Jimbo has suggested expanding the power of quickpolls to allow banning until such time as the arbitration committee makes a decision. Hence the arbitration committee becomes like a court of appeal.
To date, there have been lots of criticisms of quickpolls, on the talk page and elsewhere. Most of them have been centred around the issue of frivolous use. Jimbo suggested allowing only sysops to start quickpolls.
After some pondering, I've decided I like this proposal. It's reasonably democratic, since someone with a real complaint is very likely to find at least one sympathetic sysop. The sysop body is heterogeneous. And it gives the community a way to take decisive action.
This could be implemented just by posting a policy statement at the top of [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]], saying that only sysops may start polls. However, I'm of the opinion that simple technical barriers can be used to great effect in enforcing policies. Perhaps we could put each quickpoll in an unprotected MediaWiki: message, then have a list of {{msg:}} tags in [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] itself. The list would then be protected, preventing anyone except for sysops from adding items.
Theoretically a user could add a new quickpoll to the bottom of one of the included messages. But if they do that, it is clear to all that they have understood the policy and attempted to evade it. Others may remove the quickpoll not only on the basis of policy, but also because the listing is in the wrong place, and is incorrectly formatted.
-- Tim Starling
Complementary to this, in the case of bans which seem to be improvidently granted, a quickvote of 4 arbitrators to rescend the ban and not hear the case could be part of this.
Fred
From: Tim Starling ts4294967296@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 13:58:52 +1000 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Suggested implementation of Jimbo's quickpoll proposal
Jimbo has suggested expanding the power of quickpolls to allow banning until such time as the arbitration committee makes a decision. Hence the arbitration committee becomes like a court of appeal.
To date, there have been lots of criticisms of quickpolls, on the talk page and elsewhere. Most of them have been centred around the issue of frivolous use. Jimbo suggested allowing only sysops to start quickpolls.
After some pondering, I've decided I like this proposal. It's reasonably democratic, since someone with a real complaint is very likely to find at least one sympathetic sysop. The sysop body is heterogeneous. And it gives the community a way to take decisive action.
This could be implemented just by posting a policy statement at the top of [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]], saying that only sysops may start polls. However, I'm of the opinion that simple technical barriers can be used to great effect in enforcing policies. Perhaps we could put each quickpoll in an unprotected MediaWiki: message, then have a list of {{msg:}} tags in [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] itself. The list would then be protected, preventing anyone except for sysops from adding items.
Theoretically a user could add a new quickpoll to the bottom of one of the included messages. But if they do that, it is clear to all that they have understood the policy and attempted to evade it. Others may remove the quickpoll not only on the basis of policy, but also because the listing is in the wrong place, and is incorrectly formatted.
-- Tim Starling
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I endorse this as a proposed experiment. Should we proceed? Are there any major objections to giving it a try for a few weeks?
We can monitor it and bail out of the experiment quickly if we find that it's out of control. But it might help a lot.
Tim Starling wrote:
Jimbo has suggested expanding the power of quickpolls to allow banning until such time as the arbitration committee makes a decision. Hence the arbitration committee becomes like a court of appeal.
To date, there have been lots of criticisms of quickpolls, on the talk page and elsewhere. Most of them have been centred around the issue of frivolous use. Jimbo suggested allowing only sysops to start quickpolls.
After some pondering, I've decided I like this proposal. It's reasonably democratic, since someone with a real complaint is very likely to find at least one sympathetic sysop. The sysop body is heterogeneous. And it gives the community a way to take decisive action.
This could be implemented just by posting a policy statement at the top of [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]], saying that only sysops may start polls. However, I'm of the opinion that simple technical barriers can be used to great effect in enforcing policies. Perhaps we could put each quickpoll in an unprotected MediaWiki: message, then have a list of {{msg:}} tags in [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] itself. The list would then be protected, preventing anyone except for sysops from adding items.
Theoretically a user could add a new quickpoll to the bottom of one of the included messages. But if they do that, it is clear to all that they have understood the policy and attempted to evade it. Others may remove the quickpoll not only on the basis of policy, but also because the listing is in the wrong place, and is incorrectly formatted.
-- Tim Starling
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I endorse this as a proposed experiment. Should we proceed? Are there any major objections to giving it a try for a few weeks?
We can monitor it and bail out of the experiment quickly if we find that it's out of control. But it might help a lot.
I'm fine with it, though I think perhaps there should be more stringent thresholds---a quick poll done with a handful of users and a moderate threshold is fine for a 24-hour ban, but if it's going to be a longer ban perhaps it should be a 2/3 or 3/4 threshold and some minimum number of votes?
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
I endorse this as a proposed experiment. Should we proceed? Are there any major objections to giving it a try for a few weeks?
We can monitor it and bail out of the experiment quickly if we find that it's out of control. But it might help a lot.
I'm fine with it, though I think perhaps there should be more stringent thresholds---a quick poll done with a handful of users and a moderate threshold is fine for a 24-hour ban, but if it's going to be a longer ban perhaps it should be a 2/3 or 3/4 threshold and some minimum number of votes?
The proposal was for an 80% threshold and a minimum of 8 votes. So, that's more stringent that what you mentioned already, right?
--Jimbo
8 votes is far too few, 18 or 24 might be more reasonable for what is likely to turn into a ban of several weeks at best.
Fred
From: Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 16:11:17 -0700 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Suggested implementation of Jimbo's quickpoll proposal
Delirium wrote:
I endorse this as a proposed experiment. Should we proceed? Are there any major objections to giving it a try for a few weeks?
We can monitor it and bail out of the experiment quickly if we find that it's out of control. But it might help a lot.
I'm fine with it, though I think perhaps there should be more stringent thresholds---a quick poll done with a handful of users and a moderate threshold is fine for a 24-hour ban, but if it's going to be a longer ban perhaps it should be a 2/3 or 3/4 threshold and some minimum number of votes?
The proposal was for an 80% threshold and a minimum of 8 votes. So, that's more stringent that what you mentioned already, right?
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
8 votes is far too few, 18 or 24 might be more reasonable for what is likely to turn into a ban of several weeks at best.
I'm open to this. I merely chose 80% plus 8 votes because I found that on the QuickPolls page as it existed before. 8, 18, 24, the selection is more or less arbitrary but nonetheless important.
Without empirical testing, we won't really know what typical votes will be like. And even with empirical testing, different people will have different opinions on what the threshold "ought" to be.
I'm willing to listen to more opinions on what the threshold ought to be, but I also think that at some point, the proper solution will be to do an experiment and then have a wiki-wide vote on how we like it.
--Jimbo