--- hcheney hdcheney@yahoo.com wrote:

I am extremely concerned about the use of the plurality first past the post system. Generally, such systems encourage the establishment of two opposing sides and the use of tactical voting, which is not in the spirit of Wikipedian consensus building.

I hate first past the post too. In fact one of the reasons I haven't decided to run yet was to not divide the vote between me and a few other like-minded people and thus ensure we give the election to somebody else.

Considering the large number of well respected candidates running, the vote will probably be narrowly divided, and a small dedicated group of users or sockpuppets could usurp this election.

I don't think that is what we should be most concerned about ; the more likely outcome is electing somebody a small minority of people honestly voted for while three or four people who were had similar stands on a set of issues collectively got over 70%. Thus the *issues* that those candidates wanted to address don't get addressed even though there was a great deal of support for the group of candidates that expressed them. Plurality elections totally suck! The bastard cure for them is to have two opposing political parties and have each party select just one candidate to run. But I think that polarizing Wikimedia between two camps is the last thing we want to do.

I very strongly urge an adoption of Instant Runoff Voting-Single Transferable Vote (similar to the method used to elect the President of Ireland). Unlike First Past the Post, IRV-STV will eliminate candidates that lack a clear mandate and will favor consensus building candidates.

We should have a vote on what method to vote by. But then what method do we use for that vote? :)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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