Yesterday, 15:12
Location images: vote result
Hello,
A week ago, as I had proposed in the topic about using AI-generated images for locations, I launched this vote to let the community decide whether these images should be kept (with the option for each member to enable or disable them) or removed for everyone.
The vote ran for one week and received 326 votes, and I would first like to thank everyone who took the time to participate.
Before concluding, I'd like to share a few comments, observations, and points for discussion about the results of this vote.
Voting remained remarkably consistent throughout the duration of the vote, with the results settling close to the final outcome within the first hour.
To ensure that the vote had not been manipulated, I carried out several analyses on the database. Overall, I identified some suspicious accounts (duplicate accounts or accounts inactive for months returning to vote), but only a dozen or so in total. I didn't remove any votes: these votes were evenly split between the two options, so they had no impact on the outcome.
Users' actual preference settings: as of today, 90.3% of active members (members connected since the update on 27 July) have background images enabled, while 9.7% have chosen to disable them.
On the French site, 97.7% of active members have background images enabled, while 2.3% have chosen to disable them.
One aspect of the results struck me as rather unusual. I quickly noticed that the number of votes in favor of banning AI-generated images was higher than the number of members who had actually disabled those images in their own preferences. I would have expected the number of votes to be lower, since some members would vote to keep the feature optional for others while choosing to disable it for themselves.
A simple query on the database showed that more than half of the people who voted to ban AI-generated images for everyone had not disabled the feature for themselves. To be honest, that's something I don't really know how to explain.
One final point about the new players, that I didn't want to mention before the vote, as I didn't want to be accused of influencing the outcome. One of my concerns was that removing the background images might have a negative impact on the number of new members. I believe the site's visual appeal plays an important role in attracting newcomers, at least during their first few days, before it is ultimately our community and its creations that keep them coming back.
When I disabled the background images for more than two weeks, my goal was twofold: first, to let you experience the alternative, and second, to measure the impact on new user registrations.
To measure this, I regularly track the percentage of new registrations that make it through to the Sorting Ceremony. This conversion rate, which averages 9.8%, dropped to 5.7% during the period without background images: a 42% decrease. On the French site, the conversion rate fell from an average of 8.5% to 3.3%, representing a 62% decrease.
By sharing my thoughts, opening this discussion, and proposing this vote, I genuinely believed I was making the right decision.
It is clear, however, that this debate has been divisive, at times even heated, and that it will leave a lasting mark on many of us, myself included.
My intention was to involve you more in decisions that, until now, I had been making on my own for the site. I'll have to rethink how best to do that going forward, not because I dislike disagreement or differing opinions, but because I'm concerned that it could ultimately cause more harm than good.
Anyway, I wanted to end by sharing all of this with you in the interest of transparency. I understand that some of you will be disappointed by the outcome, but I trust that you will respect it, just as I would have respected the opposite outcome.
See you soon,
Zach
A week ago, as I had proposed in the topic about using AI-generated images for locations, I launched this vote to let the community decide whether these images should be kept (with the option for each member to enable or disable them) or removed for everyone.
The vote ran for one week and received 326 votes, and I would first like to thank everyone who took the time to participate.
The results
- Let players choose whether or not to display the location images: 72,1 % (235 votes)
- Remove these images for all players: 27,9 % (91 votes)
Comment and analysis
Before concluding, I'd like to share a few comments, observations, and points for discussion about the results of this vote.
Voting remained remarkably consistent throughout the duration of the vote, with the results settling close to the final outcome within the first hour.
To ensure that the vote had not been manipulated, I carried out several analyses on the database. Overall, I identified some suspicious accounts (duplicate accounts or accounts inactive for months returning to vote), but only a dozen or so in total. I didn't remove any votes: these votes were evenly split between the two options, so they had no impact on the outcome.
Users' actual preference settings: as of today, 90.3% of active members (members connected since the update on 27 July) have background images enabled, while 9.7% have chosen to disable them.
On the French site, 97.7% of active members have background images enabled, while 2.3% have chosen to disable them.
One aspect of the results struck me as rather unusual. I quickly noticed that the number of votes in favor of banning AI-generated images was higher than the number of members who had actually disabled those images in their own preferences. I would have expected the number of votes to be lower, since some members would vote to keep the feature optional for others while choosing to disable it for themselves.
A simple query on the database showed that more than half of the people who voted to ban AI-generated images for everyone had not disabled the feature for themselves. To be honest, that's something I don't really know how to explain.
One final point about the new players, that I didn't want to mention before the vote, as I didn't want to be accused of influencing the outcome. One of my concerns was that removing the background images might have a negative impact on the number of new members. I believe the site's visual appeal plays an important role in attracting newcomers, at least during their first few days, before it is ultimately our community and its creations that keep them coming back.
When I disabled the background images for more than two weeks, my goal was twofold: first, to let you experience the alternative, and second, to measure the impact on new user registrations.
To measure this, I regularly track the percentage of new registrations that make it through to the Sorting Ceremony. This conversion rate, which averages 9.8%, dropped to 5.7% during the period without background images: a 42% decrease. On the French site, the conversion rate fell from an average of 8.5% to 3.3%, representing a 62% decrease.
To conclude
By sharing my thoughts, opening this discussion, and proposing this vote, I genuinely believed I was making the right decision.
It is clear, however, that this debate has been divisive, at times even heated, and that it will leave a lasting mark on many of us, myself included.
My intention was to involve you more in decisions that, until now, I had been making on my own for the site. I'll have to rethink how best to do that going forward, not because I dislike disagreement or differing opinions, but because I'm concerned that it could ultimately cause more harm than good.
Anyway, I wanted to end by sharing all of this with you in the interest of transparency. I understand that some of you will be disappointed by the outcome, but I trust that you will respect it, just as I would have respected the opposite outcome.
See you soon,
Zach