Wikipedia talk:Current surveys

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How is this different from the List of ongoing votes? Most of those are polls as well. Angela. 13:46, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't know that page existed. It is very wrong to call these 'votes', however. I'll fix this. --mav 00:39, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Merged and moved. --mav

Thanks. :) Angela. 00:58, Jan 7, 2004 (UTC)

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Somehow I missed the "section edit autofill of edit summary" poll over the last 3(?) days. And, I just discovered the new feature and I don't think I really like it -- I'm not sure how useful the info is as an edit summary. However, I'm not arguing that we revisit the decision. I usually check the polls every couple of days, but I guess I missed a day over the weekend.

But here are my suggestions:

• First, if we have guidelines about how long polls should last I have missed them, but 3 days for a change that affects so many users seems short -- especially as some of us don't check the current polls every day. If there is a policy, can we post those on Wikipedia:Current polls, and if not, let's create some and post them there.
• Second, I think it would help to have the date/time that the poll closes listed between the link to the poll and the description of the poll.
• Third, I think it would be easier to follow if we divided the rather lengthy list of polls into sections -- perhaps "Administrative," "Software," "Policies," "Preferences," etc.

So what do people think?

BCorr¤Брайен 23:02, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Somebody with more time than me should format the existing entries (adding ? where the info - such as start and end times - is not known). --mav 05:24, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK -- I've added sections and put into old polls anything thats been inactive for a month or more but isn't "officially" closed. I'll pledge to stop in weekly and move inactive polls down, but I hope that people who close polls will come back here and check on them. Please add new polls under the relevant subheading, and note the starting date of the poll and the date the poll will be closed, if applicable.

Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 23:47, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Old polls

Is there any point keeping this list of old polls. I just removed some where the links were so out of date, they didn't even take you to a poll, but I can't see the need for the others either. It isn't very maintainable, and I don't think it's very valuable. If there are some that could be used as good examples of sample polls, then those could be mentioned, but for closed polls on issues no longer being discussed, I think they should be removed. Angela. 19:44, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I cleaned out the old polls as suggested. At this point, I have another proposal to make. I think the page should be renamed Wikipedia:Current surveys. I think too many people still have the idea that these polls are like elections and the results are binding, even though the page has long said this is not true. I think renaming the page would make it much clearer that these are attempts to get a survey of community opinion. --Michael Snow 19:45, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)

Netoholic keeps removing the link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) I consider this to be disruptive behaviour. If I revert the page once more I will be accused of breaking the 3 revert rule, but there is a poll going on on that page which requires publicity. Can someone please re-instate it. Mintguy (T) 00:30, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is no defined start or end, and the poll is still being written as we speak. -- Netoholic @ 00:31, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

Voting has already started. So you can assume that the start time predates the time now. The page says to show end date if appropriate. I have decided not to impose an end date myself but leave that up for discussion. If you would like to suggest an end date then go ahead. In any case this page is to publicise polls. Do you not think that publicising the poll (whether it has officially started or not) is a good idea? Or do you just want to censor this page, or are you intent to just revert everything that you don't agree with for the sake of it? Mintguy (T) 00:47, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Allowing voting to take place before the format is agreed upon is a recipe for trouble. -- Netoholic @ 03:18, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

The words pot and kettle spring to mind here. However, the format (which allows users to add additional options) follows other successfull polls elsewhere. Mintguy (T) 03:25, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Done. As ever, I am more than happy to revert vandalism.

James F. (talk) 03:39, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Village pump

Wikipedia has some polls that started months ago. The voting virtually stops at some point but is never formally closed and then, months later, someone comes across the page and adds a vote. Like Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance which started more than 7 months ago, received about 70 votes back then, with an inconclusive outcome. Now, it is still getting one or two more votes a month.

Is that right? Polls should have a certain end date. Could we have all polls formally closed after at most a month, with a clear message put on the page? Andris 23:13, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Technically the poll is invalid if it has no end date. Johnleemk | Talk 07:56, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Depends on the type of poll. I don't see a problem with leaving a poll like the fame and importance one open, as it is one of those global issues that doesn't really change in its fundamental nature. Remember that polls are essentially meaningless anyway. They're just rough indicators of how users feel on an issue. anthony (see warning) 16:45, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Typically, you can say that the poll is useless if not the interpretation of the outcome is decided before the poll starts. [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 19:05, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

End moved discussion

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Ballot-Stuffing

I was involved in a vote where everyone on both sides encourage friends to join the vote by registering just for voting. It was ugly. I am not proud of it. I suggest that only people registered before a vote, can vote on an issue. If such a policy came up for vote, I would encourage all of my friends to register, after the vote began, just to vote "Yes" on not letting people vote on issues who were not registered before the pole began.  ;-)

P.S.

So that who I am will not influence your judgment, I logged out before writing this. If you feel that who I am truly is germane, the logs will reveal that this IP was used by a user who logged out just before posting this and then logged back in on the same IP after posting this.

Anonymous Coward

Wouldn't this be impossible to check and/or eat up far too much server power? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 05:05, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

A simple check of the user registration timestamp against the time the vote was posted is just integer subtraction, but the wiki style of putting an issue to vote by editing the page means that a vote is just text on a page, which the software doesn't treat as special. It probably wouldn't be hard to make votes special and allow this kind of checking if someone wanted that. -- Zwilson 16:55, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wow, I whole heartedly agree with that... a requirement of Wikipedia voting should be registration prior to the start of the vote. It sounds like a really good idea to me. (The sock puppets and the people who suddenly show up out of nowhere only for the vote are a serious problem). Since I am also a coward, I will only sign with an x. 05:18, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In previous cases where this has happened (the naming policy poll comes to mind), the votes of brand-new users were moved to their own section and (more or less) ignored as obvious ballot stuffing. →Raul654 05:49, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

• That's some previous cases, Raul: sometimes it's done that way and sometimes it isn't. A notable case of ballot-stuffing on VfD in August also comes to mind, where the admin counted new-minted voters just the same as established users (apparently so; when his count was challenged he didn't choose to comment on this aspect of it) and declared himself forced to keep the article. I think your example and mine, placed side by side, illustrate completely unacceptable variation in sysop vote counting practice, and that's why we need a specific rule. Bishonen 02:37, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

P. S., adding figures: there was a lot of interest and strong feelings in this VfD case. By my count 50 pre-existing users voted: 15 to Keep and 35 to Delete. Don't remember exactly how many new-created accounts there were can't face spending any more time in the tangle of that record but those voted overwhelmingly to Keep. Bishonen 08:27, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK, right. But here's what I like about it: when the brand-new voters show up, all that can currently be said to them is "the admins are not amused", where as with a rule in place, one can actually say "your vote is in violation of policy... now go away", (or something with a little more WikiLove). func(talk) 19:49, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, you can do what we did before - make a section called ballot stuffing (or something with more wikilove) and move their votes there (don't delete them). →Raul654 19:52, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Better to have an unequivocal policy than leave the determination to whichever sysop counts the votes. That's too open to mistakes, or abuse. -- orthogonal 20:03, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Occasionally comments from new or unregistered users can be very useful (as was the case recently on Peter Weibel). It's their votes that don't count. -- Jmabel 22:01, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

I kind of like the Anonymous Coward's recommendation: Your account must have been created before the deliberation began to count. That won't touch the long standing sock puppets, of course. Geogre 00:45, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've always interpreted Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus to mean the same thing as this suggestion, but it would certainly be nice to have it stated more formally somewhere, and to be clear that it applies to all polls that are closed to IPs. Not only should voters have created their account before the poll began, but they should have made some good edits with that account as well. (I don't know that we want to get into the minutiae of defining "some", but I'm okay with it being a small number.) —Triskaideka 22:04, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have to reiterate it: IP's and nonce registrations cannot be counted in a vote. When I said that the "exist before opening of debate" won't stop sock-puppets, I meant that some regular Wikipedians have more than one account. The people who have done this know how hard it is for them to be caught. In fact, it's very difficult to catch them, and I'm a little tired of our pretending that it isn't. To me, the multiple accounts per Wikipedian is a really wretched phenomenon. "Wikipedia, where all animals are equal, and some are more equal than others." I'm going to look at the article Bishonen links to and see if it should have been deleted or not. I understand when people get afraid to step into really hot debates, but consensus must be our only rule. Consensus of users, that is, and not consensus of the interested. Geogre 00:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Standing and nomination

The above thread about ballot-stuffing got me thinking:

For September tenth, on redirects for deletion, an anonymous contributer listed two of three of the redirects for deletion that day. ¿Should people with no standing to vote, be allowed to nominate? It seems like a trouble-making troll with a floating IP could really wreck havoc by randomly nominating all sorts of things to all sorts of things.

I must confess that I participate in the discussion for the redirect male genital mutilation. I feel that either both male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation or neither both male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation and either both should stay or leave. I believe that both should stay. Keeping one while deleting the other is sexist. In other words, I believe that, now, after disclosing my involvement, I should abstain from the debate about anonymous contributers nominating things to things.

Ŭalabio 05:48, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

I believe it's been the longstanding policy on the VFD to ignore anon votes. I don't think RFD should be any different in that respect. →Raul654 05:50, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Since I am a partisan, I shall not debate but merely clarify:

An Anonymous Contributer Nominated Several Of The Redirects For Deletion. Someone with no standing to vote started a vote.

Ŭalabio 06:05, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

Some time ago I raised exactly this issue on Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion, that discussion is now archived but the rough consensus was that anons have every right to list on VfD, but not to vote. I was the dissenting voice, IMO if you can't vote you shouldn't list either. I guess we'd want the same policy on RfD, etc.. It sounds like there might be more to say on this. In the interests of not reinventing the wheel, should I try to find the original discussion? Andrewa 11:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard the term "standing [to vote]" being used in the way, but I see if there's consensus, there's consensus, regardless of whether or not the nominator was an anon. I could see the appropriateness of deleting a nomination made by an anon, if no one agrees with it, but once an eligible voter agrees that voter could be considered the nominator if you really care about such issues. anthony (see warning) 12:38, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See my comment in previous section re: Peter Weibel. -- Jmabel 22:02, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

The right to propose something and the right to vote on it aren't necessarily coupled. The only question to ask is whether dissallowing anons list pages on VfD and RfD brings more good or harm. Now, anybody who wants to disrupt VfD and RfD could get around a rule like that it just by register a user name. OTOH, throwing policy at well meaning newbies and telling them that their attempts at contribution are worthless might lose us some potentially good editors. I see no justification to prevent anons from listing pages on VfD and RfD. Zocky 02:29, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category:Current surveys

• See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Category:Current surveys. Gangleri | Th | T 21:41, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

Redundant?

Lovely page - but isn't this mostly redundant with WP:RFC and/or WP:W? If people agree, should we merge or something? Radiant_* 15:22, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Definitely not. RFC is a request for comments, not votes. W seems to be a little-used page now hijacked by the Wikipedia:Schools for deletion listings. Admittedly, all these pages are hard to find — someone (preferably someone without a pet project to promote) needs to work on a top-level organization of the Wikipedia namespace. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:02, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd support merging this with WP:W. Hiding 18:55, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to change. Maurreen 20:47, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An unorthodox survey

Dear Wikipedians,

We cordially invite you to answer a short questionnaire which is a part of a non-commercial cross-cultural research project conducted at INFOSOC (The Center for the Study of the Information Society), exploring Wikipedia community aspects.

The findings of this study will be published in Wikipedia to the benefit of everyone, personal copies will be also available via e-mail (wiki@shil.info).

Click here for the questionnaire: http://wikien.shil.info/

Thank you in advance.

Research Team, INFOSOC

Haifa University

• User:Infosoc and User:132.74.99.82: In the past two days you have made 19 or 20 edits which did nothing but add or remove blank lines. The reason is not apparent (assuming it is not to spam Recent Changes to promote the survey). In any case, this fills up the change history with dross to the detriment of other users. Perhaps you should consider desisting. -R. S. Shaw 6 July 2005 18:59 (UTC)

Firstly we would like to apologize if the edits we made disturbed any of you. We made those edits only after discussing it with several Wikipedians. Those Wikipedians told us they don’t think that this edits would bother any of you. Since it seems that some of you are disturbed by those edits will stop making them.

Merged

Since this page was largely duplicated at Wikipedia:Watch and Wikipedia:Requests for comment, I have merged the two. It is better to have one centralized list of issues, than two divergent lists. Radiant_>|< 07:55, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with that. Maurreen (talk) 13:42, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• Why would two divergent lists be better than one central list? Radiant_>|< 13:51, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see that another page is better to list current surveys than the page titled "Current surveys". My understanding is that this project was created with the express purpose of listing current surveys, and that Wikipedia:Watch is a newer page. To move everything might make "Current surveys" a useless page, and I don't see that anything has been gained. Maurreen (talk) 14:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Maureen, current surveys is a simple and straight forward place to list current surveys, which I care significantly more about than the COTW and announcements and school watch material that clutters up Watch. Surveys are, for good or ill, an important part of our dispute resolution process, and cluttering up the space with other material makes it more difficult to find those topics of interest and participate in the process. These pages should link to each other but stay seperate. Dragons flight 14:11, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

• Okay, let me paraphrase that. Is there a meaningful distinction between WP:CS, the policy section on WP:RFC (which almost without exception contain a survey) and the policy part of WP:W? My suggestion is that people should be able to find current policy/guideline-related affairs in one location. WP:CS sounds like a perfectly reasonable place for that (in fact, I'd like that - nobody reads WP:W anyway except for school voters, and then we can restrict WP:RFC to article issues). Radiant_>|< 14:25, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure there was a problem with the original way. There is a difference between responding to a survey and giving comments, engaging in a discussion. Maurreen (talk) 14:33, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• In theory there is. In practice the three lists were about 80%-90% redundant. Several people were only looking at one of them, and thus missing the other 10%-20%. Radiant_>|< 14:41, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Do you realize that two people here are disagreeing with one person? Maurreen (talk) 14:55, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• So far neither of you has given a reason against merging, only both of you have indicated that you feel the relevant content should be on this page rather than on another. Also several people have supported the centralization idea. Radiant_>|< 15:06, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

We don't give reasons that are meaningful to you. So how should this be decided, should we have a survey about the "Current surveys" page? Maurreen (talk) 15:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I would not object to an attempt to make a cleaner break between the categories of pages. In other words, keeping things that are truly surveys here and off RFC. Most of the things on RFC ought to be mostly discussions, not voting. As for Watch, I'm not really clear what role that "experiment in creating a public watchlist" ought to play (phrase taken from header of watch). At present it almost seems too much an unfocused almalgam of things to be particularly useful. Based on the history, only a couple people have ever made any significant contributions to Watch. Personally, I think process pages ought to organized around some useful function or purpose, and it is not clear to me that Watch expresses that. Dragons flight 17:45, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

• I have put the current surveys back on this page, and will deprecate that part of WP:W. Like I said above, nobody much seems to read WP:Watch anyway. I would prefer to not argue over the strict definition of the word 'survey'; in other words, this list may (and historically, generally has) contain items that aren't formatted as a formal poll, but are nevertheless important items that people's input is requested upon. Radiant_>|< 08:03, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Renaming

Like several of the older processes in Wikipedia, WP:CS has changed enough in the past that its old name doesn't reflect its current function. It is called "current surveys", but many things listed here aren't in fact surveys, but discussion (not that that's a bad thing, in general a discussion should precede a survey). Specifically, this page generally lists debates related to policies, guidelines, manual of style entries etc (content issues tend to be on WP:RFC). Therefore, I would like to rename it to something like Wikipedia:Process debates or something like that. Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions? Radiant_>|< 08:24, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

The first question is whether it should contain current surveys or something more or something else. Maurreen (talk) 13:57, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• So instead of simply changing the title to match its scope, you propose that the scope is changed to match the title? WP:NOT a bureaucracy. Radiant_>|< 16:55, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

No, I propose that you exercise more diplomacy.

I also suggest that if you wanted to change the scope of the page, it would have been diplomatic to suggest that instead of declaring it. Maurreen (talk) 05:24, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Further, I doubt that our one-on-one conversations are pleasant or productive for either of us. I'd suggest we wait and see what anyone else has to say about the "surveys" page. Maurreen (talk) 05:31, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

• "Process" seems rarely to be the subject of the page entries; "Policy" is the subject of part but by far not all (maybe not even most) entries. Any more general page name includes more possible content but describes it less well and tends to be more vague. "Current surveys" well describes the polls section of the page and so seems useful. -R. S. Shaw 23:31, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
• No need to change title or scope from "Current surveys". Maurreen (talk) 02:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

• Why is this a vote? It should be a discussion. Radiant_>|< 08:36, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Should we close the vote? Maurreen (talk) 14:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

• • Probably. In fact, I just did that :) I appreciate the comments though. Radiant_>|< 09:00, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Part of the reason for the apparent disconnect is that Wikipedia operates better with discussion and consensus than with votes. The name "Current surveys" replaced the earlier "Current polls" and was chosen to tone down the notion that it listed votes that could be binding on the community. Since then, I would say there have been fewer such polls/surveys and certainly fewer attempts to use them in ways that foreclose future discussion.

Because of this, I think the name "Current surveys" has actually been quite successful, and my first instinct is to keep it. If the content doesn't quite match the stated scope, it's because the page has reduced the need for itself, and other stuff has filled the resulting vacuum. I'm not sure whether that's really a serious problem or not. --Michael Snow 02:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, that is a good explanation. Actually it may be best to merge the entire page with WP:RFC, because the intent and usage is similar. Radiant_>|< 09:00, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Academic surveys

Can academic researching surveys whow would like to carry some survey of Wikipedia community list their surveys here? What other places they could do this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:32, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

No, that wouldn't be appropriate. You could try the mailinglist, though I don't know how thrilled they'd be there either. --fvw* 18:34, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

No thanks - I get enough 'surveys' spaming me already. I wopuldn't object to a project page, for those who were interested though. (But then again maybe that's a bad precident too) --Doc (?) 18:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Via meta, academic surveys have been conducted there (ask, for instance, user:cormaggio), the current meta page is m:research; see also m:Wikimedia Research Network, Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia, m:Wikiversity - but indeed not this present "current surveys" page --Francis Schonken 19:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Template-supported voting procedure

Cacumer's proposal:

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Voting

I've added an attempt to begin with a better solution than keep adding each poll to this list in here. Please, take a look and try to understand the attempt:

Talk:Gmail

Template:Vote

I'm sure there's a lot of things to fix on that template, including a better name terminology. I just wanted to get something started... I would even call it a wikipedia:stub for templates, in comparsion to article stubs.

Thanks for understanding.

--Cacumer 09:53, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

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(moved here for discussion by Francis Schonken - note that I left a link to this section at Wikipedia:Current surveys#Discussions)

Question: is Talk:Gmail/Vote still an active poll/discussion? Doesn't seem so IMHO, but if it is, please link from Wikipedia:Current surveys#Polls

--Francis Schonken 22:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a very good question. I really don't know. :P

But my point in here wasn't the voting itself. But, as you noted, this is about the idea of using templates for voting. Maybe that voting "went down" exactly because nobody knew it was even active (at some point).

Anyway, back to gmail, I believe a better question would be: how to get to a consensus on that (or any other) voting? I just know that if nobody comment on it, I'm going to do what seems to be right and would please both sides, which is just better organizing that whole article.

And thanks for your help, Francis!

--Cacumer 00:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Also I want to "add" information to the idea. It is not just about the template but also using "category:vote" (or maybe another name such as "category:polls"), just like we have "category:stub", to keep track of the voting / polling. But, as a voting should always be announced somewhere, just adding the template would be enough to add it to the category as the template would do all the work. I'm just not a mediawiki expert on how to script all those things. That's where I asked to "take a look and try to understand the attempt"... Maybe I shoulda said "take a very careful look", but I guess that wouldn't make too much of a difference. :P

--Cacumer 00:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

...

De-emphasize polls

Summoning a bunch of visitors to various "polls" under the pretext of voting on what is properly instead the subject of discussion is misleading and not conducive to accurate articles. A poll can be useful for a long, complex debate in finding out where the discussants stand, currently or "in the end", after they have considered the discussion, without trying to adduce consensus from sifting through endless comments. Bringing people to a Talk page for the express purpose of simply voting, not participating in the discussion or even encouraging reading the discussion, is not consensus; consensus requires agreement, which is impossible without knowing the points at issue. Thus, any vote that is actually productive or relevant requires that the voter have read or participated in the discussion, and it makes sense to bring non-partisans with a fresh view to that discussion from this page here, but not directly to some "poll". Ultimately, the "Polls" section is either useless, in that a person comes to the discussion and, being interested, will in the end participate in such a consensus-guaging (not consensus-making) poll, or its use is wrong, in that it brings people who don't engage the issue but would simply register an ill-informed yay or nay. So, I propose that the "Polls" section be removed. See also WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy and "Voting is Evil". - Centrx 02:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Table format accessibility

The recently added table format makes it less simple to add surveys to the page. It should be phased out. It is not used at RfC either. Seeing as there was no discussion for this change and it is non-standard, I am changing it back. —Centrx→talk • 21:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to be too bold. The table format may make adding surveys less straightforward, but I'd say it makes the lists easier to scan. I'd guess anyone who's reached the point of wishing to add a survey to these lists has very likely seen the table syntax before. Even if not, I'd say they'd be able to copy an existing entry, then modify it accordingly. Meanwhile, please direct me to where the relevant standards are listed – thanks!  David Kernow 04:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Many, maybe most, users edit only text in articles and even inexperienced users should be able to easily add a survey. Wikipedia:How to use tables does state that "Tables shouldn't be used simply for layout...", only for information that is "tabular in nature", that tables should not be used for long lists in which case the standard list format is preferred, and that "Tables may be hard for other people to edit...". Also, WP:RFC listings and similar sorts of things do not use tables. —Centrx→talk • 06:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I'm torn between using and not using a table for the reasons we've stated; I suppose I regard the information here (and similar pages) as tabular. Maybe a couple of fields on the page for less experienced users (that are then converted into a table entry) could be provided... Alternatively (and more simply) perhaps a divider "----" between each entry might improve readability. Regards, David 15:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Redirect to Rfc?

no longer used much,

The history log disagrees.

and all or nearly all uses of it are just substitutes for putting it at RFC

?

While voting's not as good as reasoned debate, it has its place when e.g. a nutter has more time than the other editors. A poll is better than dealing with someone who's reckless and lacks common sense. -- Jeandré, 2006-09-16t21:34z

I don't see how a poll would make someone stop, and there are few to no entries here are about correcting a lone wacko—I can't find a single one in this batch. Of the ones that start formed as polls, most of them actually just progress into discussion. The fact is, most all of the entries here are typical RfC issues, and those adding them here are disserved because RfC has a lot more people following up on issues. People are adding surveys here, but they are getting less outside comment than they would get if they had realized they should post it at RfC; some of them get no outside comment. So, in practice the discussion is usually identical to RfC, but with less exposure. Polling is another issue: it isn't a good idea, see above when I brought it up in May without response, but the more significant issue is that this is currently just a wayward, lonely stop before a user realize they should have put it on RfC. —Centrx→talk • 21:49, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought this place was for policy and style issues. I posted on RFC was Centrx's suggestion but got 0 response there, too. Anomo 22:11, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

It's rather unlikely to get a response immediately for either here or RfC. I have responded there; basically I think that anyone coming to it would see that it is not a proposal, that it is just a collection of thoughts on different subjects that should be brought up in their respective Manual of Style pages. Very few policy issues ever get posted here to Current surveys. —Centrx→talk • 15:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think this page has become redundant with RFC, and the logs clearly shows that RFC has higher traffic than this page. So redirect, would work, yes. In either case, don't expect immediate responses to anything. WP:3O has a quick response for simple issues, though. (Radiant) 16:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a redirect is the way to go -- if people want a survey, they can use somewhere to list it. It might be a good idea to list alternatives to a survey, such as RFC and 30 prominently in the beginning of the article, though. TheronJ 17:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• For a long time, people have been listing surveys on RFC, as well as listing items that aren't surveys here. It's a false dichotomy. The problem is not in this dichotomy, but in the fact that we have several redundant "announcement" pages - and most people only watch one and are unaware of what happens on the others. Centralization is good for such things. (Radiant) 08:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)