Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Discussion report

Missed: Discussion at talk page of WP:DISRUPT. And a very big one, the discussion over the Halloween TFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything about Human Centipede at WT:DISRUPT. Powers T 18:11, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's inevitable that I'm going to miss some. That this is the first week that I'm doing the report, and therefore have little experience to fall back on, dosen't help matters. There were a few topics that I wanted to cover but couldn't, including the Pregnancy and Suicide image RfCs. There were other things that were just starting when I was selecting discussions for inclusion, and they could have ballooned over the weekend without me knowing. I made a big appeal for tips because I know that I just cannot track everything, and I really don't want things to fall through the cracks. Please let me know of any developing stories you come across by leaving a message at the suggestions board. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recognise any "improvement survey" that forced people to provide confidential information to participate. Such a survey is limited to a subset of people that don't care about privacy and therfore makes the result suspect. Regards, SunCreator (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:25, 1 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]

  • I will let the 1,150 people who have so far responded to it that their submissions are useless :P. The only "confidential information" we required was year of birth. SunCreator, your IP address can theoretically be used to work out where you live - and you store it whenever you edit. Next to that, year of birth is relatively non-confidential, and will be held under precisely the same data storage and privacy standards. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I care about privacy - my day job is helping organisations protect large volumes of data about members of the public - but the questionnaire did not "force" me to provide any information that I was uncomfortable disclosing. Far from it.
    • Of course, many surveys suffer from limited responses regardless of whether or not they ask for a year of birth, and the limited responses can impair the results, but this (and the selection bias in particular) is a widely understood issue; surveys can be designed to mitigate it, and survey results should always be read with that in mind. bobrayner (talk) 15:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]