Communal enabling of quality

Just a personal perspective about online discord, I hate to say how long I have been online, (LOL) and I have literally left a ton of communities because of the discord factor, because things like my clients or my business or my daughter are just more important than watching people arguing or having them diss my opinion, whether valid or invalid. And I think it likely that is a common thread for the exact people we want to attract and retain as contributors and editors. So the whole supermajority/consensus issue is probably more important than I originally thought, having had more time to think about it. I believe we need subject matter experts who are dedicated to different sections who can help vet and edit. Those subject matter experts are likely to have the same kind of zero tolerance I have for unnecessary conflict. Just mho.

Agree 100%, this is likely a very major cause.

Important observation #1: This isn't just experts, it's most mature and capable users.

Important observation #2: "They are likely to have zero tolerance for unnecessary conflict"... yes, but also may not be entirely happy that others will have zero tolerance for theirs too. A lot of people expect their standards and others' to differ (usually leniently to themselves!). Same thing said elsewhere, even experts need induction/newcomer handling, "This is how we work, these are the expectations..."

some of this is, of course, going to be cultural. Across the en-wiki, we have how many countries/cultures speaking English? and even in the US, we have so many different ways that people interact, specific to geographic locations.

I think these factors, especially when dealing with a wiki that encompasses a large culturally diverse population, can be mitigated by the kinds of policies we have been discussing. let people know up front what the expectations are, let them know that Wikipedia takes protecting their rights and contributions seriously and we will attract and keep the mature and capable users. (I wasnt just meaning experts, btw.) I think the ideas we have been tossing around of creating a kind of incubator for a wiki prior to stamping it "launched" may also attract the kind of contributors we are talking about.