[Foundation-l] Personal Image Filter results announced

[Oliver Moran]

I think the most important line from the analysis is the question, "What
comes next?" As there was no question that asked the community if this
feature was desirable or wanted, what does come next? Will this feature be
implemented? If so, is it being implemented with community assent? What was
the purpose of this "referendum" and what decision was arrived at through
it?

Coming from a country that has frequent referendums (Ireland), I think it
was quite absurd to call this survey a referendum. What question was
referred to the community? What decision did the community arrive at?
Whether intentional or un-intentional, I get the feeling that this survey
will be used to give a gloss of "community input" to a decision that was
already taken.

Don't get me wrong here, I actually don't care very much whether this
feature is implemented or not but I am disappointed at the procedure. I
think I preferred it in the good old days when it was made clear that
Wikipedia was not a democracy or an experiment in society and when Jimbo's
word was final. For one thing, there was nothing really wrong with that.
But, more importantly with respect to these kinds of "referendums", it was
honest.

In future, let's just call these kind of things a "survey", can we?

TLDR; surveys are great but don't call them a referendum if you don't ask a
direct question

Regards,
Oliver

On 4 September 2011 05:33, Philippe Beaudette <pbeaudette at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> The committee running the vote on the features for the Personal Image
> Filter
> have released their interim report and vote count.  You may see the results
> at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Results/en.
> Please note that the results are not final: although the vote count is, and
> has been finalized, the analysis of comments is ongoing.
>
> Posted on behalf of the committee,
> Philippe
> ___________________
> Philippe Beaudette
> Head of Reader Relations
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
>
> philippe at wikimedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>