Thanks, I agree that we should post an answer after San Francisco has had an opportunity to consider things. In the unlikely event that no-one dissents from it I'll post my original draft at about this time tomorrow. It seems clear to me that anything involving multiple questions and with the intent of finding out what people's views are on a range of things involves research. However the originators described their consultation as a referendum, even though it didn't actually include the question "Do you support this proposal?". So we shouldn't be surprised that those who oppose the idea in principle would like it treated as a referendum rather than a consultation. One possible way out of this mess would be to acknowledge that the last exercise was a consultation, attempt to code the thing in a way that resolves as many of the objections as possible and then hold a referendum when people can see how it would work. It is probably too late for us to get involved in this project, but I think someone needs to get involved in this sort of thing for the future, and I don't see anyone more appropriate than us. I would like our remit to include reviewing any questionnaire broadcast to the community or parts of the community whether by watchlists, site notices, talkpages or the email user function. On that basis this would be in our remit, whilst a referendum with a single yes no question would not be. WSC PS to Milos, I've commented several times, but only after the thing was announced - I didn't have a preview. Some of my comments have been about ambiguities among the questions, others have been about the idea. My first comment was about the inadvisability of describing a consultation as a referendum.... On 6 September 2011 09:28, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 11:52, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote: Wrong wording: However, nothing from the presented facts about positioning of libraries were adopted, as the idea was not to follow the principles, but to reach political consensus.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 15:01, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote: The main problem here, no matter of the position of any of us, is scientific integrity, as we here stand here behind our decisions professionally. It is hard that we wouldn't note that the right name for that poll is "survey", not "referendum". It is also likely that we would suggest that if the readers are target, readers should be attracted, not editors with small number of edits. Both of those things would drive the issue beyond political decision: that it should be perceived as referendum. I am in favor of making joint statement on the line that we are willing to be asked about similar things. BTW, I haven't noticed that any of us said that he or she was asked about the questions. (While I suppose that Dario and Steven could be asked as employees.)

i.e. it's ok to let John know that this is a community consultation that is not of RCom competence On Sep 6, 2011, at 5:15 PM, Dario Taraborelli wrote: