Let me again say that it's great that the foundation actually asked editors what they thought. Clearly the actual design of the survey left much to be desired - people wanted a question along the lines of "is this filter a good idea (y/n)," and didn't get one. I'm a bit disappointed that for as major a change in direction as this, ten trustees decided it was such a good idea that they didn't need to ask the community if they agreed; only for some details as to the scope of the technical tool. I think this is why we got the worst of all possible results; a stalemate with no clear answer one way or the other.

Anyway, I'd like to see some of the trustees weighing in with their thoughts on the results of this referendum, since it's clear that we can argue until the sun goes dark but our opinions mean precisely nought with regards to the question of whether an image filter should be implemented.

Cheers, Craig

From: Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com

Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced

To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List

foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org

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CAO5b2fsFnhdxf8ikr+YivrpjnfKCWHXhW2c4kob5YkqXdjzzfw@mail.gmail.com

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On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 6:23 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

That's only true if there is general agreement that the feature would be

nice to have and there is just a question of whether it is worth the

effort.

That it not the case here.

The referendum was pretty clearly predicated on the basis that the

feature was going forward:

"The Board of Trustees has directed the Wikimedia Foundation to

develop and implement a personal image hiding feature."

"[The referendum was held] to gather more input in to the development

and usage of an opt-in personal image hiding feature".

And from the resolution:

"We ask the Executive Director, in consultation with the community, to

develop and implement a personal image hiding feature..."

(not "We ask the Executive Director, so long as the

can't-recognise-the-irony-in-fighting-censorship-by-stopping-people-choosing-what-they-want-to-see

crowd gives their blessing, to develop and implement...")

The questions are all relating to the development of the feature, save

for the 'culturally neutral' question: the first is about how to

prioritise it, and the others are about setting out the specs for the

feature.

--

Stephen Bain

stephen.bain@gmail.com