Image filter referendum/Results/en - Meta-Wiki

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Image filter referendum
Results
The referendum ended 30 August 2011. No more votes will be accepted.
The
results were announced
on 3 September 2011.
In other languages:
العربية
(ar)
беларуская
(be)
български
(bg)
català
(ca)
čeština
(cs)
(de)
(en)
(es)
eesti
(et)
فارسی
(fa)
suomi
(fi)
(fr)
עברית
(he)
हिन्दी
(hi)
hrvatski
(hr)
magyar
(hu)
Bahasa Indonesia
(id)
italiano
(it)
(ja)
Jawa
(jv)
한국어
(ko)
kurdî
(ku)
Lëtzebuergesch
(lb)
नेपाली
(ne)
Nederlands
(nl)
norsk
(no)
polski
(pl)
português
(pt)
română
(ro)
русский
(ru)
සිංහල
(si)
srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
(sh)
svenska
(sv)
తెలుగు
(te)
Türkçe
(tr)
українська
(uk)
Tiếng Việt
(vi)
粵語
(yue)
中文（简体）
(zh-hans)
中文（繁體）
(zh-hant)
தமிழ்
(ta)
edit
Image filter referendum
Vote
Discuss
Introduction and rules
Frequently asked questions
Results
Next steps
Executive Director's Report to the Board
Organization
Committee
Translation
Announcement
E-mail
Introduction
edit
The election committee for the personal image filter plebiscite publishes and distributes this preliminary and interim report, and will publish a full report once final analysis is done. The data for this analysis was provided by
Software in the Public Interest
, a neutral and trusted third party, who held the secure keys for encryption and did not decrypt the results until the conclusion of the election. The totals shown here were certified by Michael Schultheiss, who serves as the treasurer of Software in the Public Interest.
The committee thanks Michael Schultheiss of SPI for his diligent and timely assistance, and Andrew Garrett of WMF for his technical assistance and expertise.
Results
edit
There were 24,146 votes cast, making this the largest exercise of its type for the Wikimedia Foundation. Of those, 123 votes were struck by the committee, including three test votes by committee members, leaving 24,023 votes accepted. The votes that were struck were disallowed due to confirmed instances of either intentional or accidental double voting. The voting total does not include ballots automatically cancelled when users revisited their votes.
There were two sections to this ballot: the first a series of six statements asking that voters rate their level of agreement with the statement on a scale of 0–10 (10 means strong support), and the second a free text comment field. The two sections were analyzed separately and are discussed below.
Numerical results
edit
For the first question:
Important to offer this feature.
It is important for the Wikimedia projects to offer this feature to readers.
Total ?
Total 0
Total 1
Total 2
Total 3
Total 4
Total 5
Total 6
Total 7
Total 8
Total 9
Total 10
Votes
Votes with a preference
Average of those with a preference
Median
269
3763
790
1163
978
715
2819
1800
2670
2957
1308
4791
24023
23754
5.7
1.12 %
15.66 %
3.29 %
4.84 %
4.07 %
2.98 %
11.73 %
7.49 %
11.11 %
12.31 %
5.44 %
19.94 %
Logged in and logged out.
It is important that the feature be usable by both logged-in and logged-out readers.
Total ?
Total 0
Total 1
Total 2
Total 3
Total 4
Total 5
Total 6
Total 7
Total 8
Total 9
Total 10
Votes
Votes with a preference
Average of those with a preference
Median
627
3394
630
852
715
572
2393
1115
1921
2682
1947
7175
24023
23396
6.4
2.61 %
14.13 %
2.62 %
3.55 %
2.98 %
2.38 %
9.96 %
4.64 %
8.00 %
11.16 %
8.10 %
29.87 %
User flags images.
It is important that individuals be able to report or flag images that they see as controversial, that have not yet been categorized as such.
Total ?
Total 0
Total 1
Total 2
Total 3
Total 4
Total 5
Total 6
Total 7
Total 8
Total 9
Total 10
Votes
Votes with a preference
Average of those with a preference
Median
614
2809
617
829
684
697
2159
1790
2602
3405
2137
5680
24023
23409
6.4
2.56 %
11.69 %
2.57 %
3.45 %
2.85 %
2.90 %
8.99 %
7.45 %
10.83 %
14.17 %
8.90 %
23.64 %
Culturally neutral.
It is important that the feature be culturally neutral
as much as possible, it should aim to reflect a global or multicultural view of what imagery is potentially controversial.
Total ?
Total 0
Total 1
Total 2
Total 3
Total 4
Total 5
Total 6
Total 7
Total 8
Total 9
Total 10
Votes
Votes with a preference
Average of those with a preference
Median
1399
2048
350
466
394
507
2134
895
1441
2271
2116
10002
24023
22624
7.4
5.82 %
8.53 %
1.46 %
1.94 %
1.64 %
2.11 %
8.88 %
3.73 %
6.00 %
9.45 %
8.81 %
41.64 %
Reversible.
It is important that hiding be reversible
readers should be supported if they decide to change their minds.
Total ?
Total 0
Total 1
Total 2
Total 3
Total 4
Total 5
Total 6
Total 7
Total 8
Total 9
Total 10
Votes
Votes with a preference
Average of those with a preference
Median
471
548
40
63
61
70
433
253
551
1383
1812
18338
24023
23552
9.3
10
1.96 %
2.28 %
0.17 %
0.26 %
0.25 %
0.29 %
1.80 %
1.05 %
2.29 %
5.76 %
7.54 %
76.34 %
Ease of choice.
It is important that the feature allow readers to quickly and easily choose which types of images they want to hide (e.g., 5-10 categories), so that people could choose for example to hide sexual imagery but not violent imagery.
Total ?
Total 0
Total 1
Total 2
Total 3
Total 4
Total 5
Total 6
Total 7
Total 8
Total 9
Total 10
Votes
Votes with a preference
Average of those with a preference
Median
595
2193
359
442
407
434
1804
1260
2399
3662
2890
7578
24023
23428
7.2
2.48 %
9.13 %
1.49 %
1.84 %
1.69 %
1.81 %
7.51 %
5.24 %
9.99 %
15.24 %
12.03 %
31.54 %
Analysis
edit
Of those who expressed a preference in their votes (that is, they voted anything other than “not enough information”), the community expressed the overwhelming desire that the hiding feature be reversible (median 10), strong support for the suggestion that readers could easily and quickly choose categories (median 8), that the feature be culturally neutral (median 9), and that both logged in and logged out users have access to the feature (median 8). Voters expressed slightly less support for the notion that readers could flag images (median 7). Support for reversible hiding was completely clear, while the other vote distributions were bimodal to varying degrees, most notably for overall importance.
With regard to the assessment of the importance of the filter by respondents, some further analysis was done. The average vote on this question (among those who held an opinion) was 5.74, and the median vote was 6, indicating that a greater number of respondents considered this to be important than unimportant, though the difference is not overwhelming. Of the 8554 voters (36.0% of the total 23754) who rated this either a 10 or a 0, 4791 voters (56.0%) rated it a “10” and 3763 votes (44.0%) rated it a “0”.
A further analysis of the responses to the “importance” question, comparing votes at the extremes of the spectrum, working towards the middle, revealed the following results:
Selected results
Total
"10"
"0"
Votes
4791 (56.0 %)
3763 (44.0 %)
8554
"10 + 9"
"0 + 1"
Votes
6099 (57.2 %)
4553 (42.8 %)
10652
"10 + 9 + 8"
"0 + 1 + 2"
Votes
9056 (61.3 %)
5716 (38.7 %)
14772
"10 + 9 + 8 + 7"
"0 + 1 + 2 + 3"
Votes
11726 (63.6 %)
6694 (36.4 %)
18420
"10 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6"
"0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4"
Votes
13526 (64.6 %)
7409 (35.4 %)
20935
The committee also notes the significant number of “0” votes cast for all but one question (ranging from 9% to 16%), which suggests the presence of a sizable number of voters who wished to express their opposition to the basic idea of the image hiding feature. This voting pattern coincides with the anecdotal evidence of both the comments to the Meta page on the feature and the sampled comments of the plebiscite itself.
Results of the comments section
edit
A total of 6956 users added free text comments to their votes (29% of all voters). Of these, a representative sample of 1298 comments (19%) underwent a preliminary review in order to gauge and analyze the tone and content of the comment. The remaining comments will continue to be analyzed by the committee. In addition, word frequency charts were run on the full set of comments.
Methodological note: the sample to be analyzed was created by numbering the comments sequentially in the order in which they were received and then generating a list of random numbers from atmospheric noise using
. The numbers generated by the randomization process were matched to comment numbers and those comments were analyzed. Translations were obtained by asking native or high fluency speakers for translations. Initial issues with importing unicode characters were resolved in time to include some of those comments in analysis. Because multiple evaluators participated in the review process, a small set of comments was evaluated several times by multiple people to ensure consistency in rating. That set was removed prior to reporting these numbers.
Referendum comments wordcloud
141 words were used more than 500 times in the full set of comments. Below is a table showing most frequent word use and count. Note that differences using modifiers such as “not” were analyzed as well. For instance, the word “controversial” appears 1143 times in the comments, with 19 instances of “non-controversial”, 11 instances of “uncontroversial”, 2 of “noncontroversial”, 1 of “not-controversial”, 1 of “not-so-controversial”, and 7 of “not controversial”. These numbers are representative of other modifiers sampled. These modifiers make up a small but significant percent of the words and should be evaluated more fully for the committee’s final report.
The committee was heartened to see that many non-English words were represented in the table of most frequently used words.
Tone
Of the 1298 comment samples rated for tone, 387 (29.82%) had a positive tone, 376 (28.97%) had a neutral tone, and 535 (41.22%) had a negative tone.
The committee was interested in a particular subset of those who used a positive tone in their comments, in particular whether the commenter made reference to whether they personally intended to use the image filter or whether they believed it was a valuable tool for others. Of that set of “positive tone” comments, 32 (18% of the subset, 2.05% of the full set) made reference to the tool as though it would be of use to the respondent personally. Another 143 (82% of the subset, 9.16% of the full set) referenced the tool as though it would be of use to others.
Comments were also reviewed to identify references to voting problems or issues with the design of the voting process/plebiscite. There were 2 references (0.13%) to voting problems in the reviewed set, and 45 (2.88%) references to concerns with the referendum process itself.
The reviewers further looked for comments that provided particular input as to implementation details, such as suggestions for categorization schemes or other ideas to be provided to the design team. There were 389 such comments in the comment set that was analyzed (24.92%).
In the context of analysis of the comments, one trend emerged very clearly: the negative comments more frequently mentioned objections on a philosophical basis, while positive comments more frequently mentioned practical concerns.
Discussion
edit
The committee is pleased overall with the use of the free text comment field. Although text-based comments provide a challenge for evaluative purposes, the value gained from this field in informing the design process is substantial. The committee wishes to also clearly state that it is fully committed to reading and evaluating every comment, and design/implementation suggestions will be anonymized and passed on to the design team.
Some comments include personally identifiable data, so the committee regrets to advise that a full dump can not be released at this time. It is our hope that a more full and scholarly analysis can be done at a later date.
What comes next?
edit
The numeric results detailing responses to the six statements are now complete and will not be amended in future reports.
The committee will continue to review and analyze the free-text comments, and will issue a final report once this task is complete.
For the Personal Image Filter Referendum Committee,
Risker
01:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
reply
Appendix 1
edit
Table of word frequency
Word
Occurences
the
16335
to
15770
10
12434
10437
of
9791
8908
be
8825
is
8400
and
6977
6971
that
6757
it
6275
6139
this
5851
in
5756
for
5378
not
5176
images
4274
as
3660
should
3613
or
3484
3253
on
2986
if
2973
would
2688
an
2663
2583
de
2533
wikipedia
2523
will
2414
are
2397
2389
2305
by
2279
image
2190
feature
2155
but
2143
have
2133
with
2081
they
1748
people
1690
users
1678
can
1652
1572
think
1572
see
1539
all
1500
what
1491
filter
1476
que
1462
content
1462
Word
Occurences
you
1454
do
1376
some
1323
there
1321
1315
such
1314
no
1309
la
1288
from
1268
so
1249
their
1203
1200
any
1166
its
1161
important
1157
controversial
1143
-1
1132
like
1130
censorship
1127
which
1091
could
1085
dont
1083
about
1083
die
1051
who
1029
more
1027
we
1017
may
1015
at
1013
want
1012
user
987
only
986
also
972
one
967
934
me
902
my
891
very
885
en
879
categories
874
es
868
idea
865
neutral
865
wikimedia
817
other
806
im
800
use
793
781
779
pictures
773
them
771
Word
Occurences
hide
763
les
736
offensive
724
even
721
good
720
view
720
way
717
because
683
make
681
information
674
665
am
664
just
652
un
651
culturally
648
cultural
647
nicht
645
des
644
might
644
example
639
then
633
than
628
626
has
616
default
603
und
601
those
596
possible
595
children
593
der
592
ich
590
able
578
being
577
sexual
577
le
576
571
how
568
553
must
551
ist
547
when
534
533
filtering
533
wiki
524
520
question
519
without
510
pas
510
certain
503
option
502
500
Appendix 2
edit
Vote results by project
language
project
votes
avg_age_days
avg_age_years
q1votes
q1avg
q2votes
q2avg
q3votes
q3avg
q4votes
q4avg
q5votes
q5avg
q6votes
q6avg
en
wikipedia
9245
1632.84
4.47
9176
5.89
9056
6.43
9091
6.38
8810
7.27
9090
9.35
9077
7.27
meta
wikipedia
381
1175.94
3.22
376
5.51
373
6.06
370
6.02
365
7.22
376
8.83
368
6.95
ja
wikipedia
313
1197.4
3.28
308
7.76
308
7.48
303
7.5
303
8.4
310
9.24
309
8.56
ru
wikipedia
1627
1004.81
2.75
1591
6.46
1587
6.96
1583
7.38
1535
1600
9.49
1592
7.87
de
wikipedia
3923
1326.99
3.63
3863
4.22
3787
5.49
3781
5.35
3573
7.21
3824
9.42
3772
6.24
zh
wikipedia
316
1102.78
3.02
309
7.69
308
7.32
308
8.08
307
8.47
310
9.36
308
8.16
fr
wikipedia
2441
1215.31
3.33
2411
5.73
2341
6.88
2374
6.44
2281
7.97
2385
8.84
2384
7.21
ar
wikipedia
94
1002.58
2.74
94
8.17
94
7.89
91
7.68
90
7.29
94
9.02
89
8.64
commons
commons
220
1147.81
3.14
220
5.31
216
6.04
215
5.67
207
7.3
216
9.34
215
6.73
es
wikipedia
1278
1173.2
3.21
1260
6.44
1235
6.47
1233
6.6
1218
8.11
1250
9.39
1247
7.65
vi
wikipedia
28
798.91
2.19
27
7.11
24
25
8.4
27
7.7
25
8.84
23
8.43
en
wikibooks
30
917
2.51
29
6.41
30
6.8
30
6.77
27
7.04
30
8.9
30
7.17
ca
wikipedia
86
1197.43
3.28
84
6.29
85
7.25
84
5.96
80
7.61
85
9.13
84
7.37
nl
wikipedia
695
1272.32
3.48
689
5.24
684
6.12
680
6.38
665
7.03
677
9.17
679
6.77
ko
wikipedia
118
933.23
2.56
117
7.81
114
7.64
113
7.46
113
8.5
117
9.36
115
8.16
it
wikipedia
779
1274.01
3.49
778
5.96
763
6.61
762
7.96
737
8.14
767
9.44
760
7.59
id
wikipedia
49
980.52
2.68
49
8.04
48
7.42
48
7.77
47
8.53
48
49
7.88
pl
wikipedia
642
1284.17
3.52
631
5.8
622
6.31
623
6.91
602
6.86
634
9.19
622
7.34
no
wikipedia
93
1350.91
3.7
91
5.49
91
6.51
91
6.85
90
7.28
91
8.96
91
7.02
hu
wikipedia
108
1201.16
3.29
107
6.6
105
7.16
100
6.14
98
6.84
106
8.88
105
8.02
he
wikipedia
171
1098.57
3.01
170
7.27
169
7.58
166
7.1
153
6.48
163
8.94
163
7.8
fa
wikipedia
65
953.01
2.61
64
7.56
65
7.4
64
7.2
64
7.22
64
8.98
64
8.25
bg
wikipedia
21
1212.47
3.32
21
5.1
21
5.57
21
6.52
21
6.57
20
9.7
21
6.95
uk
wikipedia
108
915.94
2.51
107
6.81
106
5.91
107
7.07
101
6.99
108
8.99
107
7.66
et
wikipedia
21
1114.1
3.05
21
3.38
20
5.4
19
4.63
18
5.5
21
8.62
20
6.3
fi
wikipedia
62
1347.23
3.69
62
5.06
60
5.8
62
6.23
60
7.83
61
9.66
61
pt
wikipedia
226
1179.38
3.23
224
6.9
225
6.56
211
7.19
209
8.33
222
9.6
224
8.11
sv
wikipedia
147
1288.26
3.53
146
3.34
140
5.34
141
4.93
136
7.76
143
9.36
140
5.88
mediawiki
mediawiki
28
998.87
2.73
28
5.29
28
6.36
28
6.64
26
7.46
27
8.59
27
7.52
da
wikipedia
34
1359.06
3.72
34
3.47
33
33
4.39
33
7.21
33
8.64
33
5.79
en
wiktionary
38
1037.41
2.84
37
5.89
37
7.49
36
6.39
33
6.36
35
9.6
35
7.74
ro
wikipedia
25
1297.14
3.55
25
4.84
25
24
6.5
24
5.75
24
9.17
25
6.68
tr
wikipedia
43
1201.11
3.29
43
6.93
42
7.38
40
7.2
38
8.58
41
8.9
40
8.55
cs
wikipedia
142
1297.05
3.55
140
4.69
141
6.06
138
6.29
136
6.67
139
9.71
137
7.32
consolidated
multiple
426
1005.31
2.75
422
6.41
413
6.7
414
6.69
397
7.78
416
9.35
412
7.57
Note: All votes from projects which had a total vote count of less than 20 were folded into the 'consolidated projects' line item in the table above to protect the confidentiality of votes. Those projects include: ptwikisource; simplewiki; tewiki; enwikisource; sawiki; dawikisource; cywiki; cuwiki; frwikisource; specieswiki; mlwiki; itwikisource; gawiki; frwikibooks; gvwiki; ltwiki; bswiki; sqwikinews; lvwiki; orwiki; ndswiki; dewiktionary; ocwiki; swwiki; nlwikibooks; frwikinews; srwiki; incubatorwiki; slwiki; eowiki; enwikinews; dewikinews; be_x_oldwiki; simplewiktionary; lawiki; itwikiquote; hewikisource; tawiki; viwikisource; elwiki; knwiki; ptwikibooks; ttwiki; svwikisource; oswiki; hrwiki; hewikibooks; kuwiki; frwikiversity; ruwiktionary; svwiktionary; mkwiki; mswiki; eswiktionary; suwiki; frwiktionary; angwiki; enwikiversity; iawiki; enwikiquote; mtwiki; afwiktionary; ptwiktionary; plwiktionary; alswiki; kshwiki; skwiki; hewiktionary; nds_nlwiki; ckbwiki; dewikiversity; ruwikisource; cswiktionary; cawikisource; nnwiki; dewikibooks; iswiktionary; iswiki; gawiktionary; kawiki; fiwiktionary; pflwiki; hiwiki; hywiki; frwikiquote; glwiki; lmowiki; huwikisource; bewiki; lbwiki; elwikiversity; itwiktionary; svwikinews; shwiki; eowikibooks; thwiki; zhwikisource; bnwiki; lnwiki; eswikibooks; huwiktionary; viwiktionary; elwikisource; tlwiki; emlwiki; kywiki; klwiki; ladwiki; ruwikibooks; anwiki; svwikibooks; itwikibooks; ptwikinews; roa_tarawiki; arzwiki; barwiki; bgwiktionary; sowiki; afwiki; nowiktionary; huwikiquote; frrwiki; astwiki; dewikisource; lvwiktionary; zhwikiquote; betawikiversity; itwikiversity; acewiki; kywikiquote; yiwiki; vecwiki; sahwiki; cawikibooks; siwiki; aswiki; zh_yuewiki; cawiktionary; bgwikisource; kmwiki; bgwikiquote; euwiki
Appendix 3
edit
Average vote on Q1 by age of account
Age of account
Average vote
% of votes represented
90 days or less
6.645614035
1%
91 - 180 days
6.32183908
2%
181 days to 1 year
6.372141372
5%
1 - 2 years
6.223976109
11%
2 - 3 years
6.081090407
14%
3 - 4 years
5.844198175
15%
4 - 5 years
5.809265537
22%
5 - 6 years
5.524947784
21%
6 - 7 years
5.439243924
5%
7 + years
5.331649832
3%
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