Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Straw poll/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Jimbo annoucement

In case anyone did not see the link on the "closure" page, Jimbo Wales has made an announcement at his talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

To quote the Emperor Joseph II, via the film Amadeus, "Well, there it is." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revcasy (talk • contribs) 23:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Summary of Wales' announcement

I pulled these from User_talk:Jimmy Wales, they're verbatim but excerpts, emphasis added, signatures omitted - Ocaasi

• In my traditional leadership role in the English Wikipedia, I am therefore also asking the Wikimedia Foundation to keep Pending Changes enabled, and to increase the hard-coded limit of pages as the performance characteristics of the system allow it. We will discuss on various policy pages where the use of the system is appropriate. I would ask all those opposing the system to use the coming weeks to provide feedback (or code!) that will reduce the complexity of the system, and help us to make Wikipedia more open, not less. And I suggest that 6 months from now, in mid-March, we have a deeper conversation about determining success or failure of this system, on the basis of the data available by then. My hope and belief is that, working together, we can build a system and policies that have even broader support, similar to page protection and user blocking today.

• 2/3 is enough to keep it enabled. I'm not happy with stopping here, though, which is why I'm requesting that the Foundation address the specific concerns so we can get to 80%

• [The straw poll] discussion was started after the time when I was reading a static (downloaded so I could read it offline) version of the discussion... and it only progressed a short time. I am not going to ask that the feature be removed from any articles where it is currently active, as there appears to be absolutely no positive reason to do that. If there are articles where it is causing problems, then it can be removed from those articles - but why remove a popular feature that is working well in most cases, just to have more discussions? It works well enough to keep - the community has spoken loud and clear on that point (65% in favor!). The best energy looking forwrad is to assist with comments and code on how to improve the feature.

• I think the question of what do to while we wait for the foundation to release version 2 is one that isn't hard for everyone to agree on, at least in principle: remove it where it is causing a problem, keep it where it is working, and use it more in cases like the ones where it is working ("gradual limited expansion").

• I'm sorry that you feel that the community has "walked on" you. That's what happens in voting situations. Fortunately, we aren't in a pure voting system, we try to proceed based on consensus. You can have my assurance that I will, at the appropriate time, again recommend to the Foundation that they follow the wishes of the community, and that they listen really hard to dissent to try to find a way to make things more universally appealing for everyone. I don't really understand your attitude here, as if someone is doing you wrong, or I'm overriding the community. The numbers just don't support you.

• You have misunderstood me. 2/3 support is plenty strong enough to keep it on for now. When I said that I'm not happy with 2/3, I meant it in the sense of: I want it to be even better. That's why I'm asking the Foundation to fix the known problems with it, improve it, and do so with energy and vigor!

• None of this makes any logical sense whatsoever. How exactly does accepting the communities overwhelming support (65%!) amount to a signal that it was always going to be kept on? That is not only false, quite obviously, it is also not even remotely plausible in term of giving that impression. If I asked that it be turned off, that would be a horrible violation of the community, it would be ignoring what the community has said loud and clear. I just don't know what you mean.

• Given that nearly 2/3 of the community disagrees with you, what compromise are you willing to accept and support? What problems is your proposal designed to solve? Are there particular pages where you think it should be turned off? Or is it your view that a minority of the community can - and should - block progress forever? We know the feature is popular. We know that it is working extremely well in the vast majority of cases. Going backwards is not an option. You can try to redefine the terms so that change requires near-unanimity, but that's not the deal and never was the deal. I listen to the community... all the community, and we have strong support for this. We also have some legitimate concerns, and so we will address those concerns and have another poll. Iteratively. In the meantime, turning the feature off is impractical and would be outrageous, given the demands of the community.

• There is no reversal of burden. In future polls, if there is consensus to keep it permanently, it will be kept permanently. If there is consensus to remove it permanently, it will be removed permanently. If there is, as in this case, an overwhelming majority to keep it, but not quite consensus, then it will be kept temporarily and improved. There has never been any tradition in any of our decision-making processes that in the middle of an iterative process of improvement, we should completely delete or remove something that has near-consensus and start all over. What problem are you trying to solve with temporarily removing it from all the articles where it is working well and very popular, only to re-add it when the next version comes out? That seems entirely pointless and a grave violation of the will of the community, which is 65% in favor of keeping the feature.

• I don't agree with your interpretation of what we were doing all along, nor what we are doing next. I don't know where we ended up with this strange idea floating around that nothing can change without getting "consensus" (which is undefined, but apparently must be a lot higher than 2/3 support) for anything new. My view is that we should drive for consensus, that we will get consensus, and that in the meantime we should pursue an iterative process of improvement, as opposed to allowing a minority to block progress. It is also worth contemplating the level of screaming that I would *quite justifiably* face, were I to say "65% are in favor of this, so I'm asking the Foundation to turn it off".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:16, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• It meant that we would vote after two months to figure out what to do. So that's what we did. And the results are in: the extension is popular, with 65% support, but has some problems which led to 35% opposition. The next step? Revised software from the Foundation, a new trial, and a new vote. Iterating until we get strong enough support to call it stable and keep it permanently.

• What I propose we do now is have a discussion of where Pending changes is useful, even in the current configuration, and where it is not as useful, and make some gentle adjustments based on that. I do not want to see sudden fast moves in any direction, as I think that would not be helpful for general peace and harmony. There is no reason to rule out removing it from some articles, but there is also no reason to rule out adding it to some articles that don't have it. (When should we add it? When it improves the encyclopedia. When should we remove it? When it improves the encyclopedia.)

• I've asked the Foundation to give me a firm schedule for when a version 2.0 will be available. There seems to be general support from everyone who isn't just absolutely dead set against the feature no matter what that it will be worthwhile to test a new version. The remaining question is what do we do until that new version happens. Given that it took years to get this version, I am sure some are wondering whether the time scale should be estimated in weeks, months, or years. When I hear back from them, I will report on what they have said, and we'll do a quick poll strictly to determine what to do in the meantime. The two options will be simple:

1. Stop using it (either by turning it off, or removing it from all the articles, leaving it turned on but dormant)
2. Use it, with an evaluation (in the normal policy discussion way) of where it should be used and where not, based on our existing experience. (I.E. it works in some cases, not in others, so we can clarify and use it based on those parameters).

The result will be determined by a simple majority vote, since either option is guaranteed to be temporary in any case. Item (2) will also include a "hard stop" or "drop dead" date - *not* the Foundation's estimate of when they will have Version 2 ready, but a reasonable date after that (to allow, in full fairness, some slippage of ship date - this is software, after all).

I will also encourage the Foundation to roll out fixes in a "release early, release often" fashion to the existing product, i.e. to do some of the super easy UI fixes like naming the buttons properly as quickly as possible. I hope that this will resolve the impasse caused by the vagueness in the closing conditions of the original trial, and give us a way to determine what the community wants to do in the meantime. (I think we will all agree - if the meantime means 3 more years, we might as well turn the feature off and wait. And if we are talking about 3 weeks, there's no need to get agitated about anything. I'm sure the real timing is somewhere between those two!) --Jimbo Wales

Pasted by Ocaasi (talk) 09:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Also of interest is a discussion at User_talk:SlimVirgin#Quick_question, between Wales and a few others. Ocaasi (talk) 09:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

So it's agreed that there was no consensus, only a majority, and that consensus was supposed to be required for the trial to be extended. However, I assume none of that matters, since Jimbo wants it to be continued. The benevolent dictatorship marches on... ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 16:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Not all of use saw the original "agreement to turn it off it a super majority was not achieved" and would have disagreed with this agreement if we saw it. There appears to be a number of prior agreements. I feel Jimbo has done well walking a fine line between two camps who would have been unhappy no matter what he decided. I can accept this as a second best temporary solution.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:55, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Consensus ≠ participant ratio. Our policies and guidelines consistently affirm that principle across the board.   — C M B J   10:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Spin

Although the design of the poll wasn't too brilliant, it's amazing how such clear result can be spun to mean nothing by picking apart the in principle supporting votes against an underwhelming minority. But this is the problem with this community model. It's like pure communism, and it hasn't worked in the real world either. The result couldn't be more clear: keep PC and work out the details of operation between the 3 remaining models. Kbrose (talk) 05:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

True, I suppose we should just do what Jimbo says as well all know, people may think Wikipedia is a democracy and it isn't one! The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure, the results may be considered clear if you count votes without reading comments; that's why we have WP:NOTVOTE. Results of a straw poll ≠ consensus. —Ost (talk) 21:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

So you would argue that the votes against PC outweigh the larger amount of votes that are in favor of it? I won't deny that both sides raised (very) valid arguments, but both sides have their share of weak or content-less votes. Equally I would point out that a fair share of the oppose votes are aimed at temporal issues such as a clunky user interface or speed issues, rather then arguing against the core idea behind pending changes. You are correct that straw poll ≠ consensus, but a large straw poll such as this one at least gives a strong indication what consensus might be. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 06:50, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

A comparison based on the final results.

"both sides have their share of weak or content-less votes..."

Sure, but the ratio is seriously disproportionate. Just take a look at the numbers.   — C M B J   09:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Weren't we asked to simply !vote, and not leave comments? I'm fairly sure I ignored that, but I take the view that voting is evil... other editors may be better at following instructions than yours truly. TFOWR 09:53, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The instructions said to "add brief comments" as of the poll's closure, but I do not believe that they did when the poll started. Nevertheless, everyone on both sides of the discussion received the same debriefing relative to the times of their respective comments.   — C M B J   10:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

And still more of those who voted for 2,3 and 4 left comments.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Numberwise, yes; proportionately no. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v PC/SP is a show-trial!)} 18:04, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Typically, discussions with 56.6% against 43.3% result in a "no consensus" judgment anywhere else on the project; XfD, RfX, ANI--you name it. In order for consensus to be determined based on a discussion that erratic, the argument of one side must be significantly more substantive than the other.   — C M B J   03:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe that this straw poll can gives the "clear" result to "keep PC and work out the details of operation between the 3 remaining models." While the the poll may arguably put the cart before the horse by using "Keep" in the support options, but it's also reasonable to read a result of "work out the details, fix the problems, and try it out again". I understand that "Keep" implies continuity, but without adequate choices (such as Suspend or Rework), supporters were forced to choose a "Keep" option to ensure their vote counted and weren't grouped with the opposition. There is obvious support for PC, but I believe that it is less clear than the above statement recognizes; unfortunately, it's all to easy to look at numbers instead of having a discussion. —Ost (talk) 18:13, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

True, some of the oppose votes are (mostly) targeted at temporal issues such as performance and user friendliness, and the support section has several conditional votes pointing these issues out as well. I agree with the "Work out the issues before continuing" assessment you made above. It has taken a fairly long time before we even had a trial (and something to try), so some additional time to iron out the flaws before deciding won't hurt anyone. I presume that the oppose side will like seeing that raised issues are being resolved, and that the support side won't disagree with improving before finalizing (Though that is a guess not backed by any data :) ) Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)