Wikipedia talk:Quickpolls/Archive 1

message: ===People who support the current quickpolls proposal===
# —Eloquence 15:44, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
#:Anthony DiPierro 15:55, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Poll on the actual proposed policy

message: # —Eloquence 15:44, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
#:Anthony DiPierro 15:55, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: People who support the current quickpolls proposal

message: (Please list any changes you would like to make next to your vote.)
# Oppose. All quick results need to be for short, limited times, not indefinite. The idea is to modify behavior, not be a court without due process. Normal discusion of a problem can handle things after no more than a few repeated offences and quick actions. Things like referring to aribtration are not suitable for a quick poll. Jamesday 23:14, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: People opposed to specific proposal, but with ideas for improvements that may change their vote, if accepted

message: #Oppose strongly. --Wik 23:57, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
#Eclecticology 05:04, 2004 Mar 15 (UTC) It's just more bureaucracy.
#Weakly sceptical; having seen it in action. May switch later. -- Cimon avaro 07:52, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
#I think quickpolls will become the place where people like Lord Kenneth and Reddi will rule the day. Wikipedia is (and should remain) a place where people seek consensus.  I'm just worried the current system of friendly consensus will turn into a bunch of hard popularity votes. I'm worried that this vote itself might prove me right, if votes are simply tallied, and this comment goes unnoticed :-( Kim Bruning 18:17, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: People opposed to the idea

message: While I support this enthusiastically, I think its use should be extremely rare.  While full blocks are the only way to deal with pure vandals, it would be nice for there to be allowance for people blocked this way, who might not be vandals but simply get carried away in a dispute, to at least be able to participate on talk pages.  Per-page protection is another possibility (I assume per-page protection would not apply to talk pages as well). Unfortunately, these protections are not currently technically possible, but I hope this political "solution" does not stop the desire to have the technical techniques added.  Anthony DiPierro 23:16, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as we speak of 24-hours ban, it can hardly be any concern that the banned user is blocked also from talk-pages. This scheme can be realized without any software changes. Per-page protection and other alternatives seem to be a much later possibility.--Ruhrjung 23:34, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This scheme can be realized without any software changes, and that's why I support it.  But I see it as a less than optimal solution.  I'm not sure why you say it can hardly be a concern to block non-vandals from talk pages.  It is a concern, at least to me, and I would think others share that concern.  Again, we're not talking about someone intentionally destroying Wikipedia (although that is one of the three posibilities).  Anthony DiPierro 23:21, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course it would be a serious concern and a severe condition if the ban laster longer than 24 hours.--Ruhrjung 17:53, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: General Comments about the proposed policy

message: * 100 "non-reverted edits". What is a "non-reverted edit". A user can make a really bad edit and it gets whittled away by three or four subsequent edits. One assumes that this isn't a "reverted edit". I'm not sure that this is a significant problem, but it is problematic.
**In my understanding, it would be a reverted edit. Do you think this can be clarified somehow?—Eloquence
***I can't think of a way to clarify this at present. At least, not a practical way. It is a difficulty though, and suggestions are welcome. Ideas anyone? Tannin 
***Also, I feel that this would become a less significant matter if we rise the entry bar a little higher - e.g., 200 edits, or admin user to start the poll. Either or both of these would reduce the salience of this matter. Tannin
**It seems to me that Quickpolls started by trolls would never even reach 8 yes votes, and could be safely ignored. Anthony DiPierro 23:47, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: What is a reverted edit issue

message: Fennec brings up a good point. There should not be any votes to abstain. Yeas and Nays only. Kingturtle 05:03, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  abstain... 

message: The problem situations under previous quorum rules:
# 9 people are in favour of a temp-ban, the tenth is against. Under old rules, tenth should abstain, because voting against would paradoxically cause the ban to go ahead.
# 10 people are in favour of a temp-ban. Then, all ten change their mind. Under the old rules, the temp-ban stays in effect, because 15 people are required to reverse a decision.
So I fixed it. Very rules-lawyer of me, I know. Martin 00:36, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  voting rule tweakage 

message: (out of the poll itself) 
# Eloquence has convinced me. I am changing my vote. Kingturtle 04:41, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Kingturtle's conversation moved down here

message: A thought. I may be made a sysop soon, but have not yet been here three months. I won't be able to vote in any quickpolls. While I don't really care too much myself- a few weeks' delay won't bother me, at least not much :) this seems rather incongrous with the responsibilities granted to sysops. I therefore propose an exception to this 3-month rule for anyone who is a sysop already before that time. (And I promise not to vote in any quickpolls before then, even if this exception is approved... just for good measure.) It's a small matter, but still... why not? - Fennec 03:15, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exception for Sysops 

message: Is it really fair to remove the notice from Wikipedia:Recentchanges before the poll has ended? Dori | Talk 19:10, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)
The notice needs to be kept - I had no idea quickpolls were in progress. Secretlondon 23:14, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: When to remove notice?

message: In addition to adding notice on Wikipedia:Recentchanges (the text shown atop the "Recent changes" page), can it be added to Watchlist? - Texture 23:14, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The quickpolls page, or W:RC? You can watch either. Dysprosia 23:16, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I just stared watching Quickpolls.  Didn't have it on my radar or I would have participated. - Texture 23:25, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can notice be placed on watchlist? 

message: The rules for removing a vote tally are weird. Or at least their effects are:
Suppose we have a vote going on with 19 for, 11 against. That's more than 60% for, so we keep the vote going. Now 10 more people vote for. Then the vote is 29 for, 11 against. That's less than 80%, so we remove the vote. By voting for the banning, those people have made removal of the vote possible. Sounds like an unintended consequence. - Andre Engels 22:31, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but explore Andre's point a little deeper. If it is 19-11 in favour, then the 80% barrier can NOT be broken before 40 votes. Thus there is literally no point have the poll any more. However the poll can not be removed, because with 30 votes the cut-off is lower. I.e. the system is a little bit broken. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:55, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Strange removal rules

message: Since quickpolls can stay on the voting page for up for 48 hours after an initial remedy is imposed, people can change their vote even after a user's 24-hour ban is lifted. Thus a user could have an initial vote meeting the 80%/8 support threshold, have that ban lifted if the vote slips below 70%/5 oppose... but the vote could *still* slip back above 80%. I don't think that it's fair or reasonable for a user to be banned, unbanned, and rebanned (potentially) multiple times as opinion shifts. The further on from the initial offense, the less weight that the original offense carries for voters -- whereas they should more ideally be launching a separate quickpoll for separate offenses. 
I think that this was a major oversight in the quickpoll rules. The final paragraph of the "Removal" section should read more like: "Quickpolls should be removed from this page upon the completion of a 24-hour ban, or upon its reversal (by support falling below 70%) prior to the end of the 24-hour ban period." That way there's clearly only one penalty per poll. Comments? -- Seth Ilys 02:36, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahh, yes, good point. Seth. It's good to have a rules lawyer in the house sometimes. I'll fix. Martin 00:02, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  One penalty per poll? 

message: Perhaps I've missed something in the various explanations of how things work with this page, but why is the "Wik & Perl" poll on the archive page, but not the "GrazingshipIV & Anthony DiPierro" poll? BCorr|Брайен 13:58, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
*GrazingshipIV deleted the discussion link without archiving it. - Texture 16:48, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies.  You did attempt to archive the discussion.  However, you did not use the link from Wikipedia:Quickpolls which was Wikipedia:Quickpolls/Archive.  Instead you created a new one off the Wikipedia:Quickpolls/Anthony-Graz called Wikipedia:Quickpolls/archives.  I have redirected Wikipedia:Quickpolls/archives to the correct one specified on Wikipedia:Quickpolls. - Texture 17:08, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive protocol question

message: How were the numbers "8" (to censure) & "5" (to clear) selected? These numbers seem uncomfortably small to my taste, & I'd prefer a quorum based on the total number of Contributors to Wikipedia in Good Standing. Back when I belonged to a union, ISTR the quorum was set at 3% of the total membership (because we were lucky to get that many to a meeting) -- which might be achievable on Wikipedia.
ISTR (again) some 50,000 people are registered contributors to Wikipedia; assume that 90% of those would be acceptable under some usable definition of "Contributors to Wikipedia in Good Standing", then 3% would be 150. A majority of how 150 people vote would be far more convincing than the opinions of any 13 random Wikipedians. -- llywrch 02:36, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: However, this would also render the quickpoll process fairly useless. I agree that 150 people would be better, but when have you ever seen 150 people vote on anything on Wikipedia? I can't recall that happening, and I can't see the odds of it happening on a regular basis anytime soon. Ambivalenthysteria 03:57, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: You have to keep in mind that only a small number of registered users participate actively. According to  only about 2000 wikipedians are active, and that it is unlikely to see even 60 of them vote (to make up the 3%). I also forgot to mention that many wikipedians may not be familiar with the case, or even if they are familiar, they may not make up their mind one way or the other. Dori | Talk 05:21, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)
I still would like to see some explanation of how the numbers for this quorum were determined. We'll be having this argument, only far more heatedly, in one year when there are twice as many active wikipedians, & a number of them are appalled at how easily it is for a quickpoll to ban someone. (Not that I'm against banning troublemakers, but such a ban ought to be done with a clear process -- otherwise, it will become more trouble than it is worth.) -- llywrch 03:14, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  To answer the question directly, I selected 8 because it was 80% of 10, and I selected 5 because it was 30% of 15. The former numbers where chosen by Eloquence, I think. Martin 00:00, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: If you want to get that many votes, I think the solution is to change the guidelines for advertising quickpolls. Right now we remove the listing from Recent changes when 15 votes are cast. That page probably draws the most voters, so we shouldn't remove a quickpoll listed there until we're safely over whatever quorum we choose to require. --Michael Snow 17:47, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: How about if we say all quickpolls are open for 48 hours, then they get closed and archived. Even if a poll closes at 79.9% in favor. The only exception should be keeping a poll open that might reverse an already implemented ban by dropping support below 70% (i.e. if the ban was implemented after the first 24 hours, keep the poll open until the ban ends). Right now we're not clear because the page seems to say two different things. And this would allow us to get rid of the confusing table of fewer than 20 votes, less than 40% support, etc. --Michael Snow 16:42, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd go for a 48 hour window to accept votes, as long as there's a minimum numbers of votes for a poll to be considered "approved", say 1% of the active Wikipedians. That would mean right now 20 votes, & would be adjusted upwards (hopefully ;) in the future. -- llywrch 20:33, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Acting on my own suggestion, I've archived Anthony's second quickpoll, since it has passed the 48-hour mark. I figure that as the proponent of the poll, I can do that with some claim of legitimacy. If anybody objects, let me know, but I don't think we can have a quickpoll hanging over somebody's head indefinitely. --Michael Snow 03:13, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about Quorum 

message: The current format of the listing on Recent Changes is intrusive and tedious. Every time you refresh recent changes it catches your eye, particularly so as it is in the same general screen area as the (much more important) "You have new messages" notice. The bolding has to go. Tannin 18:21, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think so, at least the way the system is being used now. Martin 21:56, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  format of listing