We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project. Two basic tenets of this are discussing the ideas and building up groups of people who agree with you and who will help you bring about the beneficial change.
This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
Let's stop insulting people by calling them "meat puppets" or "vote stackers". Let's stop confusing the issue by calling it "spamming". It is not spamming. Spamming is indiscriminately notifying people that are probably not interested in the hopes that a few people will be. This is practically the opposite.
Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process and it is harmful to the project. If we try to prohibit it, it will just be taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame. Johntex
On 04/05/06, John Tex johntexster@gmail.com wrote:
We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy
The discussion was about AfD votes. You talk about "influencing policy". Do you include AfD votes as a special case of "influencing policy", then?
Steve
On 5/4/06, John Tex johntexster@gmail.com wrote:
This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
You're on the wrong project, mate.
On May 4, 2006, at 10:10 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 5/4/06, John Tex johntexster@gmail.com wrote:
This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
You're on the wrong project, mate.
He's thinking about policy issues and expressing himself in the proper forum. He's being courteous. He may be wrong, but input on policy questions is welcome.
Fred
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On 5/4/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
On May 4, 2006, at 10:10 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 5/4/06, John Tex johntexster@gmail.com wrote:
This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
You're on the wrong project, mate.
He's thinking about policy issues and expressing himself in the proper forum. He's being courteous. He may be wrong, but input on policy questions is welcome.
All of the above may be true, but he's still on the wrong project. This is a project for the production of an encyclopedia, not for political campaigning.
On 5/5/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
All of the above may be true, but he's still on the wrong project. This is a project for the production of an encyclopedia, not for political campaigning.
I think the issues he was talking about "advocating" or "campaigning" for were Wikipedia-specific issues, no?
Steve
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
All of the above may be true, but he's still on the wrong project. This is a project for the production of an encyclopedia, not for political campaigning.
I think the issues he was talking about "advocating" or "campaigning" for were Wikipedia-specific issues, no?
We don't do advocacy or campaigning on Wikipedia. Our decision-making processes are deliberative rather than democratic.
On 5/5/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
All of the above may be true, but he's still on the wrong project. This is a project for the production of an encyclopedia, not for political campaigning.
I think the issues he was talking about "advocating" or "campaigning" for were Wikipedia-specific issues, no?
We don't do advocacy or campaigning on Wikipedia. Our decision-making processes are deliberative rather than democratic.
A deliberative process requires some level of advocacy. Without that it would be a bit hard to have a debate. For example I am currently considering advocateing the idea of turing CSD A8 into G something.
-- geni
This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
You're on the wrong project, mate.
Campaigning is integral to voting. Policy-making that tries to prevent campaigning whilst accepting voting is doomed to failure (*). Minimizing the importance of voting on the other hand is a good way to go.
Pete
(*) Well actually it might be a success, in the sense that it gives bored editors a whole load more to do in the Wikipedia namespace without having to do awkward hard work like looking up stuff to contribute to the encyclopedia :)
There's a fine line between "asking other interested people to participate" and "attempting to stack a vote".
The first practice is just fine, I think. The second is not.
How to tell the different between them? I don't know of a good criteria that would ever work in all cases. But usually the difference is fairly obvious: when the people "coming to the discussion" do no discussing (they just throw a vote in, or write some pithy comment about how the other people are crazy/wrong/stupid/whatever), it looks a lot like vote stacking to me. Additionally when the solicitation for other eyes is along the lines of "Come vote on this, these guys are trying to delete our favorite article!" it is usually quite telling. And when people who have never edited on Wikipedia are drawn into it, it is obviously vote stacking.
Consulting others is not a problem. Writing to people and saying, "I'd like it if you'd weigh in on this," is great practice. Especially when the people consulted are thoughtful and will even on occasion disagree with the person who had solicited them! All the better.
Calling in pals who will just add a vote and show no real engagement with the reasoning or discussion going on, people who have no investment in Wikipedia as a whole and no experience with the project? Not good, not helpful, not the right way to do things.
Drawing the line is hard primarily in theory. It is not usually that hard in practice to spot the difference, though, because instances of "meatpuppetry" are usually pretty transparent, in my experience.
FF
On 5/4/06, John Tex johntexster@gmail.com wrote:
We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project. Two basic tenets of this are discussing the ideas and building up groups of people who agree with you and who will help you bring about the beneficial change.
This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
Let's stop insulting people by calling them "meat puppets" or "vote stackers". Let's stop confusing the issue by calling it "spamming". It is not spamming. Spamming is indiscriminately notifying people that are probably not interested in the hopes that a few people will be. This is practically the opposite.
Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process and it is harmful to the project. If we try to prohibit it, it will just be taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame. Johntex _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
John Tex wrote: [...]
Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process and it is harmful to the project. If we try to prohibit it, it will just be taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame.
It already happened for the JP cartoon poll:
http://www.dartblog.com/data/004950.html http://thelittlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-on-danish-cartoons.html http://penumbra604.livejournal.com/25659.html
... and probably many more.
On Thu, 4 May 2006 08:57:15 -0700, you wrote:
We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project.
A right? Perhaps I missed that. I thought the only rights were to fork or to leave.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 4 May 2006 08:57:15 -0700, you wrote:
We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project.
A right? Perhaps I missed that. I thought the only rights were to fork or to leave.
I thought that too, but:
Fred Bauder wrote:
On May 4, 2006, at 3:57 AM, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Wikipedia is NOT a democracy; the First Ammendment of the Constitution of the United States only guarantees "free speech" against intervention by Congress. Wikipedia is a private website where you have exactly TWO rights:
- The right to leave
- The right to fork
Those are your enforceable legal rights; however, you also have the right to participate on an equal basis in the project; the right to be treated with respect; and the right to a fair hearing should your rights not be respected or should you be accused of violating the rights of others. Just because you cannot go into a court and enforce Wikipedia policies does not mean that they do not exist and are not upheld.
Fred
What next? All users have the right to interpret policy as /they/ see fit? The customer is always right? Anyone who disagrees with being blocked will be unblocked? Any page which someone objects to the deletion of shall be kept? Any POV-whitewashing shall be acceptable?
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
What next? All users have the right to interpret policy as /they/ see fit? The customer is always right? Anyone who disagrees with being blocked will be unblocked? Any page which someone objects to the deletion of shall be kept? Any POV-whitewashing shall be acceptable?
The first one sounds interesting, but I would be loath to support the others.
Ec
- The right to leave
- The right to fork
Those are your enforceable legal rights; however, you also have the right to participate on an equal basis in the project; the right to be treated with respect; and the right to a fair hearing should your rights not be respected or should you be accused of violating the rights of others. Just because you cannot go into a court and enforce Wikipedia policies does not mean that they do not exist and are not upheld.
Fred
What next? All users have the right to interpret policy as /they/ see fit? The customer is always right? Anyone who disagrees with being blocked will be unblocked? Any page which someone objects to the deletion of shall be kept? Any POV-whitewashing shall be acceptable?
I'm sorry to hear that you disagree, but you can always:
* fork * leave