[Licom-l] Vote tallying and other procedural issues

Wed Apr 29 20:55:00 UTC 2009

I'd like a bit of technical clarification (*looks at Tim*) about how
tallying actually occurs.

My impression of the closure process is something like:

1) Voting ends on Sunday.

2) We (i.e. myself, Andrew, Huib, and anyone else who gets drafted)
spend time shifting through the pile of votes based on technical
aspects of who voted and from where to eliminate sockpuppetry.  This
process has already been started to a limited degree, but I suspect
most of the sorting will happen after the close.

3) Once we are satisfied that the sock hunt is over, and only then,
Tim and SPI retrieve the encryption key and open the accepted votes.
(Note: Is the technical infrastructure set up to only get the accepted
votes?  Ethically and logistically, I think it is better to never open
the struck votes.)

4) Once the votes are opened, the tally should be immediate and
automatic.  I believe this means that Tim will actually have the tally
first since decrypting votes is essentially a technical process.

5) Someone summarizes the vote and reports the tally.

Is that an accurate summary of the process, Tim?

Also, is the software automatically handling the same user overvotes,
i.e. if someone votes more than once from the same account.  In the
software, if the same account votes more than once their earlier votes
appear to be grayed out.  I'd just like to confirm that this applies
to tallying too and we don't need to manually strike those.  We will
need to manually eliminate cases where someone votes from different
wikis (they have to be done manually since it is possible, though not
common, that different real people have the same username on different
wikis).

At the moment, I don't really have a good feel about how long it is
likely to take to check through the pile of votes.  (Depends in part
in how thorough one wants to be, I suppose.)  My impression so far is
that socking is not a big problem, though I do wonder about comments
like [1].

-Robert Rohde

[1] http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1197499&cid=27565013

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Dear LiCom,
>
> as we're nearing the closure of the vote this weekend, I want to do a
> quick check-in on a couple of points. I've sent a separate note
> regarding the SecurePoll and CentralNotice expiry - my primary concern
> here is that we don't direct people to a vote that's no longer
> running. Here are some other quick questions / updates:
>
> 1) Tallying the vote: As far as I know the only people with vote
> tallying rights right now are Robert, Huib, and Andrew. With more than
> 15,000 votes already, do you need more people to help with removal of
> sock puppets and other invalid votes? If so we need to line up the
> identity checks and such, so it would be good to make a call for
> volunteers ASAP. John: I don't see you in the list of users, but if
> you're still active and able to help, we should make sure you've got
> an account set up.
>
> Also, please let me know if you think that completing the tally by May
> 10 is feasible.
>
> 2) Announcing the result: Somewhat arbitrarily, I suggested in the
> timeline that the results will be shared with the Board before a
> public announcement to give the Board an opportunity to provide
> context and framing. I've just sent them a note to double-check that
> this is what they want: If we should instead move ahead with an
> immediate public announcement, I will let you know.
>
> 3) Implementing changes: If the Board asks us to go forward with the
> licensing update, we'll need to implement changes across our sites,
> supporting which is explicitly within the mandate of the LiCom.
> Because this isn't as sensitive a process as the vote administration,
> we can handle it very collaboratively, but it would be good if we
> could start thinking about roles and responsibilities. If someone
> wants to start a page for this process e.g.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Update_checklist ,
> please be my guest, otherwise I'll take a first crack at it ASAP.
>
> 4) Open questions and feedback: I haven't been quite able to respond
> as much on the talk pages as I would like to in the last couple of
> weeks, but if you feel there are critical questions that need to be
> addressed, please let me know. (I think the single biggest open
> discussion point is how to deal with external CC-BY-SA content: I'll
> try to formulate some additional thoughts on this, but I think the
> Board needs to weigh in as well.)
>
> Am I forgetting anything critical? Other than, of course, again
> thanking you all for the time you've already spent supporting this
> process. :-)
>
> Thanks and all best,
> Erik
>
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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