Template talk:Gdansk-Vote-Notice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Old talk

I moved this tag to a separate template page in order to be able to discuss it. It is indeed skewed a tad, especially that the effects of the voting are quite disputable (one of the options won by a slight margin, and only after 12 votes were excluded for no apparent reason), so it should not be IMO treated as a rule, but simply a guideline. Also, Chris 73 is constantly reverting my typo corrections, which is not what I have expected of a wiki admin. Halibutt 10:24, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Votes have been excluded because the were either from anonymous users (not logged in) or by users with very low edit count, some of whom had no edit in the english wikipedia besides the voting page. This is common practice, as it is done in other votes, too (vote for adminship, deletion,...). At the time of the vote, lots of users looked at it, and only very few complained. While his particular vote (1 out of 10) is marginal, all the other votes are rather solid. Thanks for correcting the typo, but please leave the other part as it is. -- Chris 73 Talk 11:10, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
Chris73 is correct; marginal votes are excluded. Jayjg (talk) 11:53, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

But where ewxactly is the rule saying that low-edit users are not allowed to vote while users who made some 20 minor contributions to articles and 100+ contributions to talk pages are? Unless you point me to a Wiki rule (not tradition or oppinion), I will consider the effects of that voting unchanged. Halibutt 14:17, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with tradition and precedent? This is, after all, the English wikipedia. As such, we should be particularly susceptible to the lure of the English common law. There is very strong precedent for excluding such votes. At any rate, I think we were fairly mechanical about which votes were excluded - basically a pure edit count. Otherwise it starts to become a judgment call, which I think should probably be avoided in these instances. What do you mean by "I will consider the effects of that voting unchanged" BTW? Also, why did you accept the status quo for several months, only to now start up on this again? There were other people who objected at the time to the way the votes were counted. Why didn't you join them? john k 14:51, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Good question. If I weren't assuming good faith, I'd be tempted to think someone was waiting until all the excitement died down and the interest waned before making an attempt to re-write history. Jayjg (talk) 19:11, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I do think Halibutt generally acts in good faith actually. But someone, for whom I am not willing to assume good faith has done exactly this. I'd start some sort of proceedings against this personage, save that he'll just go away for a few months and then come back and do the same thing. john k 05:05, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Leaving the voting asside, I would like to note that part of the recent Halibutt's edits are GOOD, he is fixing the typo (Gdańsk instead of Gdansk), and so reverters should take care to revert only the contested part of his revert. Now, as far as voting is concerned, I do think that exclusion of the people with few votes is a good idea - as it helps to eliminate sock puppets, 'come to wiki vote here my friend' and similar cheats. However, unless this is an official rule (policy), with a clearly defined rules for who is ineglible for voting (i.e. has less then 20? 100? edits and/or registered at least day? week? month? before voting begun), I have to say it cannot be used in any current voting, since without such a clear policy it may be used to cheat by the more experienced Wikipedians - i.e. a more 'reputable' Wikipedian counts the votes, sees if by applying some variant of an exclusion of new users he can change the outcome and does so... I am not saying that this vote was rigged - I don't think so - but we have to follow clear rules, or there will always be a good reason for one side to cry 'foul!'. And if there is no rule that serves as the basis for exlucsion of those votes, I am afraid we need a recount in this - or at least, a revote with new rules. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 08:36, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

For counting the votes, I used a very small cutoff limit of around 30 edits, to be on the safe side. (Personally, I would have preferred 200 edits). While this is not a fixed rule, it is common practice, as many other things here are. we don't have a rule for everything. I also think that a revote is not needed, and actually harmful, since the voters will be getting tired to vote again only 3 months after a major (MAJOR) vote. About the spelling: I cannot say for sure if Gdansk or Gdańsk is the correct spelling in english, but I would tend to the one which can be typed on english keyboards. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:45, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
The problem here is that apparently the voting results are far from decided. Wikipedia:Survey guidelines suggests that Consensus must be reached about the nature of the survey before it starts. Allow about a week for this process. You will need to resolve the following issues: What questions should be asked? What will the possible answers be? (...) How will the survey be totalled?(...)
Before the voting took place we set up the following rules: The vote will start on Friday, February 18 0:00 and end after two weeks on Friday, March 4 0:00; An absolute majority (50% or more) wins the vote, where neutral and abstain votes are excluded; Each vote below contains two options, any user of Wikipedia in good standing may vote once for every of the question voted on; Please sign your name using four tildes (~~~~) under the position you support, possibly adding brief comments afterwards. Extended commentary should be placed below, in the section marked "Discussion" or at Talk:Gdansk/Vote/discussion.. No additional rules were set or agreed before the voting commenced. That is none of those who took part in the voting was informed that their edits will not count if they are new-commers. Also, we did not define who a new-commer is.
Also, the most votes were excluded by those, who were one of the most active parts in the discussion and partisans of one of the options (including Chris 73 and john k). While it is not my intention to claim that this was done in bad faith, it is a tad smelly situation. Especially that the reasons for excluding votes varied. The number of edits required by John, Chris and Jayjg varied from zero to over 80, depending on... what? Common law?
Also, for instance, Silthor (82 contributions to en. and almost 11.000 to pl.) was excluded, eventhough his contribution count was quite high. Akumiszcza was excluded as it was one of his first contributions, but he continues to contribute to English wiki, (with 56 edits so far and the number is growing). Same goes for User:John Anderson (100 edits so far and growing), Julo (72) and others.
Finally, the issue of vote-excluding was raised both during and after the voting at the Talk:Gdansk/Vote#Poll_interpretation, yet to no effect. All in all, I believe that the voting should be restarted with more strict rules pre-defined. Especially that the effects of this voting are used by certain wikipedia admins to abuse other pages as well, completely unrelated to Gdansk, Gdańsk, Danzig or even Central Pomerania. Halibutt 10:32, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
<sarcasm> Yes, and ... oh ... while we're at it, lets repeat all votes for adminship, all votes for deletion, and pretty much all votes since Wikipedia was started since they did not have a fixed requirement on the vote count either. </sarcasm> I counted the votes as good as I could and verfied it with other admins. I think there is no need for a revote, rather a moderate use of the vote outcome on all sides (Space cadet, Witkacy et al please look in the mirror). I also object being called partisan just because I do not agree with your point of view. -- Chris 73 Talk 10:43, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
First, we should use Polish spelling (with ń) at least once, as per voting results. Second, as long as it is a general rule of thumb instead of official policy, it can and should be disputed, if only to encourage us to make official policy. As Halibutt pointed, out, according to our existing policies, your actions (whose spirit I do support) were illegal. I don't think Chris is under any obligation to repeat the vote, but other interested party has rights to do so by starting the vote himself, based on the facts mentioned by Halibutt - I am pretty sure there is no rule that voting on entire or whole issue cannot be repeated (although I'd suggest making such a rule before it is abused). Once again, I strongly invite Chris, Halibutt and all to start work on official rule regarding voters exclusion, to avoid such problems in the future. Let's face it, our Wiki-law is full of loopholes and the sooner we fix it the better for all of us. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
If in other cases the rules of the voting were objected, then yes, those votings should be repeated as well. However, AFAIK it's the first of such cases where the idea that some users have more rights to decide on the future of wikipedia is disputed. And even you should admit that I have a point here that
  • the rules of the voting did not include "users of less than XXX edits are not counted"
  • the result of the voting was seriously altered by those who excluded a number of votes
As to you being a partisan of one of the options - I meant no harm, I used the word in its descriptive sense, as a synonym to supporter or follower. You were one of the supporters of one of the options, hence I assumed that it was fair to say that you were a partisan of that option. Hell, you were even the first to cast a vote in the voting, not to mention your part in the Talk:Gdansk discussion. However, if you prefer the term supporter of one of the options, then it's fine with me.
As to the moderate use of the vote outcome - I fully agree. However, first we'd have to decide what the outcome was. Apparently the outcome was different than the one promoted by you and other admins, which is a serious issue that needs to be solved. I suppose that simply starting the voting again (at least the disputed part of it, that is the 1466 to 1793 period) would be the easiest and least harmful way of solving the issue. Alternatively, we could simply count all votes and consider the matter solved. However, perhaps you have some other proposals? Halibutt 12:03, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where to place this template

On another issue, this template describes the (disputed) outcome of the voting on naming of the city of Gdańsk/Danzig. I assume that the purpose of this template is to inform the wikipedians that there is a community approval for naming the city of Gdańsk with different names depending on the context.

However, certain users (Chris 73 among them) place it on a plethora of pages completely unrelated to Gdańsk, Danzig or even Central Pomerania. What is the purpose of that? Should this template be also added to all other wikipedia pages, regardless of their content? So far I've seen it added to talk pages of articles on modern sport clubs based in other towns in Poland, scientific societies, different towns... Could someone explain that? Halibutt 12:13, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

I have an impression that the majority of talk pages that currently hold this template are completely unrelated to Gdansk or Danzig - or at least the relation is distant and obscure. Take a look at Talk:Amber, Talk:Lebork, Talk:Cold War (1962-1991), Talk:Catherine II of Russia, Talk:Lower Silesia (hell, it's some 800 kilometres from Gdansk!), Talk:List of basilicas, Talk:European Parliament election, 2004 (Poland) (sic!), Image talk:Szczecin1945.JPG (my favourite!) and many other pages... Halibutt
Another question: should I add that template to other similar pages, like for instance Bahama, New York, weavery, physics or continent? This template seems equally relevant there... Halibutt 12:26, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
Please also see the discussion in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Chris_73. It seems that the current wave of problems comes from abusing the mandate granted by the sentence below.
VOTE: Cross-Naming General (44 for, 17 against)
The naming of many places in the region that share a history between Germany and Poland are also a source of edit wars. For these places, the first reference of one name should also include a reference to other commonly used names, e.g. Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) or Szczecin (Stettin). An English language reference that primarily uses this name should be provided on the talk page if a dispute arises.
Now yes, taken literally, this does mean that you can take any article at all in Wikipedia that mentions Szczecin or any other Polish city and add the German name to it. Which just goes to show that somebody should have hired a lawyer before the vote to carefully check the implications of all the statements voted on. What User:Chris 73 and others are doing now, using this one sentence as a blanket justification, is against common sense and for me at least against the spirit in which the Talk:Gdansk/Vote was taken. That vote's purpose was to give German names of some Polish cities their proper due in the appropriate contexts, mostly in articles dealing with history. The purpose was not to institute the bilingual form Gdansk/Danzig as a new standard to be used everywhere in Wikipedia. Balcer 14:39, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
This must be clarified, by discussion and consensus if possible, by vote if not, and made into an official policy. Did I mention we have too many loopholes around here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Here is my simple suggestion, to get us going. How about the following simple modification:
The naming of many places in the region that share a history between Germany and Poland are also a source of edit wars. For these places, in articles relevant to this shared history the first reference of one name should also include a reference to other commonly used names, e.g. Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) or Szczecin (Stettin).
This at least will stop the edit wars over articles about Polish football and handball clubs. Maybe the fastest way to settle the issue would be to simply take a quick poll of the users who voted on this point and see how they feel about this clarification. Balcer 21:25, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

That seems fine to me, although I think that the current name should be parenthesized at some point in any article which mentions an older name. This should really be done for just about any article on a city whose name has changed, not just Polish cities. For instance, we should discuss the German siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), the capture of Constantinople (Istanbul) by the Turks, the founding of Carthago Nova (Cartagena) in Spain, and so forth. For completely non-historical articles, though, there is no reason to give a former name. john k 04:08, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Glad you like my proposal. To me including the current Polish name at least once in any article which uses the older German name would seem to be just a common sense thing to do. Still, considering the lack of common sense displayed by some users, you are right, this has to be explicitly spelled out also. So, what do you think about a new poll of users who voted?Balcer 14:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to do a poll unless there is some sign of opposition to changing the standard in this manner, which there has not yet been. Perhaps you should contact Chris 73 and see what he thinks, though. john k 17:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The problem I see is that many polish places are still often known in english under their german names. Hence having alternative english names is useful, and I do not think that this double naming should be limited to historical references only. The double naming is not needed everywhere, but i believe it is helpful in many instances. Also, for the record, I did not add any double naming ref in the last few weeks, and very few before that. I merely reverted mass-removal of the double names by other users in accordance with the vote. -- Chris 73 Talk 20:28, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
It seems clear to me that in so far as German names are still in use for some Polish cities from time to time, it is almost exclusively in historical contexts. Let me demonstrate this by a search on Lexis Nexis for Bydgoszcz/Bromberg, in English-language European news sources in the past year.
  • Bydgoszcz - 456 articles containing the term found (of course I cannot read them all, but a random sampling shows the vast majority refer to the city)
  • Bromberg - 24 articles containing the term found but upon checking all but one refer to people with last name Bromberg, not the city. The only relevant article is from Caterer and Hotelkeeper gazette (as you see this is a huge database :) ), in issue from January 6, 2005.
HEADLINE: Our Back Pages: Stories from the Caterer vaults 1905
The Caterer and Hotel-keepers' Gazette , 16 January
Catering notes from Paris by our special correspondent: Boxing Day, also spent at my writing-table, was "decidedly tedious", and I was glad to get on the Russian express at seven o'clock at the Friedrichs-strasse Station, with a 13-hour run before me to Warsaw, which was my destination. It was a very pleasant journey. There were some good fellows in my carriage – rich businessmen from Bromberg – who chatted pleasantly, played cards, and drank claret.
Summary: at least few hundred articles containing Polish name, only 1 containing German name, that one in historical context. Now I just picked Bydgoszcz/Bromberg at random, you can suggest another city if you like. But I believe results will remain similar. In short, I would like to see some demonstration about widespread use of German names in modern contexts in the English-speaking world. Balcer 21:43, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, one issue might be that cities like Gdansk, Szczecin, Wroclaw, and so forth are more familiar to most English speakers in historical context than as current cities. The most famous thing about Gdansk, after all, is that the pretext for WWII was Hitler's demand for Danzig. The Iron Curtain extended from Stettin on the Baltic. The Treaty of Breslau ended the First Silesian War. And so forth. Other than Solidarity beginning in Gdansk, there is no recent awareness of these cities to compete with our awareness of them as historical entities from back when they had German names. That said, I still don't think it's necessary in incidental references. john k 04:44, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Just for kicks, i did a search for english language articles that have stettin and poland but not Szczecin on Google. There are about 15,500 pages, and while i did not check all of them, many referred to the current city, for example a youth hostel, the 1996 Stettin Pigeon Show in Stettin, Poland, IVV - International Federation of Popular Sports meeting in Stettin, ... In Summary, german names are still commonly used in english, even in current non-historical contexts, and many polish places are better known by german names than by polish names. If it would not be that way, I think the outcome of the vote would have been much different. This is slowly changing, but until then, we should use double naming also in current contexts. -- Chris 73 Talk 05:31, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
And, also just for kicks, search for english language articles that have szczecin and poland but not stettin returns 274,000 pages, more by a factor of 17 then the search you performed. Balcer 05:49, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Extrapolating from this result, we can estimate, very roughly of course, that out of all English speaking users of the Internet who write about Szczecin/Stettin, only about 5% prefer to use the German name. Now, is this "common use" for you? Plus of course we have to mention the fact that Szczecin is probably an outlier anyway, simply because the Polish name Szczecin is rather difficult to pronounce and remeber for many speakers of English.
To look at the numbers where this is not a consideration, consider this example:
  • google search breslau poland -wroclaw gives 26,900 English pages,
  • google search wroclaw poland -breslau gives 536,000 English pages
This is a factor of 50 difference, and so by similar extrapolation only 2% of Internet users writing in English prefer the German name. With smaller cities the difference is probably even more crushing.Balcer 06:17, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Ah, but that's before you remove all the Google ghosts. Once you click your way to the end of the actual list, you find that "breslau poland -wroclaw" returns 802 pages, while "wroclaw poland -breslau" returns 790 pages. In other words, Breslau is slightly more popular than Broclaw. Similarly, "+stettin poland -szczecin" returns 791 pages, while "-szczecin poland +stettin" returns an identical 791 pages. Jayjg (talk) 14:47, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Don't be silly, this is just a general feature of Google. It always limits the list of results returned to about a thousand entries (to keep the load on their servers down I guess). Example:
  • Boston - 154,000,000 pages found, only 873 displayed.
The suspicious closeness of results should have tipped you off to this. (what are the chances of getting exactly the same number 791 for both "+stettin poland -szczecin" and "-szczecin poland +stettin"? BTW, do you believe in "Google ghosts"? What are they, can you point me to an appropriate Wikipedia article? Balcer 16:32, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. Many on Wikipedia have argued the exact opposite; do you have any evidence for this idea? Jayjg (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I do not follow you. What do you want me to provide evidence for? The fact that Google limits the search to about 1000 articles is pretty obvious and I have just provided a clear example.Balcer 16:55, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I'd like some reference to this outside of your assertion. For smaller searches I've seen this same phenomenon; what is theoretically 1000 hits turns into 50 webpages, etc. How would that fit with your theory? A webpage that discusses your theory would be helpful. Jayjg (talk) 17:11, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't know what happens for a smaller number of hits. Clearly Google uses some algorithm to rank results (PageRank), the details of which are unfamiliar to me. Still, I think we can both agree that your "demonstration" above that Stettin and Szczecin are used about equally is completely off the mark. Surely the fact that Google limits actual search results returned to about 1000 entries is pretty clear. Just test this out yourself! Trust your own eyes! Balcer 17:24, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I've done some research, and it appears you are correct. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Jayjg (talk) 17:42, 20 May 2005 (UTC)


Now that the argument made by User:Chris 73 that "german names are still commonly used in english, even in current non-historical contexts, and many polish places are better known by german names than by polish names" has been demonstrated to be false according to Google, I repeat my request to amend the result of the vote. Chris 73, please comment. You seem to have dropped out of the discussion. Again my proposal is:

The naming of many places in the region that share a history between Germany and Poland are also a source of edit wars. For these places, in articles relevant to this shared history the first reference of one name should also include a reference to other commonly used names, e.g. Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) or Szczecin (Stettin).

Balcer 18:56, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What the hell?

Look, if you objected to the way the votes were counted, you should have done so at the time. Your silence then implied that you accepted the results. Is this issue really so important that the fact that a bunch of Polish wikipedia users who had very few contributions to the English wikipedia (almost all of Silthor's, for instance, seem to have been interwiki links).

Even if you add back in people like Silthor who have a fair number of edits - even if you add in everybody who had more than, say, 10 edits to articles other than the vote page, "Danzig" still wins, although it's closer. Even if you include every registered user, Danzig wins - in that case, we'd have 46 votes for "Gdansk" and 47 for "Danzig," since two of the votes for Gdansk were by unsigned in users. Obviously, that's not really a consensus, but we already have the fact that for articles about Polish individuals and Polish history, the city can be called Gdansk throughout to soften it.

But Jesus Christ! Is this really so important? Really? Is it really so tremendously important to you all that the city be called "Gdansk" from 1466 to 1793 that we have to reopen this whole nonsense? Really? Seriously? Piotrus, even though you admit that excluding users with low edit counts makes sense? Is this really so enormously important? Can't we all think of better things to do than to continue to argue about this when it's been resolved, to nobody's detriment, for two months? Do you really want to have to go through another vote that is hardly likely to be any more decisive than this one? Why must this never end? Why is it so tremendously important that we call the city "Gdansk" for a period of time when most English-language history books call it "Danzig"? And why do you all ask "how high" whenever Caius2ga/Gdansk/Szczecin/PolishPoliticians/Grand Duke of Poznan/Emax/Witkacy tells you to jump? john k 14:46, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

There were protests on time Talk:Gdansk/Vote/discussion#Protest, but You and Chris73 decided that those objections are not important. Radomil 15:51, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, I did not object because there were others who rose this issue on the respective discussion page. I simply assumed that, since the matter is undecided, the voting will be halted. However, after getting back from my wikivacations I realised that the issue was reported and nothing was done.
If it wasn't important, you wouldn't take part in the discussion yourself. But you did. And dozens of other did as well. I simply feel that it was a huge waste of time, not because we reached no compromise, but because it was reached by bending the rules. It's the question of rules and principles to me. As to the city of Gdańsk itself - I don't give a damn how it is called as long as people like Chris 73 do not abuse the voting results. But if you insist on me STFU, then no problem. But this won't solve the issue.
The very purpose of the voting was to establish a rule that would satisfy both sides in the Talk:Gdansk conflict or at least put the revert wars to an end. Do you really believe that inserting German names on all Polish cities (as Balcer pointed out 100% of Polish cities have a German history) would calm down the emotional Poles who come here from time to time? The only effect I can think of is promotion of revert wars instead of fighting them. Just take a look on what happens 2 months after the voting: Chris 73 adds a "Germanic name" to an article on some obscure football club created in Szczecin in 1960s. He is instantly reverted basing on common sense, but then he reverts, waving the "Talk:Gdansk" as his weapon. Then an anon comes and reverts back, Chris reverts, anon reverts, Chris calls in support... and we have the good ol' situation. That's not what I meant when I proposed the former Talk:Gdansk solution.
But as I said, it's not that important as to make you nervous. IMO the fate of this voting should at least be a warning to all of us. Halibutt 16:00, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I hope you won't get offended by the cheating remark. I used it on purpose, mostly because those who used the low edit count argument (you included) did not count mostly the votes against their own oppinions, while counted similar votes in favour of their own side. For instance the votes of User:Magadan ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&hideminor=0&namespace=&target=Magadan&limit=500&offset=0 16 contributions before taking part, most of them interwiki links), User:Someoninmyheadbutit'snotme (who is not a user at all, there is no such name in the user namespace, although the page exists), User:Wolfram (resurrected for the voting, inactive afterwards), perhaps also more of such votes, I'm not in the mood to check every single vote. Halibutt 17:39, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

John, I wrote many times that I think the 'how is it called' issue is a petty one, and I am more or less satisfied with current Gdansk vote results. I have myself reverted people who went against it several times. What I am concerned about here is that it becames more and more clear that we need to clarify some decison-making policies and create/expand existing ones, or sooner or later, this will begun coming back more and more often and wasting more and more of our time. I don't think anybody involved in this discussion is happy and prefers this to writing some serious article. So I say - let's leave the Gdansk vote for now, and together create a policy proposal. How does that sound? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:27, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt - a couple of points. There are two issues here. One is the issue of parenthetical naming. The results of the poll were unequivocal in this instance - parenthetical naming is supposed to be used. Now, I personally think that this is a bad outcome derived from the fact that the poll question was badly worded so that a lot of people voted for it without intending that consequence. But that is neither here nor there. The outcome of the vote in fact supports unequivocably double naming. If we want to reopen the question, that is fine, but this isn't a matter of an ambiguous vote - this is a matter of Witkacy/PolishPoliticians/Emax/Caius2ga coming in and purposefully violating policy in order to make his point. As to the issue of what to call the city between 1466 and 1793, the vote in that case was indeed close. I don't see why it is not perfectly correct to exclude votes from people with low edit counts - this is done all the time, and is, btw, supported by policy. Here's the relevant quote from Wikipedia:Survey guidelines: "Where there is a sign of activities intended to frustrate the intent of the survey, those who can opine may be restricted. A lack of restrictions is usually best, so this may be invoked after the polling has started." What this means is that if there seems to be a distortion in the voting caused by inappropriate users, voting can be restricted, and that this may be done after the fact. This clearly applies in this instance. There seems to have been an orchestrated campaign to recruit users from the Polish wikipedia to vote in this survey in order to get the desired result - which was apparently, for whatever reason, to call it Gdansk before 1308, from 1466-1793, and after 1945, but not for the intervening periods. It seems to me that excluding these votes was quite clearly following guidelines. So Chris was acting appropriately in this instance. At any rate, I'm highly, highly sick of our multiple-named friend being able to repeatedly completely control any discussion of this issue. john k 17:38, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Dear John, whether Witkacy/PolishPoliticians/Emax/Caius2ga are the same person or not is none of my interest. This discussion was started by yours truly and neither of those users took part in it. So, your comments are slightly OT here. As to the rest of your comment - it only shows the number of loopholes in the set of guidelines, as the part you quoted is in contrast with the part of the same guideline I quoted before. But still, it does not explain how come some users were counted and some where not. In this case this question is crucial, as you yourself noted that if we count all votes it's a draw (46:46). So, unfortunately, it seems that you counted the votes of non-existent people and excluded the others to promote one view. Witkacy/PolishPoliticians/Emax/Caius2ga have nothing to do with that. Halibutt 04:58, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

No, if we count all voters it is not a draw - User:John Anderson, who voted for Danzig, was excluded, bringing it to 47-46 for Danzig. As for who started the discussion, it was clearly begun by Witkacy at Talk:Gdansk, and you are clearly picking up on his arguments. As to how some users were excluded, I believe that all users with fewer than 30 edits were excluded, and that that was it, except for a few cases of long inactive users coming back to vote (which was done for Silthor and which, I agree, was perhaps inappropriate). At any rate, there is no way to do it so that Gdansk wins. And who are the "non-existent people" who were counted for Danzig? John Anderson, so far as I am aware, was the only voter with a small vote count who voted for Danzig. If you can point to other Danzig voters who should have been excluded, please do, but you can't just assert that. john k 17:28, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I believe it was voters with fewer than 20 edits who were excluded. Jayjg (talk) 19:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I already mentioned the names and links, too bad you don't read my posts... Perhaps it would be better if I put my statements in points. So:

  • The discussion on Gdańsk/Danzig was started by an anon user, then User:H.J. and User:szopen joined. But it was quite a long time ago.
  • If it's 47-46 with User:John Anderson excluded, then it should be 46-46 with "User:Someoninmyheadbutit'snotme" excluded (45-46) and User:Magadan who should also be excluded (16 edits before the voting), which makes it 44-46. So yes, the behaviour of you and Chris 73 is important here.
  • How many other names were not excluded although perfectly fit the rules yuy say you used during the voting? Sorry, I don't have time to check all of them.
  • Whether I'm picking his arguments (what were those, BTW) or not is completely irrelevant here. We're not talking about Witkacy here but about the voting. If you really want to talk of users, then let's start with User:John Kenney and User:Chris 73, though I prefer to fix the voting issue first.
  • If the long inactive users were also excluded, then the rule should also be applied to at least one user: User:Wolfram. Perhaps other users too, I don't know. Frankly speaking, I didn't expect that anyone would try to cheat during counting the votes. Otherwise I would simply check all the names myself.
  • Who are non-existent people? just check the User:Someoninmyheadbutit'snotme page and check whether it is a user or not. If you hadn't notice that during the vote, it gives me a hint that you and Chris were mostly checking the stats and contributions of those who voted against your views.
Cheers,

--Halibutt 20:48, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Please take a look on Erika Steinbach Chris_73 (and anon revert helpers) is claiming that the Nazi occupation of Poland was a "reannexion to Germany" ... --Witkacy 08:16, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

The misusage of the voting results should be also considering as vandalism, see Chris last revert on Erika Steinbach.--Witkacy 08:47, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

The last revert was strictly in accordance with the voting results, in particular the paragraph for biographies. Read that again, if needed. -- Chris 73 Talk
No. It wasn't. Please note that Chris_73 view on history is similar to that of User:H.J., user:Nico, user:Burschenschafter and of the anon user (IP: 83.109.XX.XX) who is vandalizing (regularly) Poland-related articles (and often helps Chris in rv-wars) See: Revision history of the Steinbach article. It says a lot about Chris ... --Witkacy 17:50, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't 100% convinced, but now I am sure. Welcome back, Emax (or Caius2ga/Gdansk/Szczecin/PolishPoliticians/Grand Duke of Poznan). We enjoyed the time without you. -- Chris 73 Talk 18:15, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence that im the same user? Is that of any importance in the context of your radical view on history? Who knows, meaby you are Nico, Burschenschaftler, H.J. and the "Anon" - i see no difference between them and you.--Witkacy 18:53, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
BTW the same anon (IP: 83.109.XX.XX) make also trouble on Germany article see talk: (This article has been vandalized for months by anti-German POV pushers and Anon edits, and History (again))--Witkacy 09:35, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
Ok, Chris, whoever you are and whoever Witkacy is is completely irrelevant here. What is relevant is why the hell weren't valid votes counted and why the hell were invalid votes counted. Could you be so kind as to reply to my comments above? Halibutt 18:19, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Chris is waiting for John - John is the one who always answering questions for him :) (see Gdansk talk)--Witkacy 18:53, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
So, anyone here? Halibutt 00:51, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Once again:

  1. If all votes by logged-in users are counted, Danzig beats Gdansk by the bare margin of 47-46
  2. If votes by very new users are excluded, Danzig beats Gdansk by a larger margin - the higher you make the cut-off, the more Danzig wins by.
  3. I would appreciate it, Halibutt, if you would quit making accusations of bad faith, here. While I know I am often impatient about this issue, and I know that at times I've been perhaps too quick to make accusations of bad faith, I am fairly certain that I've never done so with you, and, indeed, I've always respected your opinions on these disputes, even while I normally disagree with you. I would appreciate it if you returned the favor.
  4. As to who Witkacy is, I think that's clearly relevant, because it is always Witkacy (in his various forms) who disturbs any kind of tranquillity about these issues and gets us yelling at each other about them. It matters considerably that Witkacy (who is, I would imagine, already gone, and will appear in a few months with a new name) is constantly trying to pervert the normal wikipedia process of consensus by this processing of reappearing every few months as a new sockpuppet.
  5. As to who Chris is, of course one cannot be certain, but I have seen nothing to suggest that he is a reincarnation of any of the users under discussion. Certainly he is not an outspoken unreconstructed German nationalist as all those users were. Moreover, unlike Witkacy, he has been here a long time under the same name. He is an administrator - at the time of his RFA, one would imagine that someone would have aired suspicions of sockpuppets. While I certainly do not agree with everything that Chris has done on this subject, accusations of his being a sockpuppet are clearly of a completely different kind than the rather obvious observation that Witkacy is one. john k 01:30, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay - I wrote out a long response on this, but must have forgotten to actually post it. That said:
  1. It is 47-46 for Danzig with all logged-in users counted. If you discount all votes by users with fewer than 20 edits, it's something like 44-36 for Danzig. User:Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme is a perfectly legitimate user, who had more than 20 edits at the time of voting. You are linking to a misspelling. The only way you get to your count is to exclude logged-in users who voted for "Danzig" because they had few edits, but include every logged-in editor who voted for Gdansk. This is comparing apples and oranges. As I said, if you include all logged-in users, including John Anderson, who was excluded from the count Chris used, Danzig still wins. If you exclude users based on edit counts, Danzig wins by a hefty margin, although perhaps not as large as the official one, since it would appear Magadan (and maybe others) ought to be excluded.
  2. Accusing Chris and I of "trying to cheat the vote" is a serious accusation. Jayjg, who was not particularly involved in this dispute, agrees that it is perfectly appropriate to exclude votes. As noted in the guidelines for excluding votes, this is not normally done before the vote, because one doesn't want to limit the voting in advance. In this case, though, there was clear evidence that people who were essentially non-users (or users from Polish wiki) were trying to stack the vote in favor of their preferred option. It is unbelievable that you are accusing us of good faith, when clearly it was someone on your side who decided to stack the vote by posting something about it on Polish wikipedia.
  3. Again, your "discovery" that User:Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme is not a user is in fact inaccurate. Why he has put in a user page for a slight misspelling of his user name I have no idea, but you'll note that the votes were made by a logged-in user, and not by an anon ([1]). There was no cheating involved here. john k 01:30, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I took the liberty to reorganize your comments and post them in chronological order. That would make further discussion easier. I hope you don't mind.


First of all, it's not me who is linking to a wrong page, but the user himself who signed the voting that way. But still, I stand corrected on the case of User:Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme
As to the others - I question both the fact that some users were excluded without such decision by the community and the fact that votes were excluded basing mostly on someone's personal priorities. As I already wrote, as no fixed rules about voting were agreed upon and that some votes were excluded to the liking of persons, who also voted, I believe the voting should be repeated, this time with clearly-defined rules. I understand that there are wikipedia admins who believe it is ok to exclude such or other votes. However, fortunately for wikipedia, the word of an admin is not yet a rule here. And there is no rule to allow for deletion of such votes. There might be a tradition, but it's still not a rule. The only set of guidelines we have is not very clear on that matter, since it doesn't say whose votes are to be counted. On the other hand it clearly states that
Consensus must be reached about the nature of the survey before it starts. Allow about a week 
for this process. You will need to resolve the following issues:

   * What questions should be asked?
   * What will the possible answers be?
   * Where a question has three or more possible answers, are people allowed to select more than one answer?
   * When is the deadline?
   * How will the survey be totalled?
   * Will there be a summary of arguments, or a series of mini-essays, or some other way to inform users prior to the survey.
As to what questions should be asked - I demanded that another question be included ([2], yet it was ignored. Why? Ask Chris... Also, the way the survey was to be totalled was not defined either. Your statement that this is not normally done before the vote, because one doesn't want to limit the voting in advance stands in contrast with that guideline as well. BTW, that very guideline mentions that
*Surveys should never be thought to be binding
*Where there is a sign of activities intended to frustrate the intent of the survey, those who can opine may be restricted. A lack of restrictions is usually best, so this may be invoked after the polling has started.
*If the majority of opinion is in one direction, but a significant minority of people oppose it, work to find a solution that can be accepted by as many people as possible.
I only wonder why none of these suggestions were taken into consideration... But lets get back to the vote counting: Chris 73 wrote in the vote requirements that any user of Wikipedia in good standing may vote. There are two quite serious issues: firstly, the good standing might mean practically anything. However, Chris himself described the users with good standing as new users. In this case all users registered after August 10, 2002, should be excluded, since User:Akumiszcza was also excluded for being "new". Secondly, the article on Wikipedia states clearly that Wikipedia is a Web-based, free-content encyclopedia that is written collaboratively by volunteers. It consists of 195 independent language editions sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.. So, the above statement means that any registered user of any wikipedia might vote, including those registered in non-English wikis. There is only one Wikipedia... If so, then we should check whether User:83.27.224.111, who was also excluded by Chris, is a registered user of Wikipedia or not.
As to other issues: please, do not divide the community onto "us" and "you", since that would imply that the only reason why I question the vote is that the option I supported lost. That seems like assumption of my bad faith - or POV pushing, which is hardly fair, especially that you demand fair treatment from others. I'm not assuming your bad faith here, I'm merely pointing to the problems with the voting and the fact that there were serious irregularities during the vote counting. In addition, the votes were counted by one of the people involved, which does not help here. I understand it might've been simply a mistake, but still, the irregularities happened. Also, if the rules were not pre-defined, then one of the parties should not apply them afterwards. Otherwise it's proving ones' point by abusing the vote result.
As to who Witkacy is - you are mistaken. It's completely irrelevant here. It was me who started the whole Talk:Gdansk compromise issue and it was me who started this talk (if we don't count User:Akumiszcza and User:Forseti, who raised the same questions before the voting, but were ignored). Whether Chris has sockpuppets or not is equally irrelevant here. He has his issues and his ways, as well as a strong oppinion on the subject. The fact that he applied his own policies to this voting, eventhough these were not agreed prior to the voting, is a tad "smelly". At least that's how it looks to me. Also, it is a fact that after the voting Chris used its results to prove his point and, as noted by Kpalion, he also abused the results of the voting itself.
As you can see, we could discuss here the behaviour of several users ad nauseam. But for what purpose? Let's stick to the main problem with the voting and leave the personal remarks aside, ok?
As to the publicity regarding this voting - why not? If there is no rule that some people might vote while others not, then what's wrong in inviting people to vote? As long as they are not sock-puppets it is ok with the rules. At least that is how Chris 73 apparently understood it when he invited a lot of people to take part in the voting ([3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]...)
Now it's time for some more constructive thoughts: I see two options here. Either we restart the voting, this time with clearly defined rules, or we follow the Wikipedia:Survey guidelines suggestion that If the majority of opinion is in one direction, but a significant minority of people oppose it, work to find a solution that can be accepted by as many people as possible. Both options seem reasonable to me. And both would be in accordance with the rules and the spirit of wikipedia. Halibutt 03:26, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

For the record, my previous attempt to protest against bending of the rules was here: [13]. As you can see, Chris answered twice: first he said I am too new (which is not true), second he just edited my answers and made them look stupid. He also ignored most comments on the subject elsewhere. He did not respond to any logical criticism. Some of my comments: "If there's no fixed rule, the voting is simply senseless. You can choose whatever reason for including a user or not in your votes, making the result you choose. (...) Besides, what is important, basing the "good standing" of a wikipedia editor by the number of edits is just STUPID. User A makes many simple corrections (changing commas into semicolons for instance) or even destroys many articles. User B produced several big pages on important topics. User A can vote, B cannot. Stupid enough?" "(...)You say voters should have a proper grasp of English. I don't think "members in good standing" necessarily speak proper English, do you? One can make many small contributions using very rudimentary English and would also become a member in good standing in your definition. You (admins) have to decide, whom to include into your secret voting methods:

  1. "members in good standing" as it is today. This is a vague term and you weren't able to define it properly. Also look at examples of users A and B in one of my previous posts.
  2. The user cannot be too new (Chris said so). As I wrote before, the rule was not used in the voting (not to say it is controversial).
  3. Users with good English knowledge. How do you check that? Some wiki exam?"

My arguments were not answered. Maybe here I will receive some attention. I just want the admins to admit the voting was not fair. --Akumiszcza 06:54, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Why should they, when the voting was tallied in the exact same way all other votes are tallied? Jayjg (talk) 17:04, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion this discusion shows that those rules are not enough clear, especially in so hot cases like this Radomil 17:43, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

This is completely ridiculous. In every single vote but one, the results were fairly clear. In that other vote, there are various ways to tally it, but no good way to make "Gdansk" the winner (it can only be done by including non-signed-in users, or by applying standards of who can vote more leniently towards those voting for "Gdansk" than those voting for "Danzig"). The version which was supported by a decent (though not overwhelming) majority of relatively long-time users of en, which is also the version supported by a bare majority of logged-in users (that is, to use "Danzig" between 1466 and 1793), has also been accepted for several months without incident. The exclusion of votes from non-users by Chris was perfectly appropriate, and is done in pretty much all votes. I see no reason to reopen this question. The only reason that has been provided is that the votes of various users were excluded, mostly on the Polish side. But this is because there was very clearly an effort by users of the polish wikipedia to infiltrate the vote, and excluding such bad-faith votes is a standard procedure, mentioned in the guidelines for surveys. john k 17:36, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, some people are thinking about bad-faith votes, and others about bad-faith counting of votes Radomil 17:43, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps, but there's no evidence whatsoever for the latter, and plenty of evidence for the former. Jayjg (talk) 17:59, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

John, instead of assuming bad faith you could at least try to reply to my doubts and proposals. Also, how come Poles vote in bad faith while the rest of the world vote in good faith? What vocabulary is that? Halibutt 21:12, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say that Poles were voting in bad faith. Obviously you and Kpalion and Piotrus and any other Polish contributor to the English wikipedia is just as valid a voter as anybody else. However, bringing in non-English wikipedia contributors from the Polish wiki to vote a particular way simply is not a step in good faith. Unless you can prove that there were similar efforts to bring in, say, German wikipedia users to vote for using Danzig, there is clearly a difference here. As to your proposals, I would very, very much prefer not to bring this up for a vote again, and, as I said, I see no reason to do this. As for assuming bad faith, well, it's not assuming when actions have been taken that are clearly in bad faith. I am assuming good faith on your part, and that of most of the Polish users of en who voted in the poll, as I have no reason to think that you had anything to do with vote packing attempts. But whoever put up a message on Polish wikipedia telling people to come over here and vote a particular way on this poll (which is, I think, the only way that the voting results we had can be explained, with a lot of Polish wikipedia users coming on and voting exactly the same way) was acting in bad faith, imo. john k 03:02, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Constructive proposal

To avoid such waste of time in the future, I would like to make a proposal to amend the Wikipedia:Survey guidelines. For now, lets discuss it here and hopefully in a day or so we can make a joint proposal. Isn't working together better then fighting? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:43, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

  1. this is supposedly an official policy, but the the article states first obvious things and then 'These guidelines provide a framework that may be followed when creating a new survey. These are not binding in any way.' It would be funny if it wasn't sad. What's the point of official unbidning guidlines? We need to make some of them obligatory. Which ones? I definetly think that each survey must follow points 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
  2. point 10 is a giant invitation for loopholes. It can easly be used to dispute almost any vote, including the current Gdansk Vote as well! Kill it! or fix with
  3. replace all terms like 'significant minority' *gasp* with percents - i.e. 40%, for example.
  4. add to obligatory requirements information on who can vote, preferably make this a rule in survey creation instead of leaving it to arbitrary decision of not always impartial vote creators. I.e. make a rule that only users who have at least x major edits and registered y time periods before voting can vote. I'd suggest 100 edits and a week.
  5. can a vote/survey be repeated, and if so when and does it apply to older votes? If repeated, do

old votes count (I suggest yes), can they be changed by their owners (who should be notified that the vote is repeated) (I suggest yes again).

Most guidelines like these aren't binding - I doubt you'll find support for binding proposals, especially since surveys themselves aren't essentially binding. As to point 10 - it is overly broad. I think point 9 (which I have just used to call down support on excluding votes) is probably also too broad. I think most of your suggestions seem good, though. john k 17:38, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Please revise them as you wish and let's try to make them into official policy. The undying controversies sorrounding Gdansk Vote issue would not take place if we had such a clear policy. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:27, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Piotrus, the survey guidelines need some rework. Going through the points as numbered above:
  1. is good, I would also add some comments about enforcement, since a binding vote is no good if it cannot be enforced and other parties just completely ignore it.
  2. is also a valid comment. Kill it or fix it.
  3. Difficult to put a number on, great if someone could do it.
  4. That is urgently needed. Previous votes on that had no useful outcome. My goal would be 200 edits and 1 month activity before the start of the vote, but I can live with other numbers. (Note: German wiki for example requires 200 edits to vote, and I just recently got eligible for voting)
  5. This one is tricky. That is basically an invitation to repeat until you got your desired results. Yet, some sort of guideline is needed. Maybe there needs to be an Arb Com agreement to start a new vote if it is done within one year of the last one. This one really needs more discussion.
I would welcome an update on these policies, either all at once or if not possible on a step by step basis, i.e. vote on edit count and membership now, and other issues later. Also, is this the right place to start such an proposal? I think it should be in the Wikipedia:Survey guidelines namespace, e.g. Wikipedia:Survey guidelines/Vote -- Chris 73 Talk 11:45, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
And likely at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) as well. I will draft a proposal this evening, and if you like it, we can post it togehter on both of those places. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Done - preeliminary version at my userspace, waiting for your final comments. I will move it to VP(P) soon after we reach a consensus. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:01, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How annoying

How annoying. This is protected.

Please let's get rid of the [[Gdansk|Gda&#324;sk]] nonsense in this template. It should simply say [[Gdańsk]]. — Chameleon 2 July 2005 02:07 (UTC)

you are right! the misleading template should be deleted.--Witkacy 12:14, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Fixed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  04:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling confirm/conform

Shouldn't Reverts to confirm be Reverts to conform? RJFJR 15:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes it should; I came here to ask for just that fix, but I see that in the year since you've pointed it out, no one has changed it. Binabik80 03:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Fixed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  04:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Update

This template needs to be categorized, and should be made smaller - it is an ugly thing on many talk pages.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 19:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I was bold and changed it to conform (mostly) to the style of other talk page templates.—Random832 21:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
As much as I’d like to express my feeling of appreciation for the input of so many editors in a survey from February, 2005, I do not recognize the interpretation of the vote-count by moderator who arbitrarily excluded 12 votes regarding the period from 1466 to 1793, swinging its outcome. Such decission can only be seen as an outrageously successful attempt at fixing the results. And yet, it was performed in plain view of others. Please note: between 1466 and 1793, the community preference (without bias) in a vote at Talk:Gdansk/Vote was Gdańsk.
--Poeticbent talk 23:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)(double posting)
Yes, voting on issues involving two countries, with one having population 2x the size of others, and allowing admins from one or more of those countries to count votes and exclude some, is not a recipe for a perfect system :> That said, it is an old story, and fortunately one that does not cause much conflict those days. I am looking forward to the day there we can mark this page historical and simply use WP:NCGN, but until than, perhaps we should just let the sleeping dogs lie. And de-uglifing and minimizing this template is a step in the right direction.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 01:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Minimizing inconvenient facts is not an option. Also, regarding the recent moving frenzy to double naming in article names by User:Space Cadet, I doubt very much that this is covered by the vote. -- Matthead  DisOuß   04:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I request that the template is restored to the previous form. No major alterations without consent. -- Matthead  DisOuß   15:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

No content was altered to my knowledge. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
PP, if you get locked up in a prison, your content is not altered either. -- Matthead  DisOuß   06:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)