Erik Moeller wrote:
"Just imagine a situation where this election wouldn't be done on a website, but orally, and each candidate would be given 5 minutes to introduce themselves."
Erik, a bad analogy. This medium has its own rules, as you often like to point out yourself. On one of the talk pages you used unequal TV exposure as an comparison. Same answer.
If a candidate is willing to take the risk that the reader turns away from his or her statement because it is more words than content, so be it. I'd rather be the judge of that myself as a reader. Your second argument, that this is a rule per se and all have to abide, makes me smile. Wikipedia convinced me that anarchism can work at times, and now petty fighting over silly rules takes hold. Let me suggest to the committee to exchange this rule for a smarter one: present candidacy statements in order of number of words. Shortest statement comes first.
By the way
- I propose all candidates apply for both positions, so as to make this a non-issue. We want two candidates that are capable and willing to handle all kinds of issues, and not be confined to vague role playing. With only three real wikipedians on the board there is no room for segmentation. Also, I sensed on several discussions that many do not see a clear distinction between the roles.
- As for ex officio board members Michael and Tim. I would welcome it if they took the time to present themselves, or rather their views on WikiMedias future. Tim has a user page, but not much in it.
Regards, Erik Zachte
Erik-
"Just imagine a situation where this election wouldn't be done on a website, but orally, and each candidate would be given 5 minutes to introduce themselves."
Erik, a bad analogy. This medium has its own rules, as you often like to point out yourself. On one of the talk pages you used unequal TV exposure as an comparison. Same answer.
That is not an argument. If the medium is indeed different, you will have to show how it is so different that the above logic does not apply.
If a candidate is willing to take the risk that the reader turns away from his or her statement because it is more words than content, so be it. I'd rather be the judge of that myself as a reader.
If we clearly state at the onset that candidate profiles should be limited to 1000 characters, and some go to more than twice than that length, we can do two things - either get rid of the size limit altogether, or enforce it. I personally think enforcing it is a good idea as otherwise the page may become unwieldy, without being easy to fix because the candidates' statements are pretty much their own. This is not just about "giving the reader a choice" but also about making the page useful. Similarly, if some people deviate from the template, we can either change the template or enforce it being used. In this case I can live with both options, but we need to settle on a fair and equal solution.
I hope you agree that we shouldn't make rules which we don't enforce. That is often the origin of conflicts.
Regards,
Erik
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