Image filter referendum/Results/en
The results were announced on 3 September 2011.
In other languages: Acèh (ace) العربية (ar) azərbaycanca (az) беларуская (be) বাংলা (bn) български (bg) català (ca) čeština (cs) dansk (da) Deutsch (de) English (en) español (es) eesti (et) فارسی (fa) suomi (fi) français (fr) עברית (he) हिन्दी (hi) hrvatski (hr) magyar (hu) հայերեն (hy) Bahasa Indonesia (id) italiano (it) 日本語 (ja) Jawa (jv) اردو (ur) ქართული (ka) 한국어 (ko) kurdî (ku) Lëtzebuergesch (lb) മലയാളം (ml) Bahasa Melayu (ms) नेपाली (ne) Nederlands (nl) norsk (no) ଓଡ଼ିଆ (or) polski (pl) português (pt) română (ro) русский (ru) සිංහල (si) Soomaaliga (so) slovenčina (sk) српски / srpski (sr) srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски (sh) shqip (sq) Sunda (su) svenska (sv) ślůnski (szl) తెలుగు (te) ไทย (th) Tagalog (tl) Türkçe (tr) українська (uk) oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча (uz) Tiếng Việt (vi) 粵語 (yue) 中文（简体） (zh-hans) 中文（繁體） (zh-hant) தமிழ் (ta) [edit]
| Organization |
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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:
- 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 | 6 |
| 1.12 % | 15.66 % | 3.29 % | 4.84 % | 4.07 % | 2.98 % | 11.73 % | 7.49 % | 11.11 % | 12.31 % | 5.44 % | 19.94 % |
- 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 | 8 |
| 2.61 % | 14.13 % | 2.62 % | 3.55 % | 2.98 % | 2.38 % | 9.96 % | 4.64 % | 8.00 % | 11.16 % | 8.10 % | 29.87 % |
- 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 | 7 |
| 2.56 % | 11.69 % | 2.57 % | 3.45 % | 2.85 % | 2.90 % | 8.99 % | 7.45 % | 10.83 % | 14.17 % | 8.90 % | 23.64 % |
- 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 | 9 |
| 5.82 % | 8.53 % | 1.46 % | 1.94 % | 1.64 % | 2.11 % | 8.88 % | 3.73 % | 6.00 % | 9.45 % | 8.81 % | 41.64 % |
- 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 % |
- 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 | 8 |
| 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 http://www.random.org/integers/. 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.
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.
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)
Appendix 1 edit
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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 | 7 | 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 | 8 | 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 | 8 | 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 | 7 |
| 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 | 5 | 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 | 5 | 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% |