On 9/16/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 16 Sep 2006, at 08:01, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I invite an open discussion here of the candidates. This is your community, speak openly of who you trust and why.
Well, I'll start off then.
I've missed a week of mail. What was the spur for this thread? Was there a sudden drop in candidate discussions online? A rise in disendorsement? An announcement of election results?
I recall discussions of a more general nature -- involving input from the candidates -- the week that voting started. Those never quite got off the ground... I suppose we could start building ad-hoc trust networks now to identify statistically-sound community reps for the future, but is this the way to go? (are trust nets in use anywhere any more on de:wp?)
I do wish that more wikimedians -- candidates and community members, in and out of election-time -- would write more often about their interests and concerns, in ways that support direct comparison and editing of one anothers' writing. One of the strengths of wikis as media for conversations is how powerfully they allow subtle point-by-point disagreement without requiring* the rhetorical dance of ad hominems and clashing sweeping statements.
SJ
* ad hominems and sweeping statements are still allowed, but not required; and regularly lose out to persistent subtle discourse. Of course more memorable cases may be those where they do not...
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