Talk:Edit summary prefill poll

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This "poll" is bogus. It has no validity whatsoever.

The following mysteriously appeared at Edit summary prefill poll (2):

A large number of people have voiced strong opposition to the edit summary prefill feature (which was previously discussed at edit summary prefill poll). Apparently most people didn't know about the poll, or even noticed the feature. So here's another poll, this time hopefully more visible.

1. Timwi 06:51, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
2. this new summary automation is causing users to put zero effort into their summaries. users see that the summary is filled in, and they don't see why they should edit it 68.120.156.211 07:01, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) -Kingturtle
3. Vardion. Either get rid of it or make it optional. Optional would be best - I have no objections to other people using it, but I strongly dislike the idea of not being able to switch it off.
   • Unfortunately, making it optional does not solve the problem that many people (including Kingturtle above and myself) have with it, namely how it encourages other users to be sloppy with their edit summaries. — Timwi 07:13, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

1. It's grrrreat! Philip Marlowe 06:56, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
2. I really like it since it shows just where edits are made. This is very useful for long pages. --mav 07:28, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
3. Keep. -- Decumanus 08:42, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

1. Angela - you can't start another vote and discount the results of the earlier one. The first one was sufficiently advertised, as shown by the fact almost 50 people voted on it.
2. Sverdrup (talk) I voted, like many.

I do not think the result of the previous poll was *exactly* what can be called a consensus Angel. So, either we say the previous poll was closed too early, or perhaps we allow people to evaluate the change after a little while ? Anthere

I'm not saying it was a consensus; I'm saying I don't want to be forced to vote again because the results of the first vote, which had a huge turnout, are being ignored for no good reason. Angela 16:45, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Here is THE good reason I can think of Angel. The poll was started on the 20th, it was over by the 23th. That is called a quick poll. That is a poll you have chance to participate only if you are a careful reader of the english goings-on, and a careful and nearly daily reader of meta. I do not say I am unhappy with the result, but this is not a democratic poll, and this is not even using a representative sample of the wikipedian population. More than a year ago, I remember that Walter and I asked that please non-english be made aware of software improvement, and that please votes are at a minimum open for a week from the moment they are announced. This vote was very clear and well defined. But it was very far from that bare minimum of 7 days. This is not the first time the topic is raised. I do not doubt the energy behind this, but frankly, if votes are gonna be quickpolls each time, better to do that on en, that will set things clear. I do not think it is honest to consider that a motivated representant of any wikipedia drop along at least once a day here, to check if there is no poll on the way, so he can hurry warn his compatriote. If this can't be done naturally, I guess we will have to work together to make rules for wikipedia-wide polls on meta. With at minimum the rules for adverstisement of the poll, and deadlines. That is gonna be very bureaucratic, but I currently see no other way. A quickpoll not respecting these rules will just be invalid. Or do you have any other suggestion ?Anthere 22:39, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am gonna start a poll then, for people to voting OK, I have been more than patient. I have added what I believe to be a useful feature to the Wikipedia codebase. After I added it and put it up, this change was reverted almost instantly because "some people complained". I was not informed before the removal, and the only message I got about it was an auto-generated CVS notification message. Well, I set up a poll to vote on the feature, invited people to do so on several pages (Goings-on, Wikimedia news, Village pump, mailing lists ..), spent hours arguing why I feel this feature is useful, set up a fair deadline, waited for days until the deadline passed .. and a clear majority agreed with me.

Yes, this is a useful feature. Let's see about the announcements. The goings-on were on the english wikipedia only. The wikipedia news is only on meta, and it was announced on the 20th. The village pump is english only. I did not find the announcement on wikipedia-l (but I may be wrong). The vote started on the day it was announced (the 20th) and closed 3 days later. Conclusion : I think english people had enough adverstisment, perhaps short time. I think non english had not enough adverstisement, and certainly not enough time. Anthere 12:40, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The whole point of Wikimedia News is to have a central place where news are announced. If this is too fast for you then you should appoint someone who translates Wikimedia News to French, or whatever language you prefer, on a regular basis.—Eloquence 13:12, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nevertheless I pledged that I would make the feature a user preference, that I would be willing to make further adjustments to improve the syntax, etc. As a matter of fact I have already modified this feature in the development version, so that the summaries are formatted using a markup "/* summary */", which causes them to be shown in gray color in recent changes, history, contributions etc. (making them easier to distinguish from human-written summaries); furthermore this even allows us to make the display of the auto-generated summaries based on a user preference.

All this is very well and we thank you Anthere

After all this work there are still people who feel that they are entitled to another vote, that they, because they didn't pay attention, have a right to make their opinion count. Not only that, I have to tolerate language like "this feature is just plain stupid" from people who give no indication that they have even bothered to look at the arguments already there.

these kind of comments made to you are not very nice indeed. But if few internationals voted, it is not because they did not pay attention, they just did not have time. Anthere

Of all the developers, I have always been and continue to be the most open in explaining and debating my additions, I have always been willing to listen for proposed modifications and improvements, no matter how ill-informed many people's opinions are. Section editing and tables of contents, which I also implemented, were met with the same level of resistance at first. The high number of auto-summaries proves that the vast majority of Wikipedians uses section editing, and I haven't heard anyone complain about tables of contents in months. I predict that these auto-summaries will become a similarly accepted feature, that in fact they will positively influence the way we will write and structure pages (they encourage us to use more meaningful headlines).

I am glad to talk to a very open and debating developer. So, let's debate voting system here. Anthere

I don't expect gratitude, but I do expect mutual respect. And setting up yet another vote after we have already made a decision is just plain disrespectful. If you want developers to be open and to discuss changes with the users, then openness should be rewarded, not punished with endless debate, insulting comments and repeated polls until one side gets what they want, and exactly and only what they want. I have been working towards an open process for discussing and implementing software changes, but this reaction really does not encourage me in further pursuing that goal. The alternative, whether you realize that or not, is to only strive for consensus among the developers and to ignore user response.—Eloquence 14:20, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

can we work in setting a procedure for votes here Erik ? Anthere

You mean another vote? No fucking way.—Eloquence

do not swear Erik :-) So, since you are one of the few here proposing polls/votes, might you then agree to follow a few basic rules so that democracy is respected a little bit more ? Anthere

Did you even bother to read what I wrote above?—Eloquence

Yes. I will respond paragraph by paragraph what I read and think then :-)

I choose deadlines based on the gravity of a change. Since this was a minor change, the deadline was relatively short. It was still enough to gather over 40 votes, more than enough to justify implementing a change like that. The mailing list merge deadline, on the other hand, was a couple of days longer, because that is a more significant change. You have to accept at some point that there will always be people who whine and complain because they didn't bother to follow announcements. That has nothing to do with the system being flawed, but everything to do with these people being purposefully annoying and carelessly judgmental about the work and the opinions of others. And you will have to accept that not everyone will participate in every little decision. That is not the point of a poll. The point is to get a sample of opinion.—Eloquence

If only english people are welcome to be part of the sample, then let us make things plain clear. Please move all the polls to the english wikipedia, or do not make any of these features active on the international wikipedias till international wikipedias have voted for. The greatest majority of french are *against* the tool bar as a default feature, because it is broken, and because we have to delete many attempts by newbies; We discussed about this. Still it is a default feature, in spite of our rejection. This is not a problem ? Yes, to my opinion it is. So, now please Eric, you ask me not to spread things widely, so accept discussion. If we try to make it true that all wikipedians are given a chance to say something when they feel like it, you may easily offer them a higher chance by extending the voting time from 3 days to 7. I do not think this is such a horrible long time to wait. Or, just plain decide that indeed you know better, that we will like the feature, and do not ask our opinion. I am serious here. I do not want to offend you, nor to say this feature is crap. I think it is good. I also think that some processus should be set so that we are a multilingual democracy. Anthere 12:54, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

Many non-English people voted in this poll, and it was announced on the intlwiki-l mailing list (from where it was forwarded to wikide-l). If someone doesn't understand the announcement, they will not understand it just because we extend the deadline by four days. If you set up a system whereby news from certain locations are translated within a fixed timeframe, say 2 days, to the relevant localized mailing lists, then I can accept requiring a minimum of two days from announcement to voting, to give some time in between for translation. Without such a system, the additional time is simply wasted.—Eloquence 13:12, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Letting 3 days sinking on my opinion. Will go back to it if no feedback by then :-) Anthere 13:03, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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