Superconsensus in crowners discussion

Alright, so this discussion started in the NRLEP criteria thread. Basically there's been some talk that the 2.00-1 consensus needed for a crowner result to be declared may be too high, and that it is leading to drive-by voters negatively influencing crowner results, be it for Real Life examples, TRS threads, Wiki Talk discussions, or other areas where crowners are very important.

The proposal is to lower the superconsensus—1.50-1 was suggested. Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Should the number be different? Let's discuss.

Not sure why that's a good idea?

A crowner should still be a super majority. Otherwise like in real life you get bizzare cases where only a smaller than the other side picks something and than later regrets it. With a supermajority from the get go it ensures that doesn't happen.

Like if an option can't get most people to agree to it? Why should we approve it.

Edited by miraculous on Sep 2nd 2022 at 1:00:03 AM

The question is just whether to lower what a "supermajority" is, because our current system allows the exact concern you have to be a reality — a handful of anonymous people can throw downvotes at a crowner and completely invalidate any cleanup attempts.

We're not saying to get rid of superconsensus, we're asking if the threshold could be lower.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 2nd 2022 at 4:00:33 AM

But like I said in the thread this one spun off of, that feels like a more compelling argument for the alternative proposal to require people to post explaining their votes.

Sure; that could work too, though to be fair that proposal thus far only extends to the RL thread and not the entire wiki crowner system as a whole.

Maybe 1.75:1, or 1.8:1 if we don't want two spaces after the decimal point. I think that could be a reasonable compromise.

While I'm willing to entertain changing the supermajority threshhold, I think there might be a better solution to the "drive-by voting" issue.

You see, I'm active in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard cleanup threads and we don't use crowners. Instead, each user makes a post where they vote on a particular candidate, sometimes giving an explanation as to why they did so. And in the NRLEP criteria thread, it was suggested to only count as many upvotes and downvotes on a crowner as there were posts where a user explained why they voted the way they did.

So here's my suggestion: we require all crowner votes to be accompanied by a post where the voter says how they voted, at least as a temporary measure. This could result in drive-by voters identifying themselves so we can try to talk with them, or it could result in their votes becoming illegitimate, but either way, the problem is solved.

That was my idea too, my stipulation was that if we do so we'd still have to use crowners to avoid the thread becoming as insular as CM is. There's a difference between voting on character labels and on wiki policy, and it's not a good idea to just have the thread regulars decide everything, so if the "explain your vote" policy is established I wouldn't agree with the idea of doing away with the crowner at some point. Not that anyone suggested it yet, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point.

I'm with Warjay. There's also the fact that this started with the RL thread, which is going through like ten things at once most of the time, and that'd slow the voting down too much

Yeahhh, that too.

I just wonder how "explain your vote" would even be enforced.

It'd basically just be us subtracting any unexplained votes. If 10 people voted but only 8 people explain, we discount the 2 votes.

Yes, it'd be hard to enforce and might be a headache, but it's possible.

I think lowering the threshold could still work though, because while I don't want to rig the crowners to make sure only the "thread approved" options get through, I do acknowledge that it's too easy for anyone who does have ulterior motives to just downvote things and prevent changes from being made. Anything that's really controversial will have way more votes, the rule would just prevent a handful of tropers from halting progress.

i suggested in the other thread that people be allowed to reference other people's explanations. "i think That Troper has the right of it, downvoting" would be sufficient.

Would it be possible (for the devs) to de-anonymize crowner votes (for mods) and/or would such help to identify drive-by voters? I think something similar happened to attempt to address an analogous problem with hats/bombs in TLP, though the main problem there was with people "piling on" by mass-bombing bad-but-salvageable drafts. I don't know if people who just hate change (or their favorite example being messed with) is something that needs to be punished in that way.

Maybe, but it would be easier to just do without crowners altogether in that case.

Can someone clarify what “consensus” means? My understanding is that it means a majority. I’m asking because I’ve gotten scolded by other tropers questioning if I even understand how a wiki works. Does a wiki run via “consensus” or “superconsensus?” And if the former, why is the exception being made here? Maybe I’m missing something, but it feels like stacking the deck in favor of RL examples to me.

If this post needs to be removed, I’ll do so. This has been concerning me, though.

I am vehemently against any changes. Anonymous voting is part of crowners for a reason.

what do you feel like that reason is, and why does it outweigh the problems it's causing?

FWIW, I fully support getting rid of anonymous crowner voting. I also support doing away with anonymous hatting/bombing on TLP drafts. In both cases, we know the vote is legit if the voter stands up for their choice publicly.

See, I can understand the point of anonymous votes. We don't want people to be harassed or something if they disagree with the majority. People would be less likely to vote their true opinion if they feel like doing so would be, in some way, "socially inappropriate" or "out of line".

But if the votes can be de-anonymized to mods, like the TLP votes are, then if we're running into issues with a crowner, a mod can reach out to some of the voters and ask for their explanations... Or determine if there's anything shady at play.

That sounds better. Since it would avoid people getting retaliated against. Which I'm very scared will happen if votes aren't private to the public itself.

Edited by miraculous on Sep 3rd 2022 at 10:17:51 AM

i disagree. if the culture in threads where crowners is used is so toxic that people feel like they can't openly disagree with the majority, the whole system is completely broken and should be entirely scrapped.

that's not the case, though. if people feel like they can't dissent, that's on them, because (at least imo) TV Tropes does not and would not have that kind of community. no one is going to attack you because you have a different opinion, and if they did, the mods would smack them down.

im going to be blunt: if you are afraid or unwilling to justify your opinion, you should not be taking part in these decisions at all. if you don't have the mental fortitude to engage in discussion, that's valid, and i understand it. but we don't change our policies to cater to people who have trouble abiding by them. people with learning disabilities don't get a pass for bad grammar, people with autism spectrum disorder don't get a pass for rudeness, and people with social anxiety should not just be excused from having to explain their position.

again, if TRS culture is so toxic that people are going to do that, the whole thing's a waste, TV Tropes is a failed experiment, and it's time to pack it in.

Edited by ChloeJessica on Sep 3rd 2022 at 10:26:16 AM

I mean eh, maybe it's a non issue, but I'm pretty sure that's the thought process behind doing it anonymously and we'd need to have some sort of preventative measures in place to make sure people don't get attacked over these things. Like, I'm not saying the culture is super toxic — this is one of the nicest web communities I've been in — but that doesn't mean individual actors might not feel the need to target people they disagree with.

Heck, it already happens on the NRLEP thread, just in a more generalized sense; I have seen people yell at, for example, "everyone who downvoted an option", because they immediately assumed bad faith and took the result of the vote a little personally. It doesn't happen on TRS nearly as often, which is good, but it does happen. Anyone who feels like the vote is "supposed" to go a certain way is more likely to openly call out anyone who voted differently to them, even if they're not intending to harass.

I agree that in most circumstances it'd probably be fine, but I can see why the anonymous function exists. Like, even if it's an unnecessary measure I think this is at least why it's made like this.

Anyway, I feel like this is getting away from the "superconsensus" stuff... de-anonymizing votes seems like a debate for another spin-off discussion.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 3rd 2022 at 1:34:30 PM

FWIW I don’t always say how I vote. I usually only say it if I disagree with the majority, as I usually want to explain why.

Given how often projects threads are complained about for being too insular and the whole point of advertising threads on ATT and such is to get more engagement with the wider site body so it's not the same handful of people deciding everything, I'm opposed to putting any additional barriers to voting. Make the votes visible to mods, sure. But don't require people to justify their votes in the thread, especially cleanup threads where newcomes often don't feel welcome in the first place.