This proposal aims to require oppose votes to include a reason, please see the Wiki page for the proposed changes and rationale.
The proposal defines a reason to be
Relevant feedback that could be used to make changes in the proposal
A reason like “Requiring a reason reduces participation in votes” would not allow any change that doesn’t change the substance of the proposal.
Changing it such that this person would approve would necessarily lead to a substantially different proposal. There is also a question on whether participation is a relevant factor - for the voter, it certainly seems like it is.
Do you have an idea on how to solve this issue?
I’d also like to see something along the lines of “For the purposes of this vote, oppose votes with or without any reason will be fully counted, as will the approve votes.” Just stating it, so it is clear for everyone.
1 Like
I’m also a bit puzzled by the sentence “Define a reason within the context of a proposal to mean ‘Relevant feedback that could be used to make changes in the proposal.’”
If taken literally, wouldn’t this give the proposer room to simply disregard any oppose vote that argues the proposal should be dropped altogether and not proceeded with, on the grounds that it isn’t feedback suitable for re-drafting? The Rationale even warns that this “grinds the proposal process to a complete halt” but isn’t that exactly the outcome some oppose voters might be going for? And perhaps for good reason?
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Defining such a reason would not be in context with the proposal istself but in context with the propolas rules and as such be invalid.
If someone opposes a proposal with a reason like “This proposal is comletely nonsense” I would not count this as a valid reason, but something like “This proposal does not offer any new tagging options nor clarify existing tagging disputes. It just proposes to change some long established tags agains new ones for no good reason” would be a valid argument and in fact aim at stopping the proposal entirely. And yes, this could happen, there were similar cases like this before.
To cover such cases the proposed definition should probably be expanded to something like
Relevant feedback that could be used to make changes in the proposal or substantiate why the proposal should be withdrawn.
Besides that I’d say stating a reason for rejecting the work someone else has invested in creating a proposal is the minimum of politeness opponents should offer if they did not take the time already to explain their position on the discussion page earlier.
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Define a reason within the context of a proposal to mean “Relevant feedback that could be used to make changes in the proposal, or a reference to such feedback”
This is just a means for a proposer to disregard any negative votes. If one does not like the feedback, they can always say it’s not relevant.
A proposal needs a 75% approval rating or higher to pass, meaning oppose votes outweigh approve votes 3-1. Oppose votes are thus much more influential because they signal that there is a problem with the proposal, this influence is only justified if it contributes back to the proposal process through feedback.
The second sentence is not really true. Proposal approval is not in fact mandatory. Nobody can restrict you from using tags that you think are good, and even describe them on wiki, if they show natural growth (de facto/ in use statuses).
I might have missed something, but is there any evidence that the problem actually exists? Was some proposal rejected without reason?
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I think that’s an improvement. That said, I’d push back a little on the politeness framing. Sure, it’s both desirable and more polite to explain your opposition. But I also think it’s worth keeping in mind that proposers who put forward something that may turn out to be a fundamentally bad idea are, in effect, placing a workload on the community to stop it. It’s not just “opponents owe the proposer an explanation” it’s also “the proposer is asking others to do the work of substantiating why their idea shouldn’t go through.”
It’s probably not that unusual for something which looks like an obvious or reasonable idea on the surface to turn out, on closer and more thorough inspection, to be a bad one, in which case defending the oppose vote may well take more work than raising the idea did in the first place.
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Isn’t the proposal about the proposal rules? Am I missing something?
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Who is deciding whether a feedback is relevant or not? The proposer himself? So he can effectively disregard all negative feedback as not relevant. How such decision can be challenged? Wouldn’t it just change the discussion from “Should a vote without reason count?” to “Is that reason relevant?”
Another think to keep in mind in times of AI, is that you might get their slop and that might get you feedback that’s relevant to the topic but in the end just some text to make the vote count. Similar to the limit of characters you need to type here. If you have less to say, folks ends nonsense characters to fill the amount.
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Beyond “Do no like”, there are many things that I do not like and can’t articulate why I don’t like them.
For example, I’ve never been enthusiastic about tomatoes, although I am OK with tomato sauces. It was only when I was discussing them with a friend that he used the word “gloopy” and that is also why I don’t like tomatoes.
Also, it would be a lazy proposer’s charter - they could just put the bare bones on something and then rely on the ‘no’ voters to fix their problems. If a proposal has unfixable problems, what would one do?
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I think that requiring an opponent of a proposal to explain to the proposer how they could improve the proposal is overreaching.
Someone who proposes something needs to make a proposal that is palatable to those who vote. If they have help - great! If they manage to have a good discussion on the forum or wiki so that they arrive at a polished proposal which is universally accepted - great!
But still, it is everyone’s right to oppose a proposal and nobody should be disenfranchised because they cannot, or do not want to, explain their vote. This reminds me of a discussion a long time ago on the forum, where someone said something along the lines of “if you cannot offer something constructive to improve on this idea, please just keep quiet”. But this is wrong. If someone makes a huge proposal about mapping flowerbeds and I am against mapping flowerbeds in the first place, how can I help them improve their proposal? My vote will always be “no”, unless they change their proposal to be “don’t map flowerbeds full stop”. Do I really have to open myself up to a discussion of my innermost thoughts and values (“but why are you against flowers? do you not find them pretty? are you one of those people with a rock garden?”) just to exercise my right to vote? Do I perhaps even have to defend my vote after that, because my reasoning was not stated eloquently enough?
If this idea should come to a vote, I would vote against. I hope that this post is reason enough so that my right to vote won’t be taken away.
29 Likes
I also oppose this proposal, and agree with the comments above in that regard.
The Proposal Process states:
People should not just vote
Oppose, they should give a reason for their proposal, and/or (preferably) suggestions.
I think to remove any ambiguity this could be changed to read:
People should not just vote
And that paragraph moved out of the “Requirements during” section (since it’s not technically a requirement).
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If I may gently suggest it, I do wonder whether we are perhaps over-engineering this a little.
This meta-proposal seems to have arisen from one particular disagreement over an unexplained oppose vote in the context of a proposal touching on a subject that is understandably sensitive for a number of people. I’m not convinced that a single awkward interaction really demonstrates a systemic problem that demands adding more machinery to the proposal process.
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The reasons included in oppose votes are crucial for re-drafting a rejected proposal. If feedback isn’t provided to the proposer they don’t have the context needed to re-draft their proposal, this grinds the proposal process to a complete halt.
This rationale presupposes that the core idea of every proposal is a good one. This is not always the case. If one thinks a proposal is a completely misguided idea, then halting it is the preferred outcome. It is still polite to state this as the reason for a no vote of course, but giving feedback to help with a re-draft is not the goal in such a case.
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I would also point out that there can be perfectly understandable reasons for someone to vote no without elaborating. Some people may simply wish to avoid a prolonged debate with the proposal author over their reasons for disagreeing, especially if the proposal author is rapid-fire responding to criticism in an adversarial way. Requiring an explanation risks turning every oppose vote into a potentially exhausting obligation to engage further in a debate that the dissenter doesn’t wish to engage in.
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I’ve removed the word “relevant” from the proposed definition of a reason as it is indeed too subjective.
I’ll tweak the definition a bit more so it also accounts for the opinion that a proposed tag/feature shouldn’t be in OSM in general (or opinions similar to this), as a re-draft isn’t the goal for these votes.
The definition in this proposal is quite important, so I appreciate everyone’s input on it.
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This proposal doesn’t aim to make participating in debates ensuing from the included reason mandatory, that would actually impose too much of a burden on voters. Rest assured that is not the goal here.
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Requiring some kind of explanation for a vote is perfectly sensible. Votes are expressions of power. Power demands accountability. Given that oppose votes have a 3-to-1 influence over approve votes as well, they have greater power. Requiring a modicum of explanation — even something as vague as “I think it is inappropriate” or “I think it is out of scope” or “I think it is fundamentally bad” — is not an onerous burden. It is a bare minimum level of accountability.
Writing down “this is a fundamentally bad idea” is not a significant workload. I don’t think an oppose vote is obligated to provide greater detail, either. If 25%+ say “this is a fundamentally bad idea”, with no further elaboration, then that is fine. It serves as a reflection of a (minority) stance within the community (that nevertheless holds 3-to-1 veto power).
I think writing down “I don’t know why I oppose this proposal, I just do” is fine.
In that scenario, they would not only need to put a bare bones proposal out, but also whip support for it at a 3-to-1 level. Whatever laziness they applied to the proposal would be a debt that they would have to work against in whipping support. Further, if a minority can veto a proposal with majority support, then expecting them to give some kind of reason — or else go out of their way to give a non-reason — is not unreasonable.
If they wish to explicitly state “I do not want to provide a reason”, then I think that would be fine.
No. You don’t. But you do at least have to say “I do not think flowerbeds are in scope for OSM” or “I do not wish to elaborate”.
Ultimately, a fair number of folks here are beating around the bush (near-literally, it seems, given the examples provided: tomatoes, flowerbeds), as ZeLonewolf indicates:
This is not a “single awkward interaction”. It has generated a significant amount of activity already (as well as compelled at least two other users to log “oppose” votes without explanations before voting closed). That activity ultimately caused the post to end up in the weekly forum summary email (which is what brought me here in the first place).
It is because the topic is “sensitive for a number of people” that people are cagey. It is asking that people explain why they think providing greater detail, with more formalized definitions, on LGBTQ-related data should not occur. For some folks, those reasons might not be particularly flattering. But there might genuinely be good reasons, from the LGBTQ community, for why they’d oppose! Hence, @spughetti desiring an explanation.
Ultimately, the political concern here is that a minority of bigots can silently tank a proposal that a majority wants, all without, at minimum, requiring that they identify themselves as such. Mappers should not cater to such cowards. Requiring reasons for oppose votes:
- incentivizes some level of feedback, without demanding thorough explanations, and
- disincentivizes (while not completely avoiding) wrecking
The spirit of the proposal, to require oppose votes to elaborate to some degree, is a good one. I’d likely vote in favour of it.
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But in the vote that sparked this whole discussion and the proposal to revise the voting procedure, wasn’t that precisely what was not accepted as a valid reason?
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I don’t think so. The added step of requiring the opposer to be explicit in their unwillingness to elaborate is, itself, an important signal that is otherwise missing.
As I understand it, a vote was cast without any further explanation. The proposal author then asked for a reason, but the voter emphasised that they did not wish to give a reason. So as you see it, it should ended there (and the vote counted a valid)?
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