Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013

Final approval

I strongly disagree with the removal of "and the choice of questions will be subject to approval by a final widely-advertised community discussion." I would have all sorts of reservations about agreeing the principle of a survey without knowing that the results of the survey construction process will be put to community approval. Without that, a big and significant thing (the survey...) might go live with at least parts of it based on just a handful of editors' input. Rd232 ^talk 10:57, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you leave the mechanism for choosing the final questions to this RfC, if we advertise this RfC on a watchlist notice and extend invitations to every Wikiproject? I'm in favour of representative decision-making in some cases, and this may be one of them. That is, I may (though I'm still thinking about it) propose we elect a committee to make the final choice for us. I'm considering this because I fear a mass plebiscite on "the questions to ask" may well end up with balkanisation of the options, with editors promoting questions unlikely to have a significant impact on our engagement with readers and our mission, but that satisfy the interests of an active minority. I don't know. But it seems appropriate to me to at least leave this question open for this discussion, provided this RfC attracts significant attention. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:54, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I guess I wasn't clear enough. A "final approval" would have to be a straight yes/no community vote on approving the package of questions produced through discussion - question-by-question discussion/approval would be unmanageable and possibly produce a mess. Rd232 ^talk 12:10, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that should be avoided. I'm suggesting the best outcome may (I don't know yet) be the community delegates the choice of questions, and defines the selection criteria, but I suppose community endorsement of that committee's choice may be a good thing. Don't know. It would be more efficient to define the criteria, delegate the choice, and go with whatever the committee decides. Can you lay out the benefits of putting their choice to the community? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:38, 5 May 2013 (UTC)