[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] voting on www.wikipedia.org

[Ray Saintonge]

>
>
>That reminds me of the referendum we had to vote for
>quite many years ago when we had lots of problems with
>our colony New Caledonia.
>The vote proposition was basically "do you want to do
>something for New Caledonia"
>* yes
>* no
>
>"wellllllll....yessssss of course"
>There was an unwritten codicil.
>
It reminds me of the question that appeaed oin an insurance company form 
some years ago.  It asked, "Are you single, married, widowed or 
divorced?"  One individual simply answred "Yes".

>So of course, I vote "other"
>Well being aware that in *this* voting system, "other"
>means "white" and that "white" is never counted in the
>final results.
>Undefined "other" can not be anything else than
>"white".
>
>"Other" could have been a proposition, as was
>announced by tc *yesterday*.
>
Hmmm!  "Blanc" in this context would be "blank" instead of "white".  You 
are right that a blank ballot would not be counted, and would suggest an 
abstention, or often that you don't care which way a vote goes. 
 Nevertheless, a lot of abstentions would be noticeable.  Voting "other" 
(sometimes the same as "none of the above" but with a place to write in 
an alternate suggestion) means that you really don't like any of the 
other options.  A strong "other" vote often means that we want to keep 
on talking about this.  Mercifully, let's hope that the "other"s don't 
win this time.
Eclecticology