Greetings,
Wikimedia Deutschland has just released the answers we received to our election questionnaire.
Complete answers are at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Wahlpr%C3%BCfsteine/Bu... (German)
Our analysis can be found at http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/09/11/bundestagswahl-wahlpruefsteine-wikimedia... (German)
Previous questionnaires ("Wahlprüfsteine") are published at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Wahlpr%C3%BCfsteine
We are aware that this kind of questionnaire is not equally common in every country, so here are a few introductory infos. Wahlprüfsteine are a set of questions (usually very specific questions) that are sent to parties which participate in elections. The answers are usually released in a compiled form before the election date. Among the Wahlprüfsteine's advantages are the compatibility with non-partisanship. The organisation asking the question can refrain from commenting them or refrain from making any kind of endorsement for a particular candidate or party while at the same time offering the public a service to inform them about differences in specific policy topics.
The German national parliament elections will be held on September 22, 2013. Our questionnaire had 11 questions (3 on copyright, 2 on access, 3 on net neutrality and 3 on education). 10 replies were received, representing 11 parties, including all parties that are currently in the parliament and most likely will remain there.
Topic selection was based on the responses we received from a survey that was sent to the German language Wikimedia community: http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/08/01/wahlpruefsteine-bundestagswahl-beta/ (German)
We carefully picked questions that actually belong to the national level (some are overlapping with EU legislation, a few border to topics left to the German states (Länder).
If you haven't done so, please consider answering a few questions in this survey here that can help contribute to a questionnaire for the upcoming EU parliament election in 2014: https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.de/forms/d/1vSrFiYCAN-RPXdikdkkHmT_ZzWPd... This survey will last until September 30.
Mathias
Thanks for sharing, Mathias. Question about this process: do the parties tend to answer *all* of these? Or does the organization/movement have to have a particularly high profile to get their questions answered?
Luis
On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 4:38 AM, Mathias Schindler < mathias.schindler@wikimedia.de> wrote:
Greetings,
Wikimedia Deutschland has just released the answers we received to our election questionnaire.
Complete answers are at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Wahlpr%C3%BCfsteine/Bu... (German)
Our analysis can be found at
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/09/11/bundestagswahl-wahlpruefsteine-wikimedia... (German)
Previous questionnaires ("Wahlprüfsteine") are published at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Wahlpr%C3%BCfsteine
We are aware that this kind of questionnaire is not equally common in every country, so here are a few introductory infos. Wahlprüfsteine are a set of questions (usually very specific questions) that are sent to parties which participate in elections. The answers are usually released in a compiled form before the election date. Among the Wahlprüfsteine's advantages are the compatibility with non-partisanship. The organisation asking the question can refrain from commenting them or refrain from making any kind of endorsement for a particular candidate or party while at the same time offering the public a service to inform them about differences in specific policy topics.
The German national parliament elections will be held on September 22, 2013. Our questionnaire had 11 questions (3 on copyright, 2 on access, 3 on net neutrality and 3 on education). 10 replies were received, representing 11 parties, including all parties that are currently in the parliament and most likely will remain there.
Topic selection was based on the responses we received from a survey that was sent to the German language Wikimedia community: http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/08/01/wahlpruefsteine-bundestagswahl-beta/ (German)
We carefully picked questions that actually belong to the national level (some are overlapping with EU legislation, a few border to topics left to the German states (Länder).
If you haven't done so, please consider answering a few questions in this survey here that can help contribute to a questionnaire for the upcoming EU parliament election in 2014:
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.de/forms/d/1vSrFiYCAN-RPXdikdkkHmT_ZzWPd... This survey will last until September 30.
Mathias
-- Mathias Schindler Projektmanager Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. web: http://www.wikimedia.de mail: mathias.schindler@wikimedia.de
Ceterum censeo opera officiales esse liberandam - http://urheberrecht.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
2013/9/11 Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org:
Thanks for sharing, Mathias. Question about this process: do the parties tend to answer *all* of these?
Wahlprüfsteine are a common and accepted format of political interaction between organisations and parties. Many organisations do not send Wahlprüfsteine to each and every party but only a selection of them, usually those parties which have some chance of passing the 5% threshold in the election. We decided in 2010 to send questions to all parties who passed the procedural and formal requirements to be listed on the ballot (they differ from state to state but usually consist of a certain number of support signatures from eligible voters).
To give you some perspective: The reply we got from the Social Democrats was a file named "WPS-567.pdf". WPS stands for Wahlprüfsteine and there is evidence that 567 is a running number indicating the amount of answered Wahlprüfstein questionnaires so far. It would be a fair assumption that larger parties can receive up to 1000 Wahlprüfsteine from individual groups for high profile elections on the federal level. The amount of Wahlprüfsteine sent for state elections (there will be one in Bavaria next Sunday and Hesse on 22 Sep) is dramatically lower.
Usually we either get a reply with answers to all question or we get a (usually) polite response from single-issue parties (in this case: Pensioners Party, the Non-voter Party, the Feminist Party) that they do not feel the need or the capability to answer them. In previous elections, several parties did not reply to questions individually but a letter with a reply that usually broadly touched the issues without actually answering any question. Something like "We consider copyright an important issue."
Or does the organization/movement have to have a particularly high profile to get their questions answered?
We know from direct conversations with members of larger parties that the level of dedication in answering questions depends on the perceived importance of the organisation asking those questions. Smaller groups will still get an answer, maybe not as verbose as is a large group.
In some cases, a question will actually trigger a party-internal process of forming an opinion. We aware of one case in which a question we asked about non-commercial clauses contributed to an internal discussion process in the party that later decided against advocating -nc licenses for certain works.
And really large groups will have more effective tools then questionnaires to push their agenda :)
Mathias
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