Mailing List Archive

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 7:40 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> I have just received an email telling me I am eligible to vote in the
> board elections when I have already voted. Please don't send
> untargetted mass emails - they are spam.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

and also please don't send e-mails to bot accounts.

--User:Meno25
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:40 AM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have just received an email telling me I am eligible to vote in the
> board elections when I have already voted. Please don't send
> untargetted mass emails - they are spam.

"telling me I am eligible" and "untargetted mass e-mails" don't really
make sense together, do they? Also, although you're only getting one
e-mail once per year (will be every two years), you're free to opt-out
(there are instructions in the e-mail you received).

/me wonders why you wouldn't just hit reply to the e-mail and send
this message to people who actually can do something about it, rather
than foundation-l.

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Meno 25<meno25wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
> and also please don't send e-mails to bot accounts.
>

Yes, that's a good point. It seems this was an error this time around
and they'll probably remember to leave those ones out next time.
(Hopefully we'll have people writing up a "how-to" page for future
years.)

--
Casey Brown (who is not an election committee member, hence the third person)
Cbrown1023

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Thomas,

I'm sorry you got an email that bothered you. Trust me, we try to make sure no one is bothered by them. Sometimes people fall through the cracks, and I'm sorry that was the case here and in a few other cases.

We try - hard - to make sure that everyone who is entitled to vote knows it. Hours of translator and committee time went into that email. This morning, folks from the translation team worked hard to make the email as close as possible to perfect. Werdna created and managed the scripts and other vols have worked hard to manage the (multi lingual) responses. My point here is that we take suffrage very seriously and in our effort to make sure that EVERY qualified voter knew it, we didn't get it perfectly.

If that's the trade off for getting increased turnout in this critical election, I hope you can understand. I will sleep well tonight, knowing that we erred on the side of hitting TOO MANY voters, instead of not enough.

For myself only, but quite sure others share my feelings,
Philippe


------Original Message------
From: Thomas Dalton
Sender: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
ReplyTo: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: [Foundation-l] Board election spamming
Sent: Aug 7, 2009 10:40 PM

I have just received an email telling me I am eligible to vote in the
board elections when I have already voted. Please don't send
untargetted mass emails - they are spam.

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I already voted when I got my email, and I didn't think it was spam. I
smiled at the fact that Wikimedia is making sure everyone who can vote has
the opportunity.
Steven

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 10:05 PM, <pbeaudette@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thomas,
>
> I'm sorry you got an email that bothered you. Trust me, we try to make
> sure no one is bothered by them. Sometimes people fall through the cracks,
> and I'm sorry that was the case here and in a few other cases.
>
> We try - hard - to make sure that everyone who is entitled to vote knows
> it. Hours of translator and committee time went into that email. This
> morning, folks from the translation team worked hard to make the email as
> close as possible to perfect. Werdna created and managed the scripts and
> other vols have worked hard to manage the (multi lingual) responses. My
> point here is that we take suffrage very seriously and in our effort to make
> sure that EVERY qualified voter knew it, we didn't get it perfectly.
>
> If that's the trade off for getting increased turnout in this critical
> election, I hope you can understand. I will sleep well tonight, knowing
> that we erred on the side of hitting TOO MANY voters, instead of not enough.
>
> For myself only, but quite sure others share my feelings,
> Philippe
>
>
> ------Original Message------
> From: Thomas Dalton
> Sender: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> ReplyTo: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Board election spamming
> Sent: Aug 7, 2009 10:40 PM
>
> I have just received an email telling me I am eligible to vote in the
> board elections when I have already voted. Please don't send
> untargetted mass emails - they are spam.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hoi,
This is a huge improvement over the last election where not all projects
were targeted for this type of mail. As a result there is less bias in the
system. So you can opt out if you do not want to receive an e-mail for the
next election.

Iit is a huge improvement to have an e-mail by the organisers of the
election over someone who does because he can and has thinks it a good idea.
This is very much a friendly nudge to go and do your democratic duty because
you can.
Thanks,
Gerard

PS did you do your democratic duty ?

2009/8/8 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>

> I have just received an email telling me I am eligible to vote in the
> board elections when I have already voted. Please don't send
> untargetted mass emails - they are spam.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:38 AM, Gerard
Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> This is a huge improvement over the last election where not all projects
> were targeted for this type of mail. As a result there is less bias in the
> system. So you can opt out if you do not want to receive an e-mail for the
> next election.
>
> Iit is a huge improvement to have an e-mail by the organisers of the
> election over someone who does because he can and has thinks it a good idea.
> This is very much a friendly nudge to go and do your democratic duty because
> you can.

Although it's not an improvement in that its very close to the
election and the rate of response to the mail appeared to lag several
days in a prior election.

A lot of people are going to notice the mail next week and be annoyed
that they were left out.

Someone should make a note of that for the future. My rule of thumb
for any notification procedure on Wikipedia, based on meetup and other
events, is that one week is required to even reach a majority of the
eventual targets and that two is much better. Sufficient notice is
important— Especially when responding to the notice is something that
may require reading a half meg of text or so.

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Yeah, that one's noted for the post-mortem.

Philippe


On Aug 8, 2009, at 12:47 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:38 AM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hoi,
>> This is a huge improvement over the last election where not all
>> projects
>> were targeted for this type of mail. As a result there is less bias
>> in the
>> system. So you can opt out if you do not want to receive an e-mail
>> for the
>> next election.
>>
>> Iit is a huge improvement to have an e-mail by the organisers of the
>> election over someone who does because he can and has thinks it a
>> good idea.
>> This is very much a friendly nudge to go and do your democratic
>> duty because
>> you can.
>
> Although it's not an improvement in that its very close to the
> election and the rate of response to the mail appeared to lag several
> days in a prior election.
>
> A lot of people are going to notice the mail next week and be annoyed
> that they were left out.
>
> Someone should make a note of that for the future. My rule of thumb
> for any notification procedure on Wikipedia, based on meetup and other
> events, is that one week is required to even reach a majority of the
> eventual targets and that two is much better. Sufficient notice is
> important— Especially when responding to the notice is something that
> may require reading a half meg of text or so.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Meno 25<meno25wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
> and also please don't send e-mails to bot accounts.

I found that email quite helpful.

I had forgotten that my bot gave me a second vote.

--
John Vandenberg

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:34 AM, John Vandenberg<jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:
> I had forgotten that my bot gave me a second vote.

Is that a joke?

-Robert Rohde

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Robert Rohde<rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:34 AM, John Vandenberg<jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I had forgotten that my bot gave me a second vote.
>
> Is that a joke?

My bot, which has a bot flag on two projects, was sent an email asking
it to vote.

Is that a joke?

--
John Vandenberg

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hello,

Aren't we working to wrong way, I think it should be better to let
people opt-in, because we didn't release our e-mail addresses for this
kind of spam. I use different emails for private / mailinglist use and I
didn't give permission to use my private email.

Its kind of stupid that this email isn't send out when the election
started, but is send when a lot of people already voted, and its
unneeded now so its spam.

But its very good to know that my three bots can vote to, if the
election commitee sends me a email that the bots can vote, I'm sure they
are really allowed right? :P


Best regards,

Huib Laurens

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

No silly - it's a mistake! (don't be so grumpy..... - or be aware that this
could come across as grumpy at least)

I recall the grumbles when Greg sent something out last year or the year
before, and feel the same about this as that - the folk sending the email
are using an imperfect system, but overall it's worth it - I'm hope that
those feeling personally affronted by such an approach can take solace in
something or other, and just generally relax a notch or two.... :-)

cheers,

Peter,
PM.



On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:58 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Robert Rohde<rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:34 AM, John Vandenberg<jayvdb@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> I had forgotten that my bot gave me a second vote.
> >
> > Is that a joke?
>
> My bot, which has a bot flag on two projects, was sent an email asking
> it to vote.
>
> Is that a joke?
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> This is a huge improvement over the last election where not all projects
> were targeted for this type of mail. As a result there is less bias in the
> system. So you can opt out if you do not want to receive an e-mail for the
> next election.

Huh? All eligible voters who hadn't voted by the time I took a snapshot
of the voted list got the same email last year. In fact, a small number
of people accidentally got more than one I think because I didn't do a
very good job of making sure the script didn't time out and or keeping
track of exactly how far down the email list I got to.

Are you thinking of the year before (2007) when a candidate send out a
email to a selected number of users?

KTC

--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:09 PM, private musings<thepmaccount@gmail.com> wrote:
> No silly - it's a mistake! (don't be so grumpy..... - or be aware that this
> could come across as grumpy at least)
>
> I recall the grumbles when Greg sent something out last year or the year
> before, and feel the same about this as that - the folk sending the email
> are using an imperfect system, but overall it's worth it - I'm hope that
> those feeling personally affronted by such an approach can take solace in
> something or other, and just generally relax a notch or two.... :-)

Oh, I am not affronted.

I am thrilled that the election committee decided that computer
engineers should be rewarded for their ingenuity by allowing their
fine opinion to be counted twice.

This motivates me to write more bots for next year.

p.s. can the election committee ensure that votes from bot accounts
are not counted??

p.p.s. if I can have another free vote, I will gladly write a bot to
help the election committee to discount bot votes...

--
John Vandenberg

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

John Vandenberg wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:09 PM, private musings<thepmaccount@gmail.com> wrote:
>> No silly - it's a mistake! (don't be so grumpy..... - or be aware that this
>> could come across as grumpy at least)
>>
>> I recall the grumbles when Greg sent something out last year or the year
>> before, and feel the same about this as that - the folk sending the email
>> are using an imperfect system, but overall it's worth it - I'm hope that
>> those feeling personally affronted by such an approach can take solace in
>> something or other, and just generally relax a notch or two.... :-)
>
> Oh, I am not affronted.
>
> I am thrilled that the election committee decided that computer
> engineers should be rewarded for their ingenuity by allowing their
> fine opinion to be counted twice.
>
> This motivates me to write more bots for next year.
>
> p.s. can the election committee ensure that votes from bot accounts
> are not counted??
>
> p.p.s. if I can have another free vote, I will gladly write a bot to
> help the election committee to discount bot votes...

The election software should automatically prevent an account flagged as
bot from voting in the first place. The committee then have the task of
manually vetting the caste votes to ensure only one vote is
submitted/counted by each human.

KTC

--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine

Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> Yeah, that one's noted for the post-mortem.
>

I'm going to add some notes for "future generation" that send this in 2
years time based on my experience sending this last year (and also
thinking about it this year) before I forget. I'm sure this year's
committee & Werdna will have their own note to add.

(Note: this is not a list of what haven't been done, but what should be
considered for someone starting anew.)

* Make sure the committee argues on how & who the emails will be sent
early on, and not still wondering about it 4 days before the end of
voting....

* Send those emails somewhere near the start of voting, not 3 days
before the end... ;)

* Given a list of all the eligible voters from the start of the
election, remove all belonging to the same user (think SUL), remove and
leave only primary account for non-unified account with the same email
address. Remove in advance, or check and remove in real time all
accounts marked as bot & blocked. Remove all those on the
[[meta:Wikimedia nomail list]].

* Take snapshot of all those that have voted at start of email run, and
remove from email list.

In terms of the actual message:
* Translate the email subject as well as the main body text.

* Translate the the string "{Year} Board Election Committee" or similar
and use it as the From header, and at the end of the the body text.

* Have a table of all active projects in their local name instead of
just using the English version.

Hope that helps anyone reading this in 2 years time. :D

KTC

/me wait 2 years to see if it makes any difference

--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine

Huib! wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Aren't we working to wrong way, I think it should be better to let
> people opt-in, because we didn't release our e-mail addresses for this
> kind of spam. I use different emails for private / mailinglist use and I
> didn't give permission to use my private email.

Can I just point out the email address concerned was supplied by you to
Wikimedia Foundation, where your account's preference is set "Enable
e-mail from other users".

I'm not saying only people where that is set was sent email, and no
people where that is not set (i.e. email on record only for password
recovery) were not sent. However, in your particular case, I or anyone
else for that matter could just as easily send you the email via the
Commons interface and it would had be no different.

> Its kind of stupid that this email isn't send out when the election
> started, but is send when a lot of people already voted, and its
> unneeded now so its spam.

It's unfortunate this year, those that have already voted received the
email. Obviously it should be noted so it doesn't happens in the future
(i.e. in 2 years time). But there are should a lot of people who is able
to vote but haven't voted, and it wouldn't be spam to send them this email.

KTC

--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:05 AM, <pbeaudette@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> I'm sorry you got an email that bothered you. Trust me, we try to make
> sure no one is bothered by them. Sometimes people fall through the cracks,
> and I'm sorry that was the case here and in a few other cases.


I'm supposedly one who fell through the cracks. <shrug>

Have to say though, I was impressed by being invited to vote in elections
for the board, "which operates projects such as Wikiversity". I don't know
how you can specify a person's main project in this script (nor do I
need/want to know) - but just to give praise where praise is due. :-)

Cormac
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hello,

As far as I know the email users function doesn't show the emailadres to
people so you could email me with that function and you still doesn't
have my emailadres :)

Best regards,
Huib

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Cormac Lawler wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:05 AM, <pbeaudette@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry you got an email that bothered you. Trust me, we try to make
>> sure no one is bothered by them. Sometimes people fall through the cracks,
>> and I'm sorry that was the case here and in a few other cases.
>
>
> I'm supposedly one who fell through the cracks. <shrug>
>
> Have to say though, I was impressed by being invited to vote in elections
> for the board, "which operates projects such as Wikiversity". I don't know
> how you can specify a person's main project in this script (nor do I
> need/want to know) - but just to give praise where praise is due. :-)
>

The list of eligible voters contain the internal database name &/or the
url of the wiki the voter is from. It's a simple case of parsing that to
personalise the email with the main project name. :-)

KTC

--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Cormac Lawler<cormaggio@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:05 AM, <pbeaudette@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry you got an email that bothered you.  Trust me, we try to make
>> sure no one is bothered by them.  Sometimes people fall through the cracks,
>> and I'm sorry that was the case here and in a few other cases.
>
>
> I'm supposedly one who fell through the cracks. <shrug>
>
> Have to say though, I was impressed by being invited to vote in elections
> for the board, "which operates projects such as Wikiversity". I don't know
> how you can specify a person's main project in this script (nor do I
> need/want to know) - but just to give praise where praise is due. :-)

Well spotted! I missed it.

The email to "John Vandenberg" mentioned "Wikipedia", but the email to
"JVbot" said "Wikisource".

My home wiki is metawiki, so I think it is using highest edit count to
pin me as a Wikipedian.

--
John Vandenberg

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:40 AM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have just received an email telling me I am eligible to vote in the
> board elections when I have already voted. Please don't send
> untargetted mass emails - they are spam.

Well, one good thing came out of it.

I didn't receive such an email which suddenly drove me to review my
preferences to find that I was still signed up with an ancient email
address I haven't used for many years.

Changed it now :o)

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Yes. And are doing so.

Philippe


On Aug 8, 2009, at 2:42 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:

>
> p.s. can the election committee ensure that votes from bot accounts
> are not counted??


_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

2009/8/8 John Vandenberg <jayvdb@gmail.com>

> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:09 PM, private musings<thepmaccount@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > No silly - it's a mistake! (don't be so grumpy..... - or be aware that
> this
> > could come across as grumpy at least)
> >
> > I recall the grumbles when Greg sent something out last year or the year
> > before, and feel the same about this as that - the folk sending the email
> > are using an imperfect system, but overall it's worth it - I'm hope that
> > those feeling personally affronted by such an approach can take solace in
> > something or other, and just generally relax a notch or two.... :-)
>
> Oh, I am not affronted.
>
> I am thrilled that the election committee decided that computer
> engineers should be rewarded for their ingenuity by allowing their
> fine opinion to be counted twice.
>
> This motivates me to write more bots for next year.
>
> p.s. can the election committee ensure that votes from bot accounts
> are not counted??
>
> p.p.s. if I can have another free vote, I will gladly write a bot to
> help the election committee to discount bot votes...
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

The list of users who have voted is available at
https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:SecurePoll/list/17 , and I
know the committee will be more than happy for any help received. ;-)

--
Jon Harald Søby
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l