Anonymous voting on wiki

8 years ago by Pierre Joye — view source

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Hi!

Since in CoC discussion it was mentioned we may need anonymous voting,
I've created a patch that allows anonymous polls to be created:

https://github.com/php/web-wiki/pull/7

The results still recorded per user, but everybody can see just their
own vote (for logged in users) and total summary. People with shell
access to the server will be able to see the votes, unfortunately I
don't see how to avoid that without serious rewrite.
Also, once the poll is created as anonymous it can't be turned into
non-anonymous without resetting the results or manual admin action.

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on
wiki.php.net.

Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com

Thanks :)

Quick and good work!

About admins able to read the results, I trust us not to do so. Also I lost
track about who has access to the wiki. Last time only one or two persons
had access.

8 years ago by francois@php.net — view source

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Le 09/01/2016 08:55, Stanislav Malyshev a écrit :

Hi!

Since in CoC discussion it was mentioned we may need anonymous voting,
I've created a patch that allows anonymous polls to be created:

https://github.com/php/web-wiki/pull/7

The results still recorded per user, but everybody can see just their
own vote (for logged in users) and total summary. People with shell
access to the server will be able to see the votes, unfortunately I
don't see how to avoid that without serious rewrite.
Also, once the poll is created as anonymous it can't be turned into
non-anonymous without resetting the results or manual admin action.

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on wiki.php.net.

Thanks Stas. That's exactly what I have wished for a long time.

Some could argue against seeing the total count evolve before the vote
is over but I think it's acceptable to allow the RFC author check how
things are going. Anyway, the most important, IMHO, is to hide
individual votes and voter names.

Regards

François

8 years ago by Andrea Faulds — view source

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Hi Stas,

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Since in CoC discussion it was mentioned we may need anonymous voting,
I've created a patch that allows anonymous polls to be created:

https://github.com/php/web-wiki/pull/7

The results still recorded per user, but everybody can see just their
own vote (for logged in users) and total summary. People with shell
access to the server will be able to see the votes, unfortunately I
don't see how to avoid that without serious rewrite.
Also, once the poll is created as anonymous it can't be turned into
non-anonymous without resetting the results or manual admin action.

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on wiki.php.net.

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing who
voted which way means you can ask them what their objections were.
Though, anonymous voting would mean no potential for harassing people
for the way they voted (though they're not necessarily free of
harassment for their opinion - many people make theirs public anyway).

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know
who participated in the vote, even if we don't know which way they
voted. Consider that real-world elections have electoral registers, at
least in my country. Perhaps we could implement this by showing the same
table of votes as the normal one, but covering up the Yes/No columns
with a colspan saying something like "concealed".

Anyway, that's just my thoughts.

Thanks for writing a patch!

Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/

8 years ago by Stanislav Malyshev — view source

unread

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know

This is intentional. Otherwise by taking snapshots of the page at
regular periods and seeing who voted and how the totals changed, one can
deduce each personal vote.

--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com

8 years ago by Andrea Faulds — view source

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Hi Stas,

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

Actually, I don't think so. My fear was probably unfounded.

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know

This is intentional. Otherwise by taking snapshots of the page at
regular periods and seeing who voted and how the totals changed, one can
deduce each personal vote.

A fair point. Do you think it'd be alright to show names once the vote
has ended, though?

Thanks!

Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/

8 years ago by eli@eliw.com — view source

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Hi Stas,

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

Actually, I don't think so. My fear was probably unfounded.

Has this discussion happened since the STH votes happened? I know it's
been discussed before, but it seems that the STH vote kinda brought this
out of the woodwork a bit. And honestly I haven't seen a serious
discussion about 'by default anonymous' since that time. (But perhaps I
missed it)

Eli

--
| Eli White | http://eliw.com/ | Twitter: EliW |

8 years ago by Ferenc Kovacs — view source

unread

Hi Stas,

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

Actually, I don't think so. My fear was probably unfounded.

Has this discussion happened since the STH votes happened? I know it's
been discussed before, but it seems that the STH vote kinda brought this
out of the woodwork a bit. And honestly I haven't seen a serious
discussion about 'by default anonymous' since that time. (But perhaps I
missed it)

Eli

Not sure which discussion you are referring(probably where were the
anonymous voting brought up again since the STH votes), but this pull
request was created because in the Code of Conduct thread somebody
mentioned that having anonymous votes can be useful when dealing with code
of conduct sanctions:
internals@lists.php.net/msg82537.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg82537.html
where it was mentioned that previously we had hidden votes for a short
while but people complained and we reverted it:
internals@lists.php.net/msg82549.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg82549.html
so Stas replied that he will be looking into porting the old patch:
internals@lists.php.net/msg82651.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg82651.html
and here we are now, afaik the current PR from Stas introduces the
anonymous votes as an optional vote type which is less
intrusive/controversial than the last one, so we could merge it without
having any visible effects.
personally I wouldn't merge until we decided if we need/want the anon
votes, be that for regular RFCs (in which case I would only support the
inclusion if closing the vote makes visible who voted what) or for some
other new type of voting.

--
Ferenc Kovács
@Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu

8 years ago by eli@eliw.com — view source

unread

Thanks for all the backstory Ferenc, but I knew about the reasons for
this pull request. It's relation to the current CoC discussion, as
well as the past cases of having anonymous votes and it's rollback.

But my statement was in the context of the thread between Stas &
Andrea. Wherein Stas stated that we'd talked about having anonymous
voting and we all decided not to do it, and asked if anything had
changed. Andrea stated that no, things probably hadn't.

My point was: Given that, as far as I can remember, all those
discussions of anonymous voting happened before the STH votes. We do
have 'new information' and things that have changed. Because various
issues were exposed during that voting process, wherein hidden votes
could have helped some people from being beleaguered by people who
disagreed with them, and it would have stopped the ability for people to
be influenced/petitioned/pressed by others to change their vote.

Hence: I think that there has been something that changed, a new data
point, and therefore a discussion may be merited.

Eli

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Eli <eli@eliw.com
mailto:eli@eliw.com> wrote:
> Hi Stas,
>
> Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>>> This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by
default for
>>> RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and
knowing
>>> who
>>
>> I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything
changed?
>
> Actually, I don't think so. My fear was probably unfounded.

Has this discussion happened since the STH votes happened?  I know
it's
been discussed before, but it seems that the STH vote kinda
brought this
out of the woodwork a bit.  And honestly I haven't seen a serious
discussion about 'by default anonymous' since that time.  (But
perhaps I
missed it)

Eli 
Not sure which discussion you are referring(probably where were the
anonymous voting brought up again since the STH votes), but this pull
request was created because in the Code of Conduct thread somebody
mentioned that having anonymous votes can be useful when dealing with
code of conduct sanctions:
internals@lists.php.net/msg82537.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg82537.html
where it was mentioned that previously we had hidden votes for a short
while but people complained and we reverted it:
internals@lists.php.net/msg82549.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg82549.html
so Stas replied that he will be looking into porting the old patch:
internals@lists.php.net/msg82651.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mail-archive.com/internals@lists.php.net/msg82651.html
and here we are now, afaik the current PR from Stas introduces the
anonymous votes as an optional vote type which is less
intrusive/controversial than the last one, so we could merge it
without having any visible effects.
personally I wouldn't merge until we decided if we need/want the anon
votes, be that for regular RFCs (in which case I would only support
the inclusion if closing the vote makes visible who voted what) or for
some other new type of voting.

--
Ferenc Kovács
@Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu

--
| Eli White | http://eliw.com/ | Twitter: EliW |

8 years ago by Ferenc Kovacs — view source

unread

Thanks for all the backstory Ferenc, but I knew about the reasons for this
pull request. It's relation to the current CoC discussion, as well as the
past cases of having anonymous votes and it's rollback.

But my statement was in the context of the thread between Stas & Andrea.
Wherein Stas stated that we'd talked about having anonymous voting and we
all decided not to do it, and asked if anything had changed. Andrea
stated that no, things probably hadn't.

My point was: Given that, as far as I can remember, all those discussions
of anonymous voting happened before the STH votes. We do have 'new
information' and things that have changed. Because various issues were
exposed during that voting process, wherein hidden votes could have helped
some people from being beleaguered by people who disagreed with them, and
it would have stopped the ability for people to be
influenced/petitioned/pressed by others to change their vote.

Hence: I think that there has been something that changed, a new data
point, and therefore a discussion may be merited.

Eli

ok, I wasn't sure about if they were referring to the old discussion where
the anonymous voting was reverted almost instantly, or about the recent CoC
discussion which was back and forth between having the voters/reporters
privacy, shielding them from potential backlash or having more transparency
for the voting results, so I'm curious about what Stas meant as well.

--
Ferenc Kovács
@Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu

8 years ago by Stanislav Malyshev — view source

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Hi!

the anonymous voting was reverted almost instantly, or about the recent CoC
discussion which was back and forth between having the voters/reporters
privacy, shielding them from potential backlash or having more transparency
for the voting results, so I'm curious about what Stas meant as well.

I refer to the time when we had a patch that introduced anonymous votes.

My personal opinion is that if we were to get to the point when
substantial number of people are being attacked personally merely for
voting this way or that way, that makes them fearful, it would be
horrible. And we'd have to think really hard how to fix that - starting
maybe for them to find out a trusted individual in the community which
would assemble this information and try to figure out where it is coming
from and how to counter that.

If however it is just some people not wishing to invest in supporting
one side or another, out of concern that it takes too much time and
effort to sustain discussion - this is completely normal. We do want
more contributors, but when it comes to voting, I think we want the
contributors to commit to being serious about their position. There's no
obligation to vote if you prefer not to. But if you do, standing by your
vote is part of it.

This was the idea why we decided to have open vote, as I understand it.
So far I don't think it changed - unless, of course, there would be new
data that changes the picture.

When voting on behavioral matters, however, it is different, since the
pattern of bad conduct is at least alleged by the very nature of the
matter in question. So there the benefits of anonymous vote outweigh the
issues, I think.

Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com

8 years ago by Anthony Ferrara — view source

unread

Stas,

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know

This is intentional. Otherwise by taking snapshots of the page at
regular periods and seeing who voted and how the totals changed, one can
deduce each personal vote.

Perhaps then show them once the vote is closed?

Anthony

8 years ago by Stanislav Malyshev — view source

unread

Hi!

Perhaps then show them once the vote is closed?

That's possible.

--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com

8 years ago by Pierre Joye — view source

unread

Hi!

Perhaps then show them once the vote is closed?

That's possible.

I do not see how it helps except to... know who voted what. Indeed if
we only show who voted but not how, that's fine. If not, it makes the
whole thing useless.

Cheers,

Pierre

@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org

8 years ago by Stanislav Malyshev — view source

unread

Hi!

Perhaps then show them once the vote is closed?

That's possible.

I do not see how it helps except to... know who voted what. Indeed if
we only show who voted but not how, that's fine. If not, it makes the
whole thing useless.

The idea is that while vote is open, only totals are shown. When the
vote is closed, the total and the list of voters are shown, but the
individual votes still aren't.
I'm not sure whether it is better or not, since secret ballot also means
confidentiality about whether somebody voted or not, and in some cases
(e.g. unanimous voting or some votes disclosed) it may still be possible
to deduce individual votes given the list of participants.

Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com

8 years ago by Lester Caine — view source

unread

Perhaps then show them once the vote is closed?

That's possible.

I do not see how it helps except to... know who voted what. Indeed if
we only show who voted but not how, that's fine. If not, it makes the
whole thing useless.
The idea is that while vote is open, only totals are shown. When the
vote is closed, the total and the list of voters are shown, but the
individual votes still aren't.
I'm not sure whether it is better or not, since secret ballot also means
confidentiality about whether somebody voted or not, and in some cases
(e.g. unanimous voting or some votes disclosed) it may still be possible
to deduce individual votes given the list of participants.

The debate on Anonymous voting has been voted on already?

From my own point of view, I like to know who supports and who opposes a
particular RFC simply because I can't vote myself. It helps me to decide
if I need to look deeper into the RFC or if I can rely on those with
voting rights that I trust to get it right. We should not have to hide
our views so the idea that anonymity is a right is part of the problem
in the modern world? Part of the reason for now needing a CoC?

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL

Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk

8 years ago by Andreas Heigl — view source

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Hi All.

Am 10.01.16 um 11:20 schrieb Lester Caine:

Perhaps then show them once the vote is closed?

That's possible.

I do not see how it helps except to... know who voted what. Indeed if
we only show who voted but not how, that's fine. If not, it makes the
whole thing useless.
The idea is that while vote is open, only totals are shown. When the
vote is closed, the total and the list of voters are shown, but the
individual votes still aren't.
I'm not sure whether it is better or not, since secret ballot also means
confidentiality about whether somebody voted or not, and in some cases
(e.g. unanimous voting or some votes disclosed) it may still be possible
to deduce individual votes given the list of participants.

The debate on Anonymous voting has been voted on already?

From my own point of view, I like to know who supports and who opposes a
particular RFC simply because I can't vote myself. It helps me to decide
if I need to look deeper into the RFC or if I can rely on those with
voting rights that I trust to get it right. We should not have to hide
our views so the idea that anonymity is a right is part of the problem
in the modern world? Part of the reason for now needing a CoC?

Thank you Lester for expressing that view. I am not really sure about
anonymous voting myself. I can understand that anonymous voting is a
good idea during the voting phase but I am strongly against
withholding the names of the voters as well as their vote after the
voting ends.

In any case I'm sure that this is something that affects the whole
RFC-Process and should be put up in a separate RFC and not just be
implemented "en passant" in a few lines of code. And In my eyes, as it's
a change to the RFC-Process it shoud need a 2/3rd majority.

Just my 2 cent.

Cheers

Andreas

PS: If there's no one else I would try to set up the RFC but would be
very gratefull to have someone mentor me there.

--
,,,
(o o)
+---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+
| Andreas Heigl |
| mailto:andreas@heigl.org N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |
| http://andreas.heigl.org http://hei.gl/wiFKy7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://hei.gl/root-ca |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

8 years ago by Yasuo Ohgaki — view source

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Hi all,

From my own point of view, I like to know who supports and who opposes a
particular RFC simply because I can't vote myself. It helps me to decide
if I need to look deeper into the RFC or if I can rely on those with
voting rights that I trust to get it right. We should not have to hide
our views so the idea that anonymity is a right is part of the problem
in the modern world? Part of the reason for now needing a CoC?

Thank you Lester for expressing that view. I am not really sure about
anonymous voting myself. I can understand that anonymous voting is a
good idea during the voting phase but I am strongly against
withholding the names of the voters as well as their vote after the
voting ends.

I support this idea.
It should be public after voting ends at least.

Regards,

--
Yasuo Ohgaki
yohgaki@ohgaki.net

8 years ago by Dennis Birkholz — view source

unread

Am 10.01.2016 um 11:20 schrieb Lester Caine:

The debate on Anonymous voting has been voted on already?

From my own point of view, I like to know who supports and who opposes a
particular RFC simply because I can't vote myself. It helps me to decide
if I need to look deeper into the RFC or if I can rely on those with
voting rights that I trust to get it right. We should not have to hide
our views so the idea that anonymity is a right is part of the problem
in the modern world? Part of the reason for now needing a CoC?

I would really like to understand the rational behind anonymous voting
in the PHP internals context. Votes for RFCs should be purely based on
technical reasons and whether the language change would benefit the
language in the long run or not. I see no reason why such a vote should
be confidential. If a person does not stand behind his/her opinion for a
technical change, I am not sure if that person should be allowed to
decide the future of the language. These votes are not about religious
believes, the politic attitude or something else personal. But it may be
preferable to hide the Person<->Vote table until the vote is over. That
would provide protection against harassment to win someone over and
change his/her vote.

I can understand that if an RFC came to pass to ban someone, this is no
longer a technical vote and here anonymity would be preferable IMHO.

Greets,
Dennis

8 years ago by Zeev Suraski — view source

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-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Birkholz [mailto:php@dennis.birkholz.biz]
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 3:16 PM
To: Lester Caine lester@lsces.co.uk; internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

Am 10.01.2016 um 11:20 schrieb Lester Caine:

The debate on Anonymous voting has been voted on already?

From my own point of view, I like to know who supports and who opposes
a particular RFC simply because I can't vote myself. It helps me to
decide if I need to look deeper into the RFC or if I can rely on those
with voting rights that I trust to get it right. We should not have to
hide our views so the idea that anonymity is a right is part of the
problem in the modern world? Part of the reason for now needing a CoC?

I would really like to understand the rational behind anonymous voting in the
PHP internals context. Votes for RFCs should be purely based on technical
reasons and whether the language change would benefit the language in the
long run or not. I see no reason why such a vote should be confidential. If a
person does not stand behind his/her opinion for a technical change, I am
not sure if that person should be allowed to decide the future of the
language. These votes are not about religious believes, the politic attitude or
something else personal. But it may be preferable to hide the Person<-

Vote table until the vote is over. That would provide protection against
harassment to win someone over and change his/her vote.

Much like I did not experience (what I consider) threats before, I've yet to experience harassment based on voting choices thus far (not just personally, but also never saw anybody else being harassed for their vote).

I was certainly harassed for championing certain things - but never for voting one way or the other. And I certainly didn't harass anybody myself. I certainly lobbied in some cases, but always politely and never against a person's wishes. I think that's absolutely fine. I'm pointing that out because someone reading the list in the last few days may come to think that PHP is all about threats, personal attacks and harassments, which it is not. I don't personally mind an anonymous vote on this topic.

Zeev

8 years ago by eli@eliw.com — view source

unread

I would really like to understand the rational behind anonymous voting
in the PHP internals context. Votes for RFCs should be purely based on
technical reasons and whether the language change would benefit the
language in the long run or not. I see no reason why such a vote
should be confidential.

I will chime in my quick thoughts here Dennis, as to a reason I could
see for doing so ... (Not going to argue if 'this reason is good
enough' or not. But it is a valid reason)

If a person does not stand behind his/her opinion for a technical
change, I am not sure if that person should be allowed to decide the
future of the language.

So the reason is not because someone isn't willing to 'stand behind
their opinion'. It's purely about being harassed (perhaps beleaguered
is a better terminology to not confuse this with 'illegal harassment')
for having said opinion. I was one of the people who, due to my vote on
STH, immediately started being beleaguered for holding my views and for
voting as much. My inbox/twitter/IRC/etc filled with how I was ruining
PHP and ruining people's lives. Old friendships were threatened to be
ended. And my entire week ended up becoming full of responding to these.

Instead of getting to be an informed voter, go in and cast my vote, and
await for the results to be displayed ... I become embroiled into the
arguments, back-n-forth, defense, and dealing with the beleaguering
comments.

Yes, I stood behind my opinion. But it has made me gun shy about
voting in the future on any contentious topic, because I know I need to
set aside the time to 'deal with that'. Yet those contentious topics,
are the ones where we should be encouraging as many people as possible
to vote, to make sure that we have a broad spectrum of views and that it
is the 'will of the community' as it were. And (at least in the US) is
against the idea in general of voter confidence. Where you are free to
hold your belief without needing to be slammed for it publicly.

So anyway, that's one reason. Whether it's a good reason or not is up
to others to decide.

... But it may be preferable to hide the Person<->Vote table until the
vote is over. That would provide protection against harassment to win
someone over and change his/her vote.

Unfortunately that won't stop the above situation. While it would stop
the idea of campaigning someone to change their vote (which is perhaps
another reason to do it). It just means all the above issues would be
taking place post-vote, instead of during-vote.

Eli

--
| Eli White | http://eliw.com/ | Twitter: EliW |

8 years ago by francois@php.net — view source

unread

Hi Eli,

Le 11/01/2016 15:45, Eli a écrit :

I would really like to understand the rational behind anonymous voting
in the PHP internals context. Votes for RFCs should be purely based on
technical reasons and whether the language change would benefit the
language in the long run or not. I see no reason why such a vote
should be confidential.

I will chime in my quick thoughts here Dennis, as to a reason I could
see for doing so ... (Not going to argue if 'this reason is good
enough' or not. But it is a valid reason)

If a person does not stand behind his/her opinion for a technical
change, I am not sure if that person should be allowed to decide the
future of the language.

So the reason is not because someone isn't willing to 'stand behind
their opinion'. It's purely about being harassed (perhaps beleaguered
is a better terminology to not confuse this with 'illegal harassment')
for having said opinion. I was one of the people who, due to my vote on
STH, immediately started being beleaguered for holding my views and for
voting as much. My inbox/twitter/IRC/etc filled with how I was ruining
PHP and ruining people's lives. Old friendships were threatened to be
ended. And my entire week ended up becoming full of responding to these.

Instead of getting to be an informed voter, go in and cast my vote, and
await for the results to be displayed ... I become embroiled into the
arguments, back-n-forth, defense, and dealing with the beleaguering
comments.

Yes, I stood behind my opinion. But it has made me gun shy about
voting in the future on any contentious topic, because I know I need to
set aside the time to 'deal with that'. Yet those contentious topics,
are the ones where we should be encouraging as many people as possible
to vote, to make sure that we have a broad spectrum of views and that it
is the 'will of the community' as it were. And (at least in the US) is
against the idea in general of voter confidence. Where you are free to
hold your belief without needing to be slammed for it publicly.

So anyway, that's one reason. Whether it's a good reason or not is up
to others to decide.

... But it may be preferable to hide the Person<->Vote table until the
vote is over. That would provide protection against harassment to win
someone over and change his/her vote.

Unfortunately that won't stop the above situation. While it would stop
the idea of campaigning someone to change their vote (which is perhaps
another reason to do it). It just means all the above issues would be
taking place post-vote, instead of during-vote.

Eli

That's the reason why I suggested anonymous votes once again.

On few occasions, it happened that I didn't vote on an RFC because I
didn't want the RFC author to see how I voted. That may look strange but
one may have lots of reasons not to want his vote to go public.

Sure, in an ideal world, we should stand by our decision and be ready to
defend it with pure technical arguments, whatever relationship we have
with the RFC author. Unfortunately, that's not always the case and the
STH saga proved that, at least in this case, a lot of people, like Eli,
would have felt more comfortable if votes had been anonymous. Anyway,
the course of the vote would have been very different.

I must say I don't understand why people want individual votes to be
public, even after the vote is over. The mailing list is here for
eveyone to expose arguments. IMO, the vote is a place for privacy. I
definitely don't want an RFC author to ask me why I voted against his
proposal, and I will certainly never do that on one of my RFCs. If I
have something to say, I will say it on the list. My vote is my private
decision and I don't have to justify it against anybody.

Actually, that's nothing else than the rules already applied in every
elections in democratic states. Would you approve everyone to know who
you voted for after a presidential election ? Someone said that
registers are used to keep a track of who voted. That's right but the
information is here to avoid mutiple votes and is not publicly
available. So, even the voters' names are not disclosed. I just suggest
we do the same, ensuring votes cannot be biased by non-technical
considerations.

A case that could be prevented by public votes is the RFC being
massively rejected while almost no objections were done on the ML. In
this case, we could argue that the RFC author could use the vote
information to get more information from voters. Unfortunately, that
case already happened with Stas' (great :) RFC about default class
constructor, which demonstrated that public votes are not an efficient
protection against this. IMHO, the solution to such case is not a
question of public/private vote. It is more due to the fact that many
list members don't read the RFCs before vote starts. So, the discussion
phase is almost empty and, as soon as you start the vote, everybody
wakes up and asks you to stop or change everything. It happened to me
several times and is, IMO, a real issue in our RFC process. That's
another subject but I would like the process to be amended to disable
posting opinions/discussions about an RFC while the vote is open,
considering there was enough time for that during the discussion phase.

Regards

François

8 years ago by Dennis Birkholz — view source

unread

Hi Eli,

Am 11.01.2016 um 15:45 schrieb Eli:

I would really like to understand the rational behind anonymous voting
in the PHP internals context. Votes for RFCs should be purely based on
technical reasons and whether the language change would benefit the
language in the long run or not. I see no reason why such a vote
should be confidential.

I will chime in my quick thoughts here Dennis, as to a reason I could
see for doing so ... (Not going to argue if 'this reason is good
enough' or not. But it is a valid reason)

If a person does not stand behind his/her opinion for a technical
change, I am not sure if that person should be allowed to decide the
future of the language.

So the reason is not because someone isn't willing to 'stand behind
their opinion'. It's purely about being harassed (perhaps beleaguered
is a better terminology to not confuse this with 'illegal harassment')
for having said opinion. I was one of the people who, due to my vote on
STH, immediately started being beleaguered for holding my views and for
voting as much. My inbox/twitter/IRC/etc filled with how I was ruining
PHP and ruining people's lives. Old friendships were threatened to be
ended. And my entire week ended up becoming full of responding to these.

Instead of getting to be an informed voter, go in and cast my vote, and
await for the results to be displayed ... I become embroiled into the
arguments, back-n-forth, defense, and dealing with the beleaguering
comments.

Yes, I stood behind my opinion. But it has made me gun shy about
voting in the future on any contentious topic, because I know I need to
set aside the time to 'deal with that'. Yet those contentious topics,
are the ones where we should be encouraging as many people as possible
to vote, to make sure that we have a broad spectrum of views and that it
is the 'will of the community' as it were. And (at least in the US) is
against the idea in general of voter confidence. Where you are free to
hold your belief without needing to be slammed for it publicly.

I don't think voting on an RFC is like electing your government. I would
compare it to how a House of Representatives works. And at least here in
Germany, they vote publicly except when electing people (e.g. the
Chancellor).

So anyway, that's one reason. Whether it's a good reason or not is up
to others to decide.

... But it may be preferable to hide the Person<->Vote table until the
vote is over. That would provide protection against harassment to win
someone over and change his/her vote.

Unfortunately that won't stop the above situation. While it would stop
the idea of campaigning someone to change their vote (which is perhaps
another reason to do it). It just means all the above issues would be
taking place post-vote, instead of during-vote.

I think a CoC or something similar should clearly state that this is
unacceptable behavior and we all expect that all disagreement is
expressed on the mailinglist in the discussion thread only in a
respectful way and that closed votes mark the end of such discussions
(besides actual implementation details of course).

Greets
Dennis

8 years ago by eli@eliw.com — view source

unread

I don't think voting on an RFC is like electing your government. I
would compare it to how a House of Representatives works. And at least
here in Germany, they vote publicly except when electing people (e.g.
the Chancellor).

That's a fine comparison. But there is a big difference in how a House
vote is run, and a PHP RFC vote. And that's one of time.

A vote in the House (at least in the US, and I assume it's similar in
Germany). Happens at a moment.

Discussions happen. Then a vote is called, everyone votes instantly.
Yes, the votes do become public afterwards. However there is not the
'2-3 week period' of voting that happens on a PHP RFC, wherein you vote,
and then while the vote is still up, and while you are allowed to change
your vote, everyone knows how you voted.

Which then leads into the flurry of badgering for people to change their
votes, beleaguering comments designed to help people change their vote,
and so on.

Moving to at the very least a 'anonymous votes, and anonymous results,
until after the vote is finished'. Would make it much more like a
'House' vote.

#2cents
Eli

--
| Eli White | http://eliw.com/ | Twitter: EliW |

8 years ago by Andreas Heigl — view source

unread

Am 12.01.16 um 15:06 schrieb Eli:

I don't think voting on an RFC is like electing your government. I
would compare it to how a House of Representatives works. And at least
here in Germany, they vote publicly except when electing people (e.g.
the Chancellor).

That's a fine comparison. But there is a big difference in how a House
vote is run, and a PHP RFC vote. And that's one of time.

A vote in the House (at least in the US, and I assume it's similar in
Germany). Happens at a moment.

Discussions happen. Then a vote is called, everyone votes instantly.
Yes, the votes do become public afterwards. However there is not the
'2-3 week period' of voting that happens on a PHP RFC, wherein you vote,
and then while the vote is still up, and while you are allowed to change
your vote, everyone knows how you voted.

Which then leads into the flurry of badgering for people to change their
votes, beleaguering comments designed to help people change their vote,
and so on.

Moving to at the very least a 'anonymous votes, and anonymous results,
until after the vote is finished'. Would make it much more like a
'House' vote.

#2cents
Eli

Can we please get clear on terms:

"Anonymous vote" in my eyes is a vote where no one is and will be
able to get information on who voted what. Never! Ever! The vote is and
will remain anonymous.
"Public vote" on the opposite is where everyone knows even during the
voting period who voted how. In Germany there's the so called
"Hammelsprung" where the members of the house vote by passing through
certain doors. One could influence them while queuing up for the door ;)
An "Anonymous vote during voting period" vote that is anonymous
during the voting period (so no one can be actively influenced to
changing their vote) but after the voting period is over the vote is
publicly available. So everyone knows who voted what.

Personally I'd opt for version 3 where the vote is anonymous during the
voting period only. That way no one can be actively influenced on their
vote. In my eyes that would mean that there is not even available who
voted on the RFC to keep even that anonymous whether someone voted or not.

Or did I miss something?

Cheers

Andreas

--
,,,
(o o)
+---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+
| Andreas Heigl |
| mailto:andreas@heigl.org N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |
| http://andreas.heigl.org http://hei.gl/wiFKy7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://hei.gl/root-ca |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

8 years ago by Dan Ackroyd — view source

unread

François Laupretre wrote:

I would like the process to be amended to disable posting
opinions/discussions about an RFC while the vote is open,
considering there was enough time for that during the
discussion phase.

This is not a good idea.

That won't actually make people discuss a proposal during the discussions phase.

Instead people will be voting with the conversation about the proposal
not being complete.

And then we'll be stuck with bad decisions.

Andreas Heigl wrote:

An "Anonymous vote during voting period"
That way no one can be actively influenced on their vote.

I would be against this.

There is at least one RFC where:

I voted a particular way.
Two people who saw that, asked why I voted that way.
I pointed out the sentence in the RFC that they had almost certainly misread.
They acknowledged that they had misread it, and that influenced their vote.

I agree there have been problems with people being hassled during a vote.

I don't think restricting information is the way to solve that problem.

cheers
Dan

8 years ago by francois@php.net — view source

unread

Le 12/01/2016 15:52, Dan Ackroyd a écrit :

François Laupretre wrote:

I would like the process to be amended to disable posting
opinions/discussions about an RFC while the vote is open,
considering there was enough time for that during the
discussion phase.

This is not a good idea.

That won't actually make people discuss a proposal during the discussions phase.

Instead people will be voting with the conversation about the proposal
not being complete.

And then we'll be stuck with bad decisions.

Well, it was just a suggestion. What I want to avoid is people jumping
in when vote starts and asking for fundamental changes. Each time it
happened to me, I had to stop the vote, modify the RFC, and restart the
whole process. This also caused a pair of RFC not to be included in PHP

Some of them are even abandoned because I am quite tired of such
behaviors.

I'm OK with the discussion going on during the vote but I'm looking
for a solution to a real problem.

Regards

François

8 years ago by Ferenc Kovacs — view source

unread

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 5:00 PM, François Laupretre francois@php.net
wrote:

Le 12/01/2016 15:52, Dan Ackroyd a écrit :

François Laupretre wrote:

I would like the process to be amended to disable posting

opinions/discussions about an RFC while the vote is open,
considering there was enough time for that during the
discussion phase.

This is not a good idea.

That won't actually make people discuss a proposal during the discussions
phase.

Instead people will be voting with the conversation about the proposal
not being complete.

And then we'll be stuck with bad decisions.

Well, it was just a suggestion. What I want to avoid is people jumping in
when vote starts and asking for fundamental changes. Each time it happened
to me, I had to stop the vote, modify the RFC, and restart the whole
process. This also caused a pair of RFC not to be included in PHP 7. Some
of them are even abandoned because I am quite tired of such behaviors.

I'm OK with the discussion going on during the vote but I'm looking for
a solution to a real problem.

yeah, that(discussion only seems to happen after introducing the voting
phase) is frustrating for the rfc author, but that is the last phase where
complaints can be voiced and most people have a tendency to defer stuff
until the last minute, that sucks, but not specific to our project, and
don't know what can we do about it.
some of those last minute feedback are actually useful, so if we are
looking for the best solution it i better to have those concerns to be
raised and heard even if late than ignored and voted on a flawed proposal.
I think one possible countermeasure can be to start the voting as soon as
the discussion dies down (while still keeping the minimal discussion
period) instead of waiting for more feedback arbitrarly and getting
frustrated that it only comes after one puts the rfc up for votes.

--
Ferenc Kovács
@Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu

8 years ago by francois@php.net — view source

unread

Le 12/01/2016 20:29, Ferenc Kovacs a écrit :

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 5:00 PM, François Laupretre francois@php.net
wrote:

Le 12/01/2016 15:52, Dan Ackroyd a écrit :

François Laupretre wrote:

I would like the process to be amended to disable posting

opinions/discussions about an RFC while the vote is open,
considering there was enough time for that during the
discussion phase.

This is not a good idea.

That won't actually make people discuss a proposal during the discussions
phase.

Instead people will be voting with the conversation about the proposal
not being complete.

And then we'll be stuck with bad decisions.

Well, it was just a suggestion. What I want to avoid is people jumping in
when vote starts and asking for fundamental changes. Each time it happened
to me, I had to stop the vote, modify the RFC, and restart the whole
process. This also caused a pair of RFC not to be included in PHP 7. Some
of them are even abandoned because I am quite tired of such behaviors.

I'm OK with the discussion going on during the vote but I'm looking for
a solution to a real problem.

yeah, that(discussion only seems to happen after introducing the voting
phase) is frustrating for the rfc author, but that is the last phase where
complaints can be voiced and most people have a tendency to defer stuff
until the last minute, that sucks, but not specific to our project, and
don't know what can we do about it.
some of those last minute feedback are actually useful, so if we are
looking for the best solution it i better to have those concerns to be
raised and heard even if late than ignored and voted on a flawed proposal.
I think one possible countermeasure can be to start the voting as soon as
the discussion dies down (while still keeping the minimal discussion
period) instead of waiting for more feedback arbitrarly and getting
frustrated that it only comes after one puts the rfc up for votes.

What do you think of the opposite solution : merge the discussion and
voting phases, e.g. allow voting as soon as discussion starts ? This
discussion/vote phase would be required to last at least 1 month. People
could either vote early and, maybe, change their vote if the discussion
makes them think otherwise, or wait for others' arguments. The big
difference would be that the RFC could be amended during this
discussion/voting phase. It could be a way to avoid having to restart
the whole process from the beginning.

Regards

François

8 years ago by Larry Garfield — view source

unread

yeah, that(discussion only seems to happen after introducing the voting
phase) is frustrating for the rfc author, but that is the last phase
where
complaints can be voiced and most people have a tendency to defer stuff
until the last minute, that sucks, but not specific to our project, and
don't know what can we do about it.
some of those last minute feedback are actually useful, so if we are
looking for the best solution it i better to have those concerns to be
raised and heard even if late than ignored and voted on a flawed
proposal.
I think one possible countermeasure can be to start the voting as
soon as
the discussion dies down (while still keeping the minimal discussion
period) instead of waiting for more feedback arbitrarly and getting
frustrated that it only comes after one puts the rfc up for votes.

What do you think of the opposite solution : merge the discussion and
voting phases, e.g. allow voting as soon as discussion starts ? This
discussion/vote phase would be required to last at least 1 month.
People could either vote early and, maybe, change their vote if the
discussion makes them think otherwise, or wait for others' arguments.
The big difference would be that the RFC could be amended during this
discussion/voting phase. It could be a way to avoid having to restart
the whole process from the beginning.

Regards

François

Voting should never, ever be on something that's still in flux. Voting
should be on a fixed, unmodified text so you know what you're voting
on. Otherwise, something you're in favor of in its initial form may
drift to be something else entirely that you don't like by the time the
vote period ends, but since you already voted you're not paying close
attention anymore.

Which is the other problem: Once someone votes, they'll wander off. They
won't wait to see the discussion, see if anyone has good points to raise
(pro or con), wait to see if the text changes in a way that would change
their vote (pro or con), or whatever else. Knee-jerk votes are
generally uninformed votes, which is the last thing we want.

--
--Larry Garfield

8 years ago by Zeev Suraski — view source

unread

-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Heigl [mailto:andreas@heigl.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:21 PM
To: Eli eli@eliw.com; internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

Am 12.01.16 um 15:06 schrieb Eli:

I don't think voting on an RFC is like electing your government. I
would compare it to how a House of Representatives works. And at least
here in Germany, they vote publicly except when electing people (e.g.
the Chancellor).

That's a fine comparison. But there is a big difference in how a House
vote is run, and a PHP RFC vote. And that's one of time.

A vote in the House (at least in the US, and I assume it's similar in
Germany). Happens at a moment.

Discussions happen. Then a vote is called, everyone votes instantly.
Yes, the votes do become public afterwards. However there is not the
'2-3 week period' of voting that happens on a PHP RFC, wherein you vote,
and then while the vote is still up, and while you are allowed to change
your vote, everyone knows how you voted.

Which then leads into the flurry of badgering for people to change their
votes, beleaguering comments designed to help people change their vote,
and so on.

Moving to at the very least a 'anonymous votes, and anonymous results,
until after the vote is finished'. Would make it much more like a
'House' vote.

#2cents
Eli

Can we please get clear on terms:

"Anonymous vote" in my eyes is a vote where no one is and will be
able to get information on who voted what. Never! Ever! The vote is and
will remain anonymous.

"Public vote" on the opposite is where everyone knows even during the
voting period who voted how. In Germany there's the so called
"Hammelsprung" where the members of the house vote by passing through
certain doors. One could influence them while queuing up for the door ;)

An "Anonymous vote during voting period" vote that is anonymous
during the voting period (so no one can be actively influenced to
changing their vote) but after the voting period is over the vote is
publicly available. So everyone knows who voted what.

Personally, I think we should stick with #2 except for (maybe) where there are extreme circumstances that require otherwise. Primarily along the lines of Peter's note, if people are afraid of the repercussions. And like Peter, I don't believe we're there at all.

I'm at least one of the people who talked with Eli regarding the STH vote (the one for my RFC, not Eli's). It was a ~20 message DM exchange on Twitter, very respectful (Eli - if you think otherwise, please say so), and was truly aimed at understanding the reasons for why he voted against my RFC. Yes, during that short exchange I tried to illustrate why I thought he should change it - but especially in the context of the other RFC being pushed right now, this isn't harassment and not even beleaguering comments. Personally, I think that's completely valid. It would have been also completely valid had Eli told me 'Zeev, honestly, I prefer not to discuss it. Please respect it.' or equivalent, and I can assure everyone that's exactly what I would have done. In such a case, had I went on bugging him about it, then arguably, that would constitute harassment.

The reason I think it's completely legitimate - as long as it's respectful and as long as people respect voters' requests to stop - is that in many (most?) cases, the first time you know someone is going to vote a certain way is only after they've done it. I had no idea that Eli was going to vote against my RFC, and was genuinely surprised he did, and wanted to know why - and ensure it wasn't because there was some misunderstanding on his part, or on mine.

If we compare it to public votes in politics, typically (although not always), it's pretty clear what a given politician is going to vote, as it would usually be according to party lines. When there's a contentious vote, or when a parliament member intends to vote against his party lines, it's not uncommon for them to say ahead of time how they're going to vote (e.g., the Iran vote that just went through the US Congress).

We need to separate between healthy, respectful discussion - even when there are strong disagreements - and arm twisting or harassment.

Zeev

8 years ago by eli@eliw.com — view source

unread

I'm at least one of the people who talked with Eli regarding the STH
vote (the one for my RFC, not Eli's). It was a ~20 message DM exchange
on Twitter, very respectful (Eli - if you think otherwise, please say
so), and was truly aimed at understanding the reasons for why he voted
against my RFC.

No Zeev, your discussion was pleasant and enjoyable. As you said,
people can have strong disagreements on a philosphical issue, and have
great discussions about them to understand each other's points. You
are not the conversations I'm referring to.

You didn't tell me that I was ruining PHP, you didn't tell me that I was
ruining your career, you didn't threaten to end friendships, you didn't
imply that you would blemish my career. Those were all other people.

Eli

--
| Eli White | http://eliw.com/ | Twitter: EliW |

8 years ago by Zeev Suraski — view source

unread

-----Original Message-----
From: Eli [mailto:eli@eliw.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 5:07 PM
To: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

I'm at least one of the people who talked with Eli regarding the STH
vote (the one for my RFC, not Eli's). It was a ~20 message DM exchange
on Twitter, very respectful (Eli - if you think otherwise, please say
so), and was truly aimed at understanding the reasons for why he voted
against my RFC.

No Zeev, your discussion was pleasant and enjoyable. As you said, people
can have strong disagreements on a philosphical issue, and have
great discussions about them to understand each other's points. You
are not the conversations I'm referring to.

You didn't tell me that I was ruining PHP, you didn't tell me that I was ruining
your career, you didn't threaten to end friendships, you didn't
imply that you would blemish my career. Those were all other people.

And I thought that I felt strongly about STH...

Zeev

8 years ago by Andreas Heigl — view source

unread

Am 12.01.16 um 15:53 schrieb Zeev Suraski:

-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Heigl [mailto:andreas@heigl.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 4:21 PM
To: Eli eli@eliw.com; internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

Am 12.01.16 um 15:06 schrieb Eli:

I don't think voting on an RFC is like electing your government. I
would compare it to how a House of Representatives works. And at least
here in Germany, they vote publicly except when electing people (e.g.
the Chancellor).

That's a fine comparison. But there is a big difference in how a House
vote is run, and a PHP RFC vote. And that's one of time.

A vote in the House (at least in the US, and I assume it's similar in
Germany). Happens at a moment.

Discussions happen. Then a vote is called, everyone votes instantly.
Yes, the votes do become public afterwards. However there is not the
'2-3 week period' of voting that happens on a PHP RFC, wherein you vote,
and then while the vote is still up, and while you are allowed to change
your vote, everyone knows how you voted.

Which then leads into the flurry of badgering for people to change their
votes, beleaguering comments designed to help people change their vote,
and so on.

Moving to at the very least a 'anonymous votes, and anonymous results,
until after the vote is finished'. Would make it much more like a
'House' vote.

#2cents
Eli

Can we please get clear on terms:

"Anonymous vote" in my eyes is a vote where no one is and will be
able to get information on who voted what. Never! Ever! The vote is and
will remain anonymous.

"Public vote" on the opposite is where everyone knows even during the
voting period who voted how. In Germany there's the so called
"Hammelsprung" where the members of the house vote by passing through
certain doors. One could influence them while queuing up for the door ;)

An "Anonymous vote during voting period" vote that is anonymous
during the voting period (so no one can be actively influenced to
changing their vote) but after the voting period is over the vote is
publicly available. So everyone knows who voted what.

Personally, I think we should stick with #2 except for (maybe) where there are extreme circumstances that require otherwise. Primarily along the lines of Peter's note, if people are afraid of the repercussions. And like Peter, I don't believe we're there at all.

Personally I see it like that as well. But if we allow some kind of
otherwise voting, which kind of otherwise voting will we be using? And
under what circumstances will we be using this otherwise voting? what
are those "extreme circumstances"? Who defines them? Will they be on
CoC-Topics only? Or might they become available on language-topics as well?

I know those are provocative questions, but I think we have to answer
them for ourselfes before we should go on.

Those are not about already happened strong disagreements or threats and
it's not about trying to make past happenings harmless!

We need to separate between healthy, respectful discussion - even when there are strong disagreements - and arm twisting or harassment.

And that's where this connection again connects to the CoC-Discussion.
Where does one end and the other start. It's a very personal point and
as soon as someone feels arm twisted or harassed we've all lost.
Therefore I think we should have a process that allows us to have votes
as safe as possible but as documented as necessary.

And the way to getting there needs to be as well documented as possible
as well to not get into any trouble in the end.

My 0.02€

Cheers

Andreas

--
,,,
(o o)
+---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+
| Andreas Heigl |
| mailto:andreas@heigl.org N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |
| http://andreas.heigl.org http://hei.gl/wiFKy7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://hei.gl/root-ca |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

8 years ago by Zeev Suraski — view source

unread

-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Heigl [mailto:andreas@heigl.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 5:34 PM
To: Zeev Suraski zeev@zend.com; Eli eli@eliw.com
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

Am 12.01.16 um 15:53 schrieb Zeev Suraski:

Can we please get clear on terms:

"Anonymous vote" in my eyes is a vote where no one is and will be
able to get information on who voted what. Never! Ever! The vote is and
will remain anonymous.

"Public vote" on the opposite is where everyone knows even during
the
voting period who voted how. In Germany there's the so called
"Hammelsprung" where the members of the house vote by passing
through
certain doors. One could influence them while queuing up for the door ;)

An "Anonymous vote during voting period" vote that is anonymous
during the voting period (so no one can be actively influenced to
changing their vote) but after the voting period is over the vote is
publicly available. So everyone knows who voted what.

Personally, I think we should stick with #2 except for (maybe) where there
are extreme circumstances that require otherwise. Primarily along the lines
of Peter's note, if people are afraid of the repercussions. And like Peter, I
don't believe we're there at all.

Personally I see it like that as well. But if we allow some kind of
otherwise voting, which kind of otherwise voting will we be using? And
under what circumstances will we be using this otherwise voting? what
are those "extreme circumstances"? Who defines them? Will they be on
CoC-Topics only? Or might they become available on language-topics as well?

Thinking out loud - probably votes that the current RFC process was never intended to handle. Like the current (or other) CoC RFC, and perhaps changes to the RFC process. I think that whether we need anonymous voting or not is just a part of the question. I don't think it makes sense for something 'constitional' like that to use the same rules that were designed to handle language features and administrative decisions like timelines. That is, by the way, exactly what I mean when I say that once systems are in place - they get used, including in ways that those that put them in place certainly did not predict or intend to.

One of the challenges we had when we instated the Voting RFC, is that there was no process for this 'bootstrapping'. We're in the same situation now, as we do not have a process for instating a part of a 'constitution'.

Before the RFC process, we used to be in a situation where for every proposal, big, medium or small, we strived for consensus and only if & when we were close enough to consensus (on internals) - we went ahead with the idea. Using that approach, we put the RFC process to a vote, and we didn't even have clear guidelines as to what would constitute a 'pass'. That RFC - clearly a big one - passed with 92% in favor - 36 to 3, and I think it's fair to describe it as 'close enough to consensus'. I strongly believe we need something similar for a CoC (whether it's the current one on the table or another one). If we did - it would inherently push authors to ensure that they're reaching near-consensus state before moving to a vote, which is the antithesis to the current situation. If & when we had such a proposal on the table, it would make the whole issue on whether or not the vote is public or anonymous irrelevant.

Zeev

I was hoping that the CoC would evolve into something that's a lot less divisive, but as of now, that doesn't seem to be the case. I don't

8 years ago by Peter Petermann — view source

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Discussions happen. Then a vote is called, everyone votes instantly.
Yes, the votes do become public afterwards. However there is not the
'2-3 week period' of voting that happens on a PHP RFC, wherein you vote,
and then while the vote is still up, and while you are allowed to change
your vote, everyone knows how you voted.

Which then leads into the flurry of badgering for people to change their
votes, beleaguering comments designed to help people change their vote,
and so on.

it leads into people participating, and actively engaging in discussion
making concious decisions, rather than blindly giving a vote and ignoring
the rest of the world.

Its a positive thing if people discuss (and are able to change) during the
voting period, I don't see why we would want to get rid of this.

regards,
PP

Peter Petermann
ProtonMail: ppetermann@protonmail.com (encrypted / based in .ch)
Email: ppetermann80@gmail.com - get my public PGP key from SKS Keyservers
PGP Key:
http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0E6DBD675836A5C7

8 years ago by Andreas Heigl — view source

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Am 12.01.16 um 15:56 schrieb Peter Petermann:

Discussions happen. Then a vote is called, everyone votes instantly.
Yes, the votes do become public afterwards. However there is not the
'2-3 week period' of voting that happens on a PHP RFC, wherein you vote,
and then while the vote is still up, and while you are allowed to change
your vote, everyone knows how you voted.

Which then leads into the flurry of badgering for people to change their
votes, beleaguering comments designed to help people change their vote,
and so on.

it leads into people participating, and actively engaging in discussion
making concious decisions, rather than blindly giving a vote and ignoring
the rest of the world.

Its a positive thing if people discuss (and are able to change) during the
voting period, I don't see why we would want to get rid of this.

I (and many others as far as I know) don't think we should get rid of
that possibility. But as far as I understood it it's all about being
able to hide votes, not defaulting to anonymising votes.

During the CoC-Discussion the idea came up to vote certain CoC-issues
(call them whatever you like) in a more secure way so that no one sould
be able to bully someone into an - for him or her - inappropriate
decission. One way to do so could be a somehow anonymised vote.

So I think we have to distinguish between technical votes on what way
the language itself develops (which should always be open and as
transparent as possible) and non-technical votes (which can be very
personal and should therefore respect the privacy of the voter).

Cheers

Andreas

                                                          ,,,
                                                         (o o)

+---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+
| Andreas Heigl |
| mailto:andreas@heigl.org N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |
| http://andreas.heigl.org http://hei.gl/wiFKy7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://hei.gl/root-ca |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

8 years ago by Sascha Schumann — view source

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During the CoC-Discussion the idea came up to vote certain CoC-issues
(call them whatever you like) in a more secure way so that no one sould
be able to bully someone into an - for him or her - inappropriate
decission. One way to do so could be a somehow anonymised vote.

Is discussing things openly considered 'bullying'?

So I think we have to distinguish between technical votes on what way
the language itself develops (which should always be open and as
transparent as possible) and non-technical votes (which can be very
personal and should therefore respect the privacy of the voter).

As this concerns the future of the community, the vote should definitely be
public, and not secret.

Sascha

8 years ago by Andreas Heigl — view source

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Am 12.01.16 um 16:45 schrieb Sascha Schumann:

During the CoC-Discussion the idea came up to vote certain CoC-issues
(call them whatever you like) in a more secure way so that no one sould
be able to bully someone into an - for him or her - inappropriate
decission. One way to do so could be a somehow anonymised vote.

Is discussing things openly considered 'bullying'?

It should not. But it seems that sometimes people have different
understandings of what is appropriate.

So I think we have to distinguish between technical votes on what way
the language itself develops (which should always be open and as
transparent as possible) and non-technical votes (which can be very
personal and should therefore respect the privacy of the voter).

As this concerns the future of the community, the vote should definitely be
public, and not secret.

Definitely!!! And that requires an RFC that - at least in my eyes -
needs a 2/3rd(+1) majority to be accepted because it concerns the
future of the community!

Cheers

Andreas

                                                          ,,,
                                                         (o o)

+---------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-+
| Andreas Heigl |
| mailto:andreas@heigl.org N 50°22'59.5" E 08°23'58" |
| http://andreas.heigl.org http://hei.gl/wiFKy7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://hei.gl/root-ca |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

8 years ago by Zeev Suraski — view source

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-----Original Message-----
From: Stanislav Malyshev [mailto:smalyshev@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 12:00 AM
To: Andrea Faulds ajf@ajf.me; internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know

This is intentional. Otherwise by taking snapshots of the page at regular
periods and seeing who voted and how the totals changed, one can deduce
each personal vote.

I have no idea if it's related, but is there any chance the patch caused some older votes to be broken - at least in how they're displayed?
Case in point:
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/voting/vote

Zeev

8 years ago by Peter Cowburn — view source

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-----Original Message-----
From: Stanislav Malyshev [mailto:smalyshev@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 12:00 AM
To: Andrea Faulds ajf@ajf.me; internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Anonymous voting on wiki

Hi!

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who

I think we talked about it, and decided not to do it. Anything changed?

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know

This is intentional. Otherwise by taking snapshots of the page at regular
periods and seeing who voted and how the totals changed, one can deduce
each personal vote.

I have no idea if it's related, but is there any chance the patch caused
some older votes to be broken - at least in how they're displayed?
Case in point:
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/voting/vote

The patch for this PR has not been merged, so no.

The linked page has been like that since April '14 and likely for some time
before then:
http://web.archive.org/web/20140411014209/https://wiki.php.net/rfc/voting/vote

Zeev

8 years ago by Christoph Becker — view source

unread

Peter Cowburn wrote:

I have no idea if it's related, but is there any chance the patch caused
some older votes to be broken - at least in how they're displayed?
Case in point:
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/voting/vote

The patch for this PR has not been merged, so no.

The linked page has been like that since April '14 and likely for some time
before then:
http://web.archive.org/web/20140411014209/https://wiki.php.net/rfc/voting/vote

Hannes had made available a copy of the Wiki data in March 2015, and in
this copy the respective file (dokuwiki/data/meta/rfc/voting.doodle)
contains only the info that is displayed. So apparently, this is a
data, not a display issue.

Are there old backups available, so the file could be restored?

--
Christoph M. Becker

8 years ago by Derick Rethans — view source

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Hi Stas,

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Since in CoC discussion it was mentioned we may need anonymous
voting, I've created a patch that allows anonymous polls to be
created:

https://github.com/php/web-wiki/pull/7

The results still recorded per user, but everybody can see just
their own vote (for logged in users) and total summary. People with
shell access to the server will be able to see the votes,
unfortunately I don't see how to avoid that without serious rewrite.
Also, once the poll is created as anonymous it can't be turned into
non-anonymous without resetting the results or manual admin action.

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on
wiki.php.net.

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who voted which way means you can ask them what their objections were.

I have gotten these question in the past, and I think it's important to
be able to be asked why you made a specific choice.

Though, anonymous voting would mean no potential for harassing people
for the way they voted (though they're not necessarily free of
harassment for their opinion - many people make theirs public anyway).

I do think that for normal RFCs, voting should not be anonymous.

However, if we go that way, I find it important that once voting is
closed, the votes are always shown (for normal RFCs) - even if chose to
make normal RFC voting anonymous.

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know
who participated in the vote, even if we don't know which way they
voted.

I disagree, I think it is important to know who voted for what in the
end. Some accountability is good.

cheers,
Derick

--
http://derickrethans.nl | http://xdebug.org
Like Xdebug? Consider a donation: http://xdebug.org/donate.php
twitter: @derickr and @xdebug
Posted with an email client that doesn't mangle email: alpine

8 years ago by Ferenc Kovacs — view source

unread

Hi Stas,

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Since in CoC discussion it was mentioned we may need anonymous
voting, I've created a patch that allows anonymous polls to be
created:

https://github.com/php/web-wiki/pull/7

The results still recorded per user, but everybody can see just
their own vote (for logged in users) and total summary. People with
shell access to the server will be able to see the votes,
unfortunately I don't see how to avoid that without serious rewrite.
Also, once the poll is created as anonymous it can't be turned into
non-anonymous without resetting the results or manual admin action.

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on
wiki.php.net.

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who voted which way means you can ask them what their objections were.

I have gotten these question in the past, and I think it's important to
be able to be asked why you made a specific choice.

Though, anonymous voting would mean no potential for harassing people
for the way they voted (though they're not necessarily free of
harassment for their opinion - many people make theirs public anyway).

I do think that for normal RFCs, voting should not be anonymous.

However, if we go that way, I find it important that once voting is
closed, the votes are always shown (for normal RFCs) - even if chose to
make normal RFC voting anonymous.

One concern I have with the patch is that it doesn't appear (by my
reading of the code) to show who voted. I think it's important to know
who participated in the vote, even if we don't know which way they
voted.

I disagree, I think it is important to know who voted for what in the
end. Some accountability is good.

agree, otherwise it will be very hard/impossible to notice if/when somebody
borks/manipulates the votes.

--
Ferenc Kovács
@Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu

8 years ago by Peter Petermann — view source

unread

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who voted which way means you can ask them what their objections were.
I have gotten these question in the past, and I think it's important to
be able to be asked why you made a specific choice.

This. If someone votes he/she should be willing to stand for their vote -
and should be approachable to talk about it.

secret voting is only necessary if there needs to be fear of repercussion,
and i refuse to believe that we are at that point.

I disagree, I think it is important to know who voted for what in the
end. Some accountability is good.

That. times two.

regards,
PP

Peter Petermann
ProtonMail: ppetermann@protonmail.com (encrypted / based in .ch)
Email: ppetermann80@gmail.com - get my public PGP key from SKS Keyservers
PGP Key:
http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0E6DBD675836A5C7

8 years ago by Sascha Schumann — view source

unread

This seems useful. I do wonder whether we should use by default for
RFCs. It's interesting to see how different people vote, and knowing
who voted which way means you can ask them what their objections were.
I have gotten these question in the past, and I think it's important to
be able to be asked why you made a specific choice.

This. If someone votes he/she should be willing to stand for their vote -
and should be approachable to talk about it.

secret voting is only necessary if there needs to be fear of repercussion,
and i refuse to believe that we are at that point.

Agreed.

Who/what are people really afraid of?

Sascha

Anonymous voting on wiki

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on wiki.php.net.

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on wiki.php.net.

Thanks for writing a patch!

Thanks!

When voting on behavioral matters, however, it is different, since the pattern of bad conduct is at least alleged by the very nature of the matter in question. So there the benefits of anonymous vote outweigh the issues, I think.

Cheers,

-- Lester Caine - G8HFL

regards, PP

Andreas

Andreas

regards, PP

Please review/comment. Is it's good, I propose to deploy it on
wiki.php.net.

When voting on behavioral matters, however, it is different, since the
pattern of bad conduct is at least alleged by the very nature of the
matter in question. So there the benefits of anonymous vote outweigh the
issues, I think.

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL

regards,
PP

regards,
PP