Abstract Wikipedia/Updates/2020-11-05
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The second round of voting has started for naming the new Wikimedia project, the wiki of functions! How often do you have the opportunity to name a Wikimedia project? This will be the first new Wikimedia project to launch since 2012.
- Today I will talk about the details of the second round of the naming contest. Feel free to skip this update if you are not interested in this.
The first round saw more than 170 proposals submitted for what to call the central wiki of functions. After more than 500 votes, we have a list of the six top proposals. We have published considerations from legal and communications on the proposals.
The six top proposals, in alphabetical order, are:
- Wikicode
- Wikicodex
- Wikifunctions
- Wikifusion
- Wikilambda
- Wikimedia Functions
We have used and adapted a gadget written by Amir Sarabdani in his volunteer capacity, and diligently adapted by James and Nick for our usage.
- The gadget was written and has been used previously for voting on the new logo for the MediaWiki software.
- That vote, by the way, just a few days ago, and the winner of the vote was just announced. The preliminary winner logo – pending the final Legal check-up – can be seen just beside.
- Congratulations to Amir for running this process, and congratulations to the MediaWiki community on a fresh and beautiful proposed new logo!
Unfortunately, gadgets do not work on the mobile website. If you're using a mobile device, you can go directly to the vote recording page and enter your preference manually.
For the second round, you are asked to rank the six proposals by preference.
We will then use a modified instant-runoff voting system to decide on the winner of the vote. The vote tallying will work as follows:
- First, we count how many valid votes have been made. This provides the denominator.
- Then we count, for each proposal, how often it has been listed as the first preference. This provides the numerator.
- If any proposal reaches more than half at this point, it immediately becomes the winning proposal.
- If, which is more likely, none of the proposals manage to exceed half at this point, we count which proposal is listed least frequently as the first preference. This proposal gets eliminated (in case of a tie, all of the least popular proposals get eliminated together). Then all votes which had an eliminated proposal as their top preference are re-assigned to the next-ranked preference, and we count the votes again.
- We repeat this process until one proposal becomes the top preferred choice by at least half of all voters. This proposal becomes the winner of the second round of voting.
- The winner of this second voting round will then undergo a more thorough (and expensive) vetting process. Assuming the vetting process finds no issues with the candidate, the candidate will become the official name of the new project.
- In the case that there are findings that disqualify the proposal, we will remove that proposal from all rankings, and repeat the tallying of the votes with the now modified rankings.
- This will produce a new top proposal, which in turn gets validated. This proceeds until a top candidate is deemed acceptable by the legal vetting process.
Votes have opened on Monday 2 November, and will be open for two weeks, until Monday 16 November.
We have kept the same rules regarding voting eligibility as applied to the first round:
- You must have a registered account which is not blocked on more than one project.
- You must not be a bot.
- You must have made at least 25 edits as of September 1 on any public Wikimedia production wiki.
- Additionally, current and former members of the Board of Trustees and of the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation are also qualified to vote.
We hope that this process will be finished by 8 December, when we plan to announce the name of the project – and then kick-off the contest to find a logo to go with the new name.
So, if you are eligible, please go ahead and cast your vote! Let us know your preferences and help to name a brand new Wikimedia project. Spread the word in your communities!