Lars Aronsson wrote:
Even in a parliamentary democracy, there has to be consensus about using voting as the method and how to apply it. Otherwise, the method will be useless. In open organizations (where anybody can become a member at no cost) such as the IETF and Wikipedia, voting is problematic, since it is unclear who is eligible to vote. This leaves a suspicion that the opposite party cheats by subscribing new voters, undermining the consensus about voting as a method.
So? I get a dozen new email adresses from freemailers, and "mailbomb" the mailing list, with each of my new @s saying "I don't agree to consensus yet", in slightly different words.
So, if one can undermine both voting and consensus, why is voting worse?
Consider this: voting is better, because if, say, 10% of the votes are bogus, a decision can still be reached. With consensus, we'll keep on discussing, until we're tired of discussion and the question to decide just drops dead to the floor. See our mailing list archives for numerous examples of this.
Magnus