Wikipedia:Requests for comment/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013/Only ask options that are viable


 * Only consult on options that the community would be willing and able to deliver.

It is bad Public Relations to consult on an option that you aren't prepared to deliver. There is a real risk that you subsequently have the debate reported in terms of how long a delay there has been since the readers said they wanted X. There is also the question of priorities and resources. We have two kinds of resources, money and time. If it is true that most of our donors are not editors then there is a case for asking our readers how they would prioritise where we spend our funds. But it needs to be a meaningful question - prioritising options instead of asking whether individual options are supported or not. Volunteer time is different, very little of our volunteer time can be directed (and even that only voluntarily through schemes such as the Article Rescue Squadron the Guild of copyeditors, and wp:Majestic Titan) I don't believe that we should consult the readers about schemes that would put meaningful extra burdens on our editing community.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:04, 6 May 2013 (UTC)