Are you referring specifically to this case?
If so, what other options are there? The way I see it, there are two rigidly opposed options:
1) Cantonese Wikipedia; 2) No Cantonese Wikipedia.
Obviously there are other solutions, like a Cantonese encyclopaedia being hosted off-site, but that would fall under "2". Or creating a Cantonese Wikipedia, but not allowing interwiki links. ...but that would be under "1".
If you can think of an option that can't be logically classified as either of the two, then I'll be very surprised.
Also, I don't see how the vote was badly organised.
I did all of the things I think I should've done:
1) notification of vote on wikipedia-l, the international Wikipedia mailinglist 2) e-mails and private messages to all people who had a Babel template of zh-yue-N on en.wiki and zh.wiki 3) not including personal sentiment in my e-mails, rather just a simple notification of vote and begging people to vote
So I don't see what was missed. I informed Cantonese speakers, and the international community. What's missing?
As regards confusing instructions, Andrew Lih is the only one who was confused, which doesn't surprise me anymore.
Mark
On 17/08/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Badly organized votes don't determine consensus; they destroy it.
A vote will force a choice between two or more specific options, which may even be poorly defined. A true consensus may lie somewhere outside of those specific options.
Ec
Phroziac wrote:
Actually, Jimmy, aren't they to determine consensus, not build it?
This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything. The only valid purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to build community consensus. Deliberately excluding some interested parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get buy-in from the entire community.
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