Opinion Mode

This is an OpinionMode page.

Majority Opinion

OpinionMode is a hybrid of DocumentMode and ThreadMode that reduces the staleness of documents and the clutter of threads. An OpinionMode page consists of a "majority opinion" section which anyone can edit, followed by one or more "personal opinion" sections which are usually signed and are only edited by their original authors. Each author has only one signed section, which they and only they should edit.

The basic premise of OpinionMode is that true consensus is often a difficult thing to reach fairly in a Wiki. OpinionMode provides convergence instead, and a way for each individual reader to reach their own conclusions. If anyone edits the majority section in a way that is actually not in concurrence with the majority of the authors, then later readers will be able to see this without too much trouble, and later authors can either fix it or write opinions about it.

A close analogy is the U.S. Supreme Court procedure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States) whereby "the opinion of the court" is accompanied by one or more concurring or dissenting opinions from the several justices. In the case of an OpinionMode Wiki page, the majority section at the top is like "the opinion of the court", while the signed sections are concurring or dissenting opinions from each author.

HowTo for OpinionMode authors and WikiGnomes

When editing the majority section, use EgolessWiki techniques, take deep breaths, and think like a good judge -- try to represent the majority, lest your words be reversed by later authors. The majority section should look like a document, not a discussion. This is not the place to interleave tit-for-tat rebuttals or continue debates -- if you must do that, use your personal section, but see the next paragraph first.

When editing your personal section, you'll want to present a coherent opinion, capable of standing on its own. Because you can expect your signed words to survive intact as long as the page itself does, possibly longer than the things you're rebutting, you will want to choose your words carefully. Timelessness counts here -- write as if your opinion is the majority opinion; someday it might be. Keep in mind that, the more you interleave other people's comments among your own, the harder it is to read your opinion, and the less timeless your own words are.

If you need to ask another author a specific question, then the best place to do that is in a sensible place in the majority section, probably not in your personal section, and never in the other author's personal section. "A sensible place" means near the topic in question, or under a special "Open Questions" heading at the bottom of the majority section. If you find a question which you know the answer to, then answer it by editing the majority text, and then delete the question -- don't leave it hanging around. If you see a question which has gone unanswered for a long time, then edit the majority section to integrate the unanswered issue into the text.

Open Questions

Is this the right way to handle open questions? I'm partly putting this here as an example, but am interested to see if folks can come up with a better procedure. Note to later editors -- per the procedure in the HowTo above, you can of course delete this question if you feel that it is answered in the majority text and that later opinions also agree. -- SteveTraugott?
Should the "majority" section simply represent the majority of opinions, or should we go further and use Wikipedia's Neutral point of view (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_point_of_view) policy as a guide? If we did this, I'd want to rename the "majority" section, call it the "neutral" section instead. -- SteveTraugott?

SteveTraugott?'s Opinion

As the original author of this page, I want to describe how nice it feels to be able to create EgolessWiki text in the section at the top, while at the same time you can BeProudOfYourRealAccomplishments in these signed sections at the bottom. My hope is that it strikes the right balance, and I'm interested to see what other people's thoughts are.

-- SteveTraugott?