Christopher Mahan wrote:
Question:
Is voting open only to editors or to readers-only as well?
I personally welcome input from all people, since it is in fact readers we are trying to reach with the logo, not just editors.
How exactly are we going to ensure each vote is legit then? If it weren't for the contributors there would be no Wikipedia at all; they are our community and IMO they should be the ones to choose what the logo is going to be.
-- mav
Daniel-
Christopher Mahan wrote:
Question:
Is voting open only to editors or to readers-only as well?
I personally welcome input from all people, since it is in fact readers we are trying to reach with the logo, not just editors.
How exactly are we going to ensure each vote is legit then?
For the first stage, we simply assume that there's no significant level of cheating. This assumption may be wrong, but I doubt it. Keep in mind that the logo contest was advertised on the Main Pages of several Wikipedias. That means that it was one of the first things that many people saw of Wikipedia, and some of them probably thought: logo contest? That sounds interesting! And a minority of these people probably managed to get some votes in by figuring out how to edit the page.
I don't think that's a big deal, and the outcome so far pretty much reflects my personal feelings (most people did not like the hydra, unfortunately!), but because we have actual prizes in this contest, we'll take better care to prevent cheating in the second stage. I hope that's a satisfactory solution. I encourage you and others to filter out non- existent users from the voting results to see if the results differ significantly.
Regards,
Erik
From: "Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de
Daniel-
Christopher Mahan wrote:
...
I personally welcome input from all people, since it is in fact readers we are trying to reach with the logo, not just editors.
How exactly are we going to ensure each vote is legit then?
...
...I encourage you and others to filter out non- existent users from the voting results to see if the results differ significantly.
Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of registration before voting. That is done in practically all democracies including member and shareholder corporations. Otherwise someone with a lot of friends can stuff the ballots. There is the question of fixing the registration deadline date: has it past, is it now or is it a future date? Past dates prevent anyone from signing up under many names, a future date will allow more people to register effectively giving newcomers a voice.
Perhaps 2nd round votes can be posted on the voting pages in two categories. Registered or anonymous. The anonymous vote can be compared with the registered vote to see if they differ signficantly. Having voting counted in two categories should not be very complicated and the results could then be posted so that Erick's proposal is embedded into the second stage voting procedure; someone will not have to spend lots of time analyzing data. We will see if there is a wildly differing outcome between registered Wikipedians and the public at large and can discuss it then. There will also be some hard data to discuss beyond allegations. What ever decision is taken then, we will know who was the significant voting block, registered users or anyone who comes onto the site and votes; objections to including the public votes can be discussed then.
Alex756
Alex R. wrote:
Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of registration before voting. That is done in practically all democracies including member and shareholder corporations.
I didn't know we had become a democracy. I've seen no evidence that Wikimedia is anything but a proprietary organization.
Otherwise someone with a lot of friends can stuff the ballots. There is the question of fixing the registration deadline date: has it past, is it now or is it a future date? Past dates prevent anyone from signing up under many names, a future date will allow more people to register effectively giving newcomers a voice.
The best way to deal with possible ballot box stuffing is still to create a situation where it doesn't matter anyway. Anything else devotes an awful lot of energy on a purely speculative problem. I don't dispute that we have had a few people who voted two minutes after they found out about Wikipedia, but what difference do a few people like that make?
Perhaps 2nd round votes can be posted on the voting pages in two categories. Registered or anonymous. The anonymous vote can be compared with the registered vote to see if they differ signficantly. Having voting counted in two categories should not be very complicated and the results could then be posted so that Erick's proposal is embedded into the second stage voting procedure; someone will not have to spend lots of time analyzing data. We will see if there is a wildly differing outcome between registered Wikipedians and the public at large and can discuss it then. There will also be some hard data to discuss beyond allegations. What ever decision is taken then, we will know who was the significant voting block, registered users or anyone who comes onto the site and votes; objections to including the public votes can be discussed then.
The entire process for choosing a logo has me ROTFWL. The only thing that it's proving to me is what's wrong with voting.
Ec
Eclecticology wrote:
Alex R. wrote:
Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of registration before voting. That is done in practically all democracies including member and shareholder corporations.
I didn't know we had become a democracy. I've seen no evidence that Wikimedia is anything but a proprietary organization.
Well, it is now (or will be soon, I forget where we are technically in the legal process of changing things over) a nonprofit organisation; eventually it will have members and be a "corporation" in a generic sense.
IMO, the logo decision is the sort of very special, once-only decision that needs to be made at the organisational level according to bylaws written by the Wikimedia Board (which does not yet exist I believe). The voting process that we're going through now is rather farcical; but the real lesson to draw is not (IMO) that voting is good or bad, but that we should avoid making special, once-only decisions of this sort. It's OK for the logo, but most decisions should be kept small and local, chosen by consensus among the involved parties without wide-ranging effects. Like how we let anybody come in and edit a specific article just like that!
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Well, it is now (or will be soon, I forget where we are technically in the legal process of changing things over) a nonprofit organisation; eventually it will have members and be a "corporation" in a generic sense.
This is perfect from an American perspective, but other countries can have a different approach to organizations and democracy.
I know how hard it has been to make the Swedish chapter of ISOC (the Internet Society) appear as a legimitate membership organization. When Swedes first heard about it, many thought it sounded like a very undemocratic way of organizing things, compared to what they were used to, and this made it really hard to attract new members. Of course, this came as a surprise to ISOC's American / international organization, since their ambition has been to be very open and democratic. But that's just how cultural clashes work.
In Sweden, corporation and organization law allows for these kinds of formalized organizations: - public share holder corporation (AB publ) - private share holder corporation (AB priv) - private company with multiple owners (HB, KB) - private business with single owner (EF) - foundation (stiftelse) - cooperative, for-profit membership association (ekonomisk förening) - non-profit membership association (ideell förening)
Foundations are regarded as highly undemocratic, because they govern themselves and have no influence from members. The current board of trustees appoints the next board of trustees. Foundations are mostly used for maintaining huge amounts of money, such as the Nobel foundation that owns the money from Alfred Nobel's last will, and awards the Nobel Prize.
Various coops own most of Sweden's farm produce industry, many apartment buildings, a large chain of grocery stores, etc. The generated profit is reinvested or distributed among the members, pretty much like a share holder corporation, but membership comes at a fixed price, every member has one vote and profit is distributed in proportion to each member's economic activity (e.g. size of their apartment, if the coop owns the building). If a wiki website had a huge revenue from banner ads, a coop could be a useful form of organization.
All political parties, trade unions, churches, and any normal association, such as computer clubs, are of the non-profit kind. Legislation is very liberal, but this is balanced by a strong tradition of good practice for writing bylaws, electing a board of trustees, accounting, audit, membership meetings, etc.
Democracy is the readiness of the ruler to give up his power. That is what Swedish non-profit membership associations are about. If the founder maintains "a firm grip" on power or makes the organization depend on him, it is a foundation, a "cult", or some kind of business, and not democratic. To be able to oust the leader, a membership association must depend on its members, not on the leader. This is achieved by paying a membership fee that can pay for all costs that the association has. The fees are maintained by an elected board of trustees, audited by two elected accountants, who report to the annual general assembly of members.
Both the Free Software Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation are foundations, rather than democratic membership associations. This might seem odd to Swedes who are involved in the life of associations.
My own Swedish wiki website (susning.nu) is not democratic at all. I run it as part of my private single owner business (aronsson.se). Changing it to a foundation wouldn't buy me any extra credibility at all. I could form a democratic membership association, but I'm not ready to give up power, at least not for now. There is no tax exemption for donations to organizations of any kind in Sweden. The only reason to form a foundation is if I would receive a huge donation (this would save me from income tax on the received amount), but no such donations are on the horizon.
Erik Moeller wrote:
For the first stage, we simply assume that there's no significant level of cheating. This assumption may be wrong, but I doubt it. Keep in mind that the logo contest was advertised on the Main Pages of several Wikipedias. That means that it was one of the first things that many people saw of Wikipedia, and some of them probably thought: logo contest? That sounds interesting! And a minority of these people probably managed to get some votes in by figuring out how to edit the page.
I don't think that's a big deal, and the outcome so far pretty much reflects my personal feelings (most people did not like the hydra, unfortunately!), but because we have actual prizes in this contest, we'll take better care to prevent cheating in the second stage. I hope that's a satisfactory solution. I encourage you and others to filter out non- existent users from the voting results to see if the results differ significantly.
I still think that before we go on to a second round we need a report on each short list item that addresses 1. Whether there are any technical problems in such matters as scaling , 2. Whether there are conflicts with anyone else's logo, including trademark violations, and 3. Where a short listed item has multiple variants, how we choose between variants
Ec
From: "Ray Saintonge"
I still think that before we go on to a second round we need a report on each short list item that addresses 1. Whether there are any technical problems in such matters as scaling , 2. Whether there are conflicts with anyone else's logo, including trademark violations, and 3. Where a short listed item has multiple variants, how we choose between variants
I agree and I think we need more time to well organize this second round. Is there a coordination page some where on the meta ? Rules for the second round are already decided (in details, not only vote system) ? If it's done, we need time to translate them to non-english Wikipedia. Do we vote for a concept or for a final logo ? In other term do we have for each variant of a logo or just for a concept ? What is the solutions to reduce vote cheating ?
Aoineko
Guillaume-
I agree and I think we need more time to well organize this second round.
Not really. We have more than a week until we start.
Is there a coordination page some where on the meta ?
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote
Rules for the second round are already decided (in details, not only vote system) ?
For the most part, yes. I don't think there will be any major changes. I have just set the deadline for the method to Sep 12 so there will be three days of time to translate the voting instructions.
Do we vote for a concept or for a final logo ?
You vote for a final logo. There may be a need to make a transparent version or a larger one, but no significant changes to the winning logo will be made without clear consensus.
In other term do we have for each variant of a logo or just for a concept ?
You vote on each variant.
What is the solutions to reduce vote cheating ?
You need a user page on Meta that points to an account with at least 10 legitimate edits.
Regards,
Erik
Guillaume-
I agree and I think we need more time to well organize this second
round.
Not really. We have more than a week until we start.
I don't think a week is enough to clear all discussion and evaluate all solutions, but let's try.
Rules for the second round are already decided (in details, not only
vote
system) ?
For the most part, yes. I don't think there will be any major changes. I have just set the deadline for the method to Sep 12 so there will be three days of time to translate the voting instructions.
I only see a "logo vote system" vote. Who decide the other points?
Even if we have to use Average method (not my favorite method) for that, I think we must create pages to vote on:
* Rules for submission
* Deadlines (too short imho)
* Logo vote method (pending...)
* Cheat handling
For submission I think we have better to have one main page with only the author favorite logo (1 logo) plus a link to one page per logo with all variants.
Do we vote for a concept or for a final logo ?
You vote for a final logo. There may be a need to make a transparent version or a larger one, but no significant changes to the winning logo will be made without clear consensus.
If we vote for a final logo we need a lot of variant, isn't it?
We can like a logo concept but prefer a different color, font text, contrast, frame style, etc.
For example, I see a lot of interesting logos variants in the Paullus page (made by him?) and I think it may be great if we can vote for all those variants (and new ones).
Imho, encourage wikipedians to propose new logos variants, is a better way to get the logo witch satisfy the most people. Sure, finalists' authors must select themselves witch logos are in accord with there own concept.
In other term do we have for each variant of a logo or just for a concept ?
You vote on each variant.
This must avoid FPTP method that disfavor logo with the more variants.
What is the solutions to reduce vote cheating ?
You need a user page on Meta that points to an account with at least 10 legitimate edits.
Who will check each user to see if (s)he done at least 10 edits ? What about people who contribute anonymously ?
Regards,
Erik
Aoineko
I forgot an important question :
- Why are you so hurried with deadlines !?
Aoineko
----- Original Message ----- From: "Guillaume Blanchard" gblanchard@arcsy.co.jp To: wikipedia-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 2:16 PM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting
Guillaume-
I agree and I think we need more time to well organize this second
round.
Not really. We have more than a week until we start.
I don't think a week is enough to clear all discussion and evaluate all solutions, but let's try.
Rules for the second round are already decided (in details, not only
vote
system) ?
For the most part, yes. I don't think there will be any major changes. I have just set the deadline for the method to Sep 12 so there will be
three
days of time to translate the voting instructions.
I only see a "logo vote system" vote. Who decide the other points?
Even if we have to use Average method (not my favorite method) for that, I think we must create pages to vote on:
Rules for submission
Deadlines (too short imho)
Logo vote method (pending...)
Cheat handling
For submission I think we have better to have one main page with only the author favorite logo (1 logo) plus a link to one page per logo with all variants.
Do we vote for a concept or for a final logo ?
You vote for a final logo. There may be a need to make a transparent version or a larger one, but no significant changes to the winning logo will be made without clear consensus.
If we vote for a final logo we need a lot of variant, isn't it?
We can like a logo concept but prefer a different color, font text, contrast, frame style, etc.
For example, I see a lot of interesting logos variants in the Paullus page (made by him?) and I think it may be great if we can vote for all those variants (and new ones).
Imho, encourage wikipedians to propose new logos variants, is a better way to get the logo witch satisfy the most people. Sure, finalists' authors
must
select themselves witch logos are in accord with there own concept.
In other term do we have for each variant of a logo or just for a concept ?
You vote on each variant.
This must avoid FPTP method that disfavor logo with the more variants.
What is the solutions to reduce vote cheating ?
You need a user page on Meta that points to an account with at least 10 legitimate edits.
Who will check each user to see if (s)he done at least 10 edits ? What
about
people who contribute anonymously ?
Regards,
Erik
Aoineko
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Guillaume-
I forgot an important question :
- Why are you so hurried with deadlines !?
Why are you so slow?
I didn't propose any deadlines yet, so you don't know how slow I'd like ;o)
Discussing with Olizekat I find out he had to work the night to be able to finish logos for the deadlines. I suppose other creators that have a job can't spend all their time to design logo. I think imho that finalist artists are better judge than you to decide submission deadline. If someone need 1 month (it's just an example) to finish all his variants, why don't wait 1 month? Logo is waiting for 3 years, 1 month is not matter.
Honestly I don't understand what are the arguments to hurry the deadlines?
Regards,
Erik
Aoineko
Guillaume-
Discussing with Olizekat I find out he had to work the night to be able to finish logos for the deadlines.
Yeah, he's trying to let his ant run all over the place. :-) I like MiWiki, I really do, but the second stage is not intended for coming up with entirely new variants; they should have been made in the logo submission phase which lasted more than one month.
I suppose other creators that have a job can't spend all their time to design logo.
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. The 10 day period is not for coming up with entirely new variants. It's for talking about the logos and making small refinements, like adding a little shadow here, making a logo transparent, making it sharper etc. If people manage to do more than that, that's great, but this is not really the point. After we have chosen a winning logo we can still talk about optimizing it, even after it goes live. We can always work on making things better.
Honestly I don't understand what are the arguments to hurry the deadlines?
Please try to phrase your question in a way that accommodates my point of view that the deadlines are not hurried.
Regards,
Erik
Guillaume-
I only see a "logo vote system" vote. Who decide the other points?
There's nothing to decide if there is no dissent. It's pointless to vote on everything if people agree what to do.
For submission I think we have better to have one main page with only the author favorite logo (1 logo) plus a link to one page per logo with all variants.
The whole point of having finalists is to reduce the amount of voting that is necessary. If you allow people to vote on every variant you're dealing with a very large vote again. It's better to let the artists pick a selection of variants.
We can like a logo concept but prefer a different color, font text, contrast, frame style, etc.
Then tell the artist that you want a particular variant to be listed and that you won't vote for the logo unless he chooses that variant. You have until Sep. 15 to do so.
You vote on each variant.
This must avoid FPTP method that disfavor logo with the more variants.
Huh? We're not using FPTP voting here.
Who will check each user to see if (s)he done at least 10 edits ?
I will, if the vote is organized using average voting.
What about people who contribute anonymously ?
They won't be able to vote.
Regards,
Erik
Toby-
Erik Moeller wrote:
Aoineko wrote:
What about people who contribute anonymously ?
They won't be able to vote.
What if their IP# has made 10 edits?
Sorry, no dice. Everyone can register an account -- the level of anonymity is the same, you don't even need an email to sign up -- so I see no reason to let entirely anonymous users vote.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
What if their IP# has made 10 edits?
Sorry, no dice. Everyone can register an account -- the level of anonymity is the same, you don't even need an email to sign up -- so I see no reason to let entirely anonymous users vote.
The reason would be that they didn't know, until just recently (and possibly not until the last day of the election!), that they had to user a username for at least 10 of their edits in order to vote on the logo.
There are quite a few Wikipedians that are known only by their (static) IP address. Unfortunately, none of their names are very memorable. ^_^
-- Toby
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org