Recently an open vote was held on the English wikipedia regarding whether or not to use the 'rel="nofollow"' attribute in external links. As many of you know, the attribute was recently created by google as a possible means of controlling spam. As you know, use of the attribute is controlled by a boolean flag in the MediaWiki software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Nofollow
Following the advice of the developers, community vote was set up. It was open for two weeks and had spirited debate about the use of "nofollow". The result of the vote was
Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
A strong majority of the voters would prefer that the attribute be removed for the English Wikipedia.
I'm reporting this knowing that it's up the developers to implement the will of the community. I know there is support among some the developers for the continued use of this attribute on all the wikimedia projects, but those of us who voted on the English wikipedia did so in the belief that the decision in this case was up to the community. As such, this is not meant as a discussion of the attribute itself, only a notification fo the community decision for the english wikipedia.
I've personally gotten ambiguous and imcomplete feedback from the user who set up the vote, so I hope this can clear things up. As I side note, some of the 'keep' voters expressed the desire to see the attribute removed if the software could parse external links based on an aging process. I know that since the software does not record external links separately, this would be probably be a rather complex modification of the code that would be a long time in development, given other priorities. In the meantime, however, a strong majority of the voters have voted "remove".
Best wishes and with great respect for your efforts,
Matthew Trump
Matthew Trump said:
Following the advice of the developers, community vote was set up. It was open for two weeks and had spirited debate about the use of "nofollow". The result of the vote was
Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Matthew Trump said:
Following the advice of the developers, community vote was set up. It was open for two weeks and had spirited debate about the use of "nofollow". The result of the vote was Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
Thing was, adding nofollow was a unilateral decision for which there was no consensus. The vote was whether the change should be permanent - or whether to undo the previous unilateral action, and make things as they were. Rather than voting for a change.
- d.
David Gerard said:
Thing was, adding nofollow was a unilateral decision for which there was no consensus. The vote was whether the change should be permanent - or whether to undo the previous unilateral action, and make things as they were. Rather than voting for a change.
Thanks for the clarification. This makes sense.
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should be removed.
Tomer Chachamu said:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should be removed.
Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Tomer Chachamu said:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes)
This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action.
Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should be removed.
Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs.
140 interested parties is quite a sample of en.wikipedia opinion.
Assuming each alternative has the same "cost" to the losing side, then surely following the majority, even it can't be called a consensus, is better than following the minority?
Pete
Matthew Trump wrote:
Thanks for the link.
A strong majority of the voters would prefer that the attribute be removed for the English Wikipedia.
I'm reporting this knowing that it's up the developers to implement the will of the community.
I think it's disingenuous to speak of "the will of the community" when it's very clear from reading the comments on the vote page that "the will of the community" is deeply divided. There are distinct positions, both with very strong support, based on incompatible premises:
A: Wikipedia *should* reward good sites B: Wikipedia is not obligated to "reward" anybody at all
A: Wikipedia should reward *good* sites B: Wikipedia is obligated to remain neutral, and must not make judgements on who should be "rewarded"
A: Spam is a lower priority than rewarding quality web resources; we already weed out spam relatively well B: Spam's a big problem and only going to get worse as time goes on, and rewarding spammers' web sites probably isn't what you had in mind
Clearly an all-or-nothing toggle isn't going to satisfy anybody, much less everybody. So "implementing the will of the community", if it is to mean anything, must mean something *other* than turning a toggle off or leaving it on.
What do you suggest?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 16:19:01 -0800, Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:
Clearly an all-or-nothing toggle isn't going to satisfy anybody, much less everybody. So "implementing the will of the community", if it is to mean anything, must mean something *other* than turning a toggle off or leaving it on.
What do you suggest?
The technical compromises that have been batted around (adding nofollow for a certain amount of time after the link was added, etc.) seem the most ideal to me. Unfortunately, these all require coding. Until the developers devise a technical solution, the community is stuck with a yes/no option.
To clarify, I was the user who organized the vote on en. I apologize to Matthew for the lack of a prompt response; I was snowed under with work this week and had little time to devote to Wikipedia.
--Slowking Man
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