[Foundation-l] for the future...

[Peter Halasz]

Huh? Look. Voter turn out is important, sure. I voted in the election
too. But if i get a mass email which i never opted in for -- whatever
the intention -- it is spam. You cannot simply guess that i want your
mass email. Targeted spam is still spam. You have to go back and ask
me to opt in.

On 7/4/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/3/07, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > (This is my personal opinion and does not reflect that of the election
> > committee, etc, etc.)
> >
> > On 7/3/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org > wrote:
> > >
> > > On 7/3/07, Jimmy Wales < jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > It seems pretty clear to me that it would be reasonable for the
> > > > Foundation to send out an official election reminder by email in all
> > > > languages (or as many as we can muster) next time around.  Thoughts?
> > > >
> > > Sounds reasonable.  If it was done by the Foundation officially I
> > > don't think I would have had a problem with it.  Note the privacy
> > > policy specifically says that "The email address may be used by the
> > > Wikimedia Foundation to communicate with users on a wider scale."
> > >
> >
> > I was about to suggest the same thing, but technically slightly different;
> > instead of having such notification as part of the standard email yes/no
> > option, create a separate option saying "Allow the Wikimedia Foundation to
> > notify me of important events (only used once or twice annually)", or
> > something like it. It should, however, be quite clear that you will not
> > get
> > a lot of emails from this feature, and that it should only be used in
> > "emergencies" (in lack of a better word).
> >
> > This would allow people to choose to receive notifications, but not be
> > emailed by other members, or to be emailed by other members but not
> > receive
> > notifications.
>
>
> This sounds like a reasonable solution, though there would have to be a big
> push to make sure current account-holders knew they could opt in.
>
> Though spam-like, I wouldn't consider the elections message spam --
> especially if it came from the Foundation directly. It is entirely possible
> that an otherwise dedicated editor could be away from the wiki for a couple
> of months and miss the election entirely; emails would help with that. We
> should just be careful about limiting the notices to the bare minimum of
> foundation-wide announcements that really do affect all users, and making
> them short.
>
> As with elections and participatory governance in the real world, it is not
> simply that the election is an opportunity for members to vote if they feel
> like it; instead it may be that those who claim the label of "community
> member" have some responsibility in sharing in governance. Thus griping
> about having too many reminders of the election seems, frankly, like poor
> form. Most of us will not be overwhelmed by an email or two from a project
> that we spend dozens or hundreds of hours on. Even if this is controversial,
> an opt-in option would be painless -- and it would be nice to be able to
> walk away from the wiki and still know that you'd get notifications if the
> place was burning down or similar.
>
> -- phoebe
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