[Foundation-l] for the future...

[Dan Rosenthal]

You elected to receive mail from other users through the function. It  
was optional. You opted in. Whether it's ethical or appropriate is a  
separate issue, but don't confuse it with you having opted in or not.

-Swatjester
On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:08 PM, Peter Halasz wrote:

> 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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>>
>
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