![]() | This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
![]() | This page in a nutshell: The argument that consensus discussions about content may only (or should primarily) consider those sources already used for citations is patently false. |
An uncommon but long-term-recurrent argument suggests that if the sources presently used for citations in an article seem to agree on something, that this constitutes some kind of finding of fact or establishment of consensus (real-world or on-wiki). That is, of course, nonsense. It is sometimes recast in other words, e.g. that the sources already cited should be given primacy over all other sources (as if they have been through some kind of formal vetting process, which they haven't); or that if the sources we're using now seem to agree on something that this is good enough, and further examination of source material is unneeded, even unwarranted.
Wikipedia editors consider the real-world consensus (scientific, historiographic, English-language-usage, etc.) as determined by a preponderance of all available relevant, modern, independent, reliable, secondary sources we can bring to a consensus discussion. If this were not true, then:
Wikipedia consensus formation considers all available, valid source material. For simple matters like titling and style questions, we directly depend on aggregate results ( Google Ngrams that track string-usage frequency in books over time; Google News, Google Scholar, and Google Books search results and the patterns they reveal in sources; etc.). The idea that they are to be ignored, or are second place to what just happens to be cited already in the article as of this timestamp, is not only unworkable but absurd. It bears no resemblance to how Wikipedia:Consensus is actually formed.
![]() | This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
![]() | This page in a nutshell: The argument that consensus discussions about content may only (or should primarily) consider those sources already used for citations is patently false. |
An uncommon but long-term-recurrent argument suggests that if the sources presently used for citations in an article seem to agree on something, that this constitutes some kind of finding of fact or establishment of consensus (real-world or on-wiki). That is, of course, nonsense. It is sometimes recast in other words, e.g. that the sources already cited should be given primacy over all other sources (as if they have been through some kind of formal vetting process, which they haven't); or that if the sources we're using now seem to agree on something that this is good enough, and further examination of source material is unneeded, even unwarranted.
Wikipedia editors consider the real-world consensus (scientific, historiographic, English-language-usage, etc.) as determined by a preponderance of all available relevant, modern, independent, reliable, secondary sources we can bring to a consensus discussion. If this were not true, then:
Wikipedia consensus formation considers all available, valid source material. For simple matters like titling and style questions, we directly depend on aggregate results ( Google Ngrams that track string-usage frequency in books over time; Google News, Google Scholar, and Google Books search results and the patterns they reveal in sources; etc.). The idea that they are to be ignored, or are second place to what just happens to be cited already in the article as of this timestamp, is not only unworkable but absurd. It bears no resemblance to how Wikipedia:Consensus is actually formed.