[WikiEN-l] My proposal

[Axel Boldt]

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> What I think we should do, and could do, is implement a basic voting 
> system in the Wikipedia engine that would allow people to create
> polls  (ideally offering different voting methods -- if you just 
> have yes/no as  choices, first past the post seems fine). These could

> be used to collect data informally in various situations, like the
> recent moderation debate.  
> They would NOT be accepted, by policy, as a way to assert that X or Y
> should be done, just a method to tabulate/quantify opinions. 

That's unrealistic: in reality, once an issue has been put up for a
vote and one side has lost, the issue would be considered pretty much
settled and anybody arguing further would be considered a sore loser.
This is why many people rush to ad-hoc votes: they want the debate to
end.

After all, what is the point of "collecting data informally and to
tabulate/quantify opinions", if not to make a decision? The fact that
56.4% of all Wikipedians favor XYZ is clearly no substantial argument
for or against XYZ.

> What I think we should resist is the temptation to avoid changing our
> process because of fear of change itself. 

I don't think the motive fear-of-change has been expressed in this
debate, so this is a strawman. The argument voting-is-bad has been
expressed repeatedly in this debate, by various people.

Axel

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