Hello,
Frankly, I am quite unhappy about the referendum and share the concerns expressed by Thomas. I think that the Foundation did not take those Wikimedians serious who are opposed to the filter. The Foundation avoided the direct question whether someone is for or against the filter at all, this most important question was denied to the community.
From this perspective, the first question can be seen as manipulative.
On German language Wikipedia, there is a poll of its own. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C...
It will go until September 15th, but by now the results are as follows: Against the filter 231, for the filter 44. Undecided 14.
Kind regards Ziko
2011/9/4 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I said from the beginning that this poll was too badly designed for anyone to be able to draw useful conclusions from whatever the results are. I think that has been proven correct.
A very large proportion of voters said they don't consider the feature important. If they simply mean "not important" then the result could be considered a mandate to proceed. If they actually mean they are opposed to the feature, which seems likely given the number of negative comments, then there is not even a clear majority in favour.
While I personally am in favour of this feature, I urge the Foundation not to proceed with it without further consultation. To ask the community for their views and then not actually take those views into account (which you can't do since you can't tell what they are) would be a an insult to the community and would significantly harm relations between the Foundation and those it exists to serve.
The Foundation needs to be mature enough to admit that they've screwed up this survey, apologise and try again. Next time, start by figuring out what you want to achieve by asking the questions and then choose the questions accordingly.