normally with a colon or increasing by one the number of indents by adding a colon, or an asterisk. {{od}} can be used to outdent the discussion to the left if it is too far to the right. A discussion which counts votes precedes each new entry with a hash tag, and threads are added by adding a colon. It is essential to avoid blank lines and use #:, #::, etc., to maintain the integrity of the count.

Heading

---

Introductory comments signature timestamp

Indented reply signature timestamp (uses :)

Unrelated comment signature timestamp (uses nothing but must be preceded by a blank line)

• Bullet point signature timestamp (uses *)
  • Reply bullet signature timestamp (uses **)

    Indented reply signature timestamp (uses **:)

1. !Vote 1 with reasoning signature timestamp (uses #)

   reply signature timestamp (uses #:)

2. !Vote 2 signature timestamp (uses #)

All replies are directed to the point that was made, and not to the editor making that point. It is not appropriate to precede them with @Someone, or name an editor, unless the editor is the topic of that discussion.

See also

• Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
• Wikipedia:No personal attacks