Proposal talk:VotingOnTheWikiIsStupid

Discuss the Proposed features/VotingOnTheWikiIsStupid page here:

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Delete. This is not constructive

This is not constructive. I am going to delete the page because it's potentially quite inflammatory while offering no helpful solution.

The debate about wiki voting has been thrashed out pretty thoroughly on the mailing list, and in one or two places on the wiki, including here: Talk:Proposed features#Drifting from reality. Read what has been said before, and look for constructive ways of moving the debate on, or... as mentioned in my "community smoothness" SOTM presentation, there's interesting ideas for technical solutions attempting to provide viable alternatives to wiki voting. Maybe you can help with developing those. ...or there's plenty of ways of helping to make wiki processes function better.

-- Harry Wood 01:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a bitter joke. Wiki-voting _actualy_ does not mean anything here :(

-- Zkir 09:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

If we're going to delete things merely for being inflammatory and unconstructive I can think of much more deserving targets (may not be entirely legal though) --Richard 13:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This new page has just arrived relatively recently. I think we can all predict that it will do nothing but cause confusion and arguments leading nowhere helpful. I'm trying to act fairly quickly to stop that happening. Of course I appreciate that it's also humour. Humour worth keeping? on balance, not really. -- Harry Wood 18:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Um, really not sure that's helpful. That's your opinion and that's kinda cool, but nonetheless there is a very significant body of opinion that voting on the wiki is stupid. The "confusion and arguments" bit could apply equally to that interminable debate about the highway tag. --Richard 19:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you deliberately missing my point? I know there is a very significant body of opinion that voting on the wiki is stupid. Hell I'm pretty fed up with it myself. But I've explained why I am deleting this page. I've also made a few suggestions for people who want to work constructively on the problem of tag documentation. Let me follow that up with another suggestion. How about somebody creates the page "[[Wiki voting is stupid. Better Approach to Tag Documentation]]". You know, something which might actually move things along a little bit. As you know, this page does not help. -- Harry Wood 21:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Personally I agree, yes, this isn't a particularly constructive way of fixing things. And as you know I have made constructive suggestions in the past for a better way to document tags, and would have done something about it if I had the time. But in the absence of you or me doing something about it, which neither of us have, I really don't think you can pick on one particular page for being provocative and unhelpful; there are eight million other contentious things on this wiki that could be taken out and shot on equally strong grounds.

The thing that worries me most is that deleting this page is seen as legitimising the tag-voting process. Tag-voting has no special legitimacy. That's not to say it's worthless: for some people, clearly it genuinely is helpful. But to instigate an aggressive deletion (very rare for this wiki) on the single unique occasion that the process is questioned - that can't help but be seen as partial towards tag-voting and against those who question it. You can only do that impartially if you're also aggressively deleting other recently created but unhelpful pages, and I don't see that happening.

As ever with OSM, what is needed is for someone to sit down and utilise their l33t coding skills to build a better alternative which will stand, fall or evolve on its own merits. My excuse for not doing this is that I'm working on GPX import for Potlatch 2 at the moment. What's anyone else's? --Richard 21:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Aggressive deletion is pretty rare on this wiki, but I don't see this as a very aggressive deletion, because... well is anyone disagreeing with me when I say that this page is not constructive? Pretty sure the person who created it knows full well they were just trying to stir up trouble. I'm happy to delete any other page containing non-constructive inflammatory jokes. That's just sensible wiki maintenance isn't it? Tell me if you see one. The highway proposal doesn't qualify. It's inflammatory, and causes a lot of confusion but unfortunately it was created, and is being pursued, as a good faith attempt to improve something (failing miserably) -- Harry Wood 23:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not actively constructive, but I wouldn't say with confidence it's actively destructive either. To assume the latter isn't "assuming good faith" as they say over at Wikipedia. It's very possible to argue that simply removing wiki-voting, and forcing people to agree as human beings, would improve our "community smoothness" in itself even without a constructive replacement. --Richard 07:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

"assuming good faith" does not trump all other reasoning. I say this page is actively destructive ("inflammatory while offering no helpful solution"), but if you're disagreeing with me on that then I guess we'll keep the page. I was hoping to avoid some bickering, but this has already taken up time this weekend which I was going to spend on cleaning up JOSM documentation. -- Harry Wood 11:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Doing something always trumps bickering/discussion. I think page deletion is always going to incur the latter, so probably just best to ignore it and get on with the former. :) --Richard 11:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I think if Harry wants to delete this page then the onus is on him to first present something better that would achieve the same goal ;-) --Frederik Ramm 07:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Achieve what same goal? This page has no sensible goal. That's my point -- Harry Wood 09:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It's time to remove this! --amai 00:14, 24 August 2010 (BST)

Not at all - leave the page and the discussion intact. --Drlizau 00:59, 24 August 2010 (BST)

Helpful?

I do not find this helpful at all. I agree that the voting and proposal process on the wiki is not optimal, but suggesting to remove it without suggesting a different approach does not help a single one of us. If somebody can come up with a better way of proposing and adding new tags, than we might get the entire community to get a better solution. To remove it before a different system is in place will only be damaging to the efforts of the entire community. --Skippern 20:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that it's helpful in that it shows that there's a discussion still going on about how to tag and what sorts of tags are acceptable. It also shows that some people have a sense of humour. SomeoneElse 11:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This proposal is harmful

This proposal includes the deletion of all voting-related stuff including the casted votes of the past. I personally consider this harmful, as it deletes part of our project history: it is important to see, why people voted against a specific proposal, or why they voted in favour. These comments often are aside the votes. Then there lies a certain information in the amount of people who voted for or against a proposal, and how many of them voted for which. For these reasons I'd suggest regardless the outcome of the voting upon this proposal to at least not delete the old votes where voting is already completed. -- Dieterdreist 13:59, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

i don't see where this proposal includes (at least currently) deletion of old votes, and i agree that keeping them would be appropriate. --Richlv 17:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Replaced by a haddock?

Looks a bit fishy to me. --EdLoach 09:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Fishy it may be - but this really does need sorting trout. --JonS 09:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Am I herring this right? It's all hunky dory to me. --Socks 14:54, 5 November 2009 (UTC)