[Foundation-l] Licensing update vote result

[Brian]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:

> phoebe ayers wrote:
> > On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 7:54 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> The licensing update poll has been tallied.
> >>>>
> >>>> "Yes, I am in favor of this change" :  13242 (75.8%)
> >>>> "No, I am opposed to this change" :  1829 (10.5%)
> >>>> "I do not have an opinion on this change" :  2391 (13.7%)
> >>>>
> >>>> Total ballots cast and certified:  17462
> >>>>
> >>> I think this is a very good result, in particular the turnout looks
> great to me!
> >>> Congratulations to all who have worked hard to get to it, and I hope
> >>> there will be a board resolution soon.
> >>>
> >> As was commented on elsewhere, the 2008 Board Election only had 3019
> >> votes, which also suggests the turnout this time was remarkable.
> >>
> > Yes -- I think this is definitely the largest group of Wikimedians to
> > ever collectively express an opinion on anything! It'd be worth
> > figuring out why the vote was successful, if possible (long period of
> > voting? ubiquitous sitenotices? Important topic? Lots of outside
> > interest?)
> >
> Deliberately low threshold for eligibility.
>
> --Michael Snow


And yet the "threshold for eligibility" hypothesis has not been tested on
the projects. You have no idea whether allowing only those with the most
biased opinions to vote (as most project votes are conducted) skews the
outcome towards or away from the rational or optimal choice, or whether it
has any effect on the outcome at all. Indeed, we have no idea whether the
wording or presentation or usability of the votes matters. It could matter a
great deal, changing the outcome in a statistically significant matter, or
it could matter not at all, rendering the threshold for eligibility
hypothesis meaningless. The current methods amount to folk statistics
because nobody has any clue what matters and what doesn't. That's why I
continue to encourage the WMF to adopt scientific thinking.