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According to a declined flag, the meta question Are questions asking technical issues on academic services on-topic? does not reach a consensus:

I agree that there aren't many upvotes on the yes answers, but we also have "indirect consensus":

  • the no answer has 4 downvotes
  • the question itself has 15 upvotes
  • there is no opposite comment in the yes answers.

Can we safely and objectively assume that we have reach a consensus? And in general, is there a consensus if there is no direct evidence but only indirect one?


Related:
• What is "consensus"? But in the end it just says that consensus is subjective.
• Consensus decision-making - Wikipedia

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  • The first link seems to be broken.
    – henning no longer feeds AI
    Commented Jun 10, 2018 at 12:01
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    @henning: The first link is visible to the asker and moderators only.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jun 10, 2018 at 12:02
  • 2
    Note that I featured the Meta question in question to attract more votes or answers.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jun 10, 2018 at 12:05
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    The issue about consensus on meta is that just a tiny bunch of users participate to meta discussions.
    – Massimo Ortolano
    Commented Jun 10, 2018 at 15:29
  • @Wrzlprmft it has 5 upvotes now. Does it have consensus yet?
    – Ooker
    Commented Jun 11, 2018 at 1:21
  • Is this a meta meta question? ;-)
    – Flyto
    Commented Jun 20, 2018 at 9:05

1 Answer 1

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I am really lost. On the surface, this question looks a lot like a duplicate of What is "consensus"?, but I don't think it really is. Instead, I think it is asking if we have come to a conclusion about Are questions asking technical issues on academic services on-topic? On the surface, that question seems very broad and important, but looking at the details, I think is is really asking if Is there a way to move a preprint from one service to another within the OSF system? should be closed or left open.

With the mismatch between the titular questions and the actual questions, I am not sure that it will be easy to see a consensus. It is usually better if the titular question and the question in the body are well aligned and not to try gain consensus on a general idea to then apply it to the specific case.

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  • I agree with you. Sorry. But I think general questions are stemmed from specific cases, and general answers should give solutions to specific cases, right? I've edited this question, do you think it's better?
    – Ooker
    Commented Jun 12, 2018 at 2:52
  • @Ooker the edits do not help me. I still think you are trying to gather evidence that your OSF question should be reopened. I am not sure the answer here or in the other meta question is really going to achieve that. Ideally general cases should tell you about specific cases, but the scope of the general case needs to encompass the specific case. I personally think the specific case is on the edge of the general case.
    – StrongBad
    Commented Jun 15, 2018 at 15:23

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