Jens Ropers wrote:
On 21 Oct 2004, at 14:56, Rebecca wrote:
MHO everything below three sentences isn't worth it, but I know that's currently not the consensus.
I'm not so sure. A vocal minority decided this, and to my knowledge it was never voted upon. A nice coup d'etat, indeed. -- ambi
With respect, that's a bunch of Mullarkey.
There may have been little turnout on related decisionmaking, but abstentions are a common occurrence in democratic processes. (They actually are a quite normal, even vital part of said processes.) Just because your side didn't succeed in turning out more supporters of your POV, that doesn't entitle you to claim that you represented any kind of majority.
[[If and only if]] you successfully mobilize more supporters than the opposing side, THEN you can lay claim to representing majority opinion.
She did not claim that she represented the majority, only that a decision was made by a vocal minority. Going strictly on the basis of what she said in those comments, I could not be sure of which side she supported.
Votes are always being generated by somebody around here. Vocal minorities are often involved in using them to subvert democratic processes. That a person may have been a part of the majority on a given occasion is meningless. I really have better things to do with my time than responding to constant attempts to martial opinions for issues that keep repeating themselves. Such vote gathering exercises only serve to divide the community and keep it divided.
Your intimation that those who don't vote are exercising an abstention is misleading. Many were probably not even properly notified. This is the first time that this particular flavour of the issue has been raised on the mailing list, and even now you don't say where I could go to vote if I wanted.
In the past I have made it abundantly clear that I am in the inclusionist camp. Why should I constantly need to repeat myself? One thing that is certain is that the entire community has a major division over this. Seeking new majorities on minor variations is not going to solve anything. Listening to each other, and respecting the efforts of a stub's contributor will.
Ec