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Wikipedia works by building consensus. Consensus is an inherent part of a wiki process. The basic process works like this: someone makes an edit to a page, and then everyone who reads the page makes a decision to either leave the page as it is or change it. Over time, every edit that remains on a page, in a sense has the unanimous approval of the entire community. "Silence equals consent" is the ultimate measure of consensus — somebody makes an edit and nobody objects or changes it. Most of the time consensus is reached as a natural product of the editing process.

When there are disagreements, they are resolved through polite discussion and negotiation, in an attempt to develop a consensus. If we find that a particular consensus happens often, we write it down as a guideline, to save people the time having to discuss the same principles over and over. Normally consensus on conflicts are reached via discussion on talk pages. In the rare situations where this doesn't work, it is also possible to use the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution processes, which are designed to assist consensus-building when normal talk page communication gets stuck.

Consensus works best when all editors make a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject.

It is difficult to specify exactly what constitutes a reasonable or rational position. Good editors acknowledge that positions opposed to their own may be reasonable. However, stubborn insistence on an eccentric position, with refusal to consider other viewpoints in good faith, is not justified under Wikipedia's consensus practice. (Note that in the rare case if the "eccentric" position turns out to have merit, the consensus can change.)

Even if an editor's contributions appear to be biased, keep in mind that their edits may have been made in good faith, out of a genuine desire to improve the article. Editors must always assume good faith and remain civil.

Once established, consensus is not immutable. It is reasonable for the community to change its mind at times. It is perfectly fine for a small group of editors to reach a consensual decision about an article or group of articles, but if these articles gain more attention from Wikipedia as a whole it is then possible that more people come in that disagree with the initial decision, thus in effect changing the consensus. The original group should not block further discussion on grounds that they already have made the decision.

It is assumed that editors working toward consensus are pursuing a consensus that is consistent with Wikipedia's basic policies and principles - especially the neutral point of view (NPOV). At times, a group of editors may be able to, through persistence, numbers, and organization, overwhelm well-meaning editors and generate what appears to be support for a version of the article that is actually inaccurate, libelous, or not neutral, e.g. giving undue weight to a specific point of view. This is not a consensus.

The preferred way to deal with this problem is to draw the attention of other editors to the issue by some of the methods of dispute resolution, such as consulting a third party, filing a request for comment (on the article in question), and requesting mediation. Enlarging the pool will prevent the railroading of articles by a dedicated few. In the case of a small group of editors who find that their facts and point of view are being excluded by a larger group of editors, it is worth considering that they may be mistaken.

Also see Wikipedia:Single purpose account for considerations relating to brand new users who appear and immediately engage in a specific issue.

While the most important part of consensus-building is to thoroughly discuss and consider all issues, it is often difficult for all members in a discussion to come to a single conclusion. In activities such as Requests for Adminship, Articles for Deletion or Requested Moves, consensus-building becomes unwieldy due to the sheer number of contributors/discussions involved. While consensus-building is still the preferred method, some contributors have also come to use a supermajority as one of the determinations. This interpretation is exemplified by the following description of consensus, from the mailing list:

In fact WP's standard way of operating is a rather good illustration of what it does mean: a mixture across the community of those who are largely agreed, some who disagree but 'agree to disagree' without disaffection, those who don't agree but give low priority to the given issue, those who disagree strongly but concede that there is a community view and respect it on that level, some vocal and unreconciled folk, some who operate 'outside the law'. You find out whether you have consensus, if not unanimity, when you try to build on it.

Precise numbers for "supermajority" are hard to establish, and Wikipedia is not a majoritarian democracy, so simple vote-counting should never be the key part of the interpretation of a debate. However, when supermajority voting is used, it should be seen as a process of 'testing' for consensus, rather than reaching consensus. The stated outcome is the best judgment of the facilitator, often an admin. If there is strong disagreement with the outcome from the Wikipedia community, it is clear that consensus has not been reached. Nevertheless, some mediators of often-used Wikipedia-space processes have placed importance on the proportion of concurring editors reaching a particular level. This issue is controversial, and there is no consensus about having numerical guidelines. That said, the numbers mentioned as being sufficient to reach supermajority vary from about 60% to over 80% depending upon the decision, with the more critical processes tending to have higher thresholds.

See the pages for RM, AFD and RFA for further discussion of such figures. The numbers are by no means fixed, but are merely statistics reflecting past decisions. Note that the numbers are not binding on the editor who is interpreting the debate, and should never be the only consideration in making a final decision. Judgment and discretion are essential to determine the correct action, and in all cases, the discussion itself is more important than the statistics.

Note: In disputes, the term consensus is often used as if it means anything from genuine consensus to majority rule to my position; it is not uncommon to see both sides in an edit war claiming a consensus for its version of the article.

There are a few exceptions that supercede consensus decisions:

• Consensus decisions in a specific case cannot override existing project-wide policy.
  • WP:Bio may not be superceded for a specific article via consensus.
• Wikipedia:Office Actions, by virtue of being WikiMedia-wide, are considered to be outside the policies of a specific project.
• Declarations from Jimmy Wales, the Board, or the Developers, particularly for copyright, legal issues, or server load, are usually held to have policy status (see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines).

Articles

• Consensus
• Consensus decision-making
• Groupthink

Project pages

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates
• Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines
• Wikipedia:Supermajority