Wikipedia:Reflections on RfX

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This is an essay.

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Liz's recent RfA (see also its Cratchat) provoked a number of thoughts about things about RfX. I believe I noticed things that:

once did but may no longer have consensus
have probably never had consensus but may be worth considering

I'd like this page to start pulling these themes together. What I suggest is community members post suggestions on the talk page.

Please try not to oppose others' ideas at this stage, just support the ones that look sensible to you.

I promise we will debate each one individually, if it gets a decent level of support, via a separate link that can appear below.

I'll start with a few ideas. Feel free to add to them but please try to keep them brief and focussed on an outcome, rather than debating points.

Please post nothing on this page for now.

Thanks for your input. --Dweller (talk) 05:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to the bolded instruction up here, some threads have now "oppose" sections, and some users (including admins) are actively going to derail this whole experiment. I suggest you either keep order, or abandon this whole thing. Kraxler (talk) 21:11, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am a big supporter of the concept of brainstorming. (As an aside, in my professional life I wrote a regular column for a professional newsletter called "brainstorms").

Despite my interest in the subject I hadn't looked at our own article Brainstorming until now. I'm happy to see that the main point I wish to make is the very first principle in that article. I've typically explained that a key aspect to brainstorming is to exclude negative reactions early on. There will be plenty of time for that later, but early on negative reactions simply shut down discussion. However, Osbourn's first principle is somewhat stronger and I agree. The early stages should not simply exclude negative reactions but also positive ones. For those uninterested in clicking on the link the first principle is Deferred Judgment. While "supports" may be less inhibiting than "opposes" they should also be excluded as an explicit statement of support almost begs those who do not support at this time to register their opposition. I agree with Kraxler's observation that this discussion is not following your suggested rules. I'll go further and suggest that rather than ask affirmatively for supports, you follow the Osborne principal and ask for comments, alternatives, expansions, additional thoughts, almost anything other than an immediate judgment. I will go so far as to suggest you ought to copy the talk page to a new page, remove all opposes as well as supports and do a restart, then, invoking IAR, declare that in the interest of an experiment you will impose order and remove subsequent comments which turn out to be judgments.--S Philbrick (Talk) 15:32, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]