Jimmy Wales wrote:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
This rigid vote where no alternative proposition
can be submit is at
the antipode of my vision of a consensus.
Well, this logo contest is an experiment in voting. It has gone well
in some ways, and not so well in other ways. In any case, no matter
how we evaluate it overall, we can all agree that it has been
educational, exposing some of the issues that we are going to have to
deal with as we form scalable, stable, consensus-driven decision
methods.
I just hope people concluded something about those discussions.
And I
don't see anything encouraging in this discussion.
What do you mean? I see a lot that's encouraging. Look at all the
discussion that we are having. Look how hard people are working to
try to find mutually agreeable solutions. Look how civilized and
cautious the decisionmaking is.
I didn't read all post (translate is fastidious for me), but in those I read
I see words as "silly", "pushy French attitude" and other not so
friendly
sentence. Hope it's just translation mistake ;o). On the other hand, I
didn't read any proposition to make vote process become more close to a
consensus. For me, the vote method is not the real problem (average method &
Condorcet are not so different in fact). Imho, the problem is a standard
vote doesn't offer any dynamic solution. I mean, you select some solutions
(before the vote start), then you start the vote and block any new
proposition. For example, imagine you want to select a color. Favorite
colors are black and white (just an example), so people propose those 2
colors to be voted. After some time you see both colors have closed score.
With standard vote system you must select one of those colors (by any
method) and make happy only half of people instead of be able to propose a
gray that may satisfy more people (just an example). I think discussion,
proposition and vote have better to take place concurrently. I mean allow
participant to propose new solution and change vote during the decision
process. I'm aware that is only a personal point of view but I expected to
ear some alternative solution instead of the eternal debate on the best way
of count vote. But perhaps I just miss those discussions.
The current experiment is a good one because the
choice of a logo from
any of the fine leading contenders is not a life or death decision for
the project. None of the choices available to us are bad, and so we
can learn from this in a low-risk way.
Later, there will have to be some major policy decisions. In the
past, these have always been made by consensus, which in reality boils
down to us listening to all sides and encouraging different factions
to accomodate each other so that we can find solutions that are better
all around for everyone.
That process works, or at least it has so far. But there have always
been concerns about how well it would scale. The more people we have
involved, the more important it is that we have a more formalized
_process_ that people can support even when they don't support the
final _outcome_.
Let me explain that further with an example from the real world. I
support, generally speaking, the processes of constitutionally limited
democracy. So in that sense, I support the system *even when the
candidate I don't prefer* gets elected.
In a small group, the consensus method works. When a final decision
has to be made, then a benevolent dictator who really does look out
for the interests of as many different people as possible also works.
People can, and have, supported that process as effective, even when
they didn't get their way on every last detail.
As we get bigger, we need to preserve and improve on our success in
that area: when decisions are made, they need to be as inclusive as
possible, i.e. to make as many people happy as possible, and at the
same time, they need to be made by a process that people can support
even when their exact preferences are not chosen.
Do we agree about that?
I agree consensus become harder as we get bigger. But instead of switch
decision process to a standard vote method, we can perhaps just create some
rules to make consensus easier to achieve.
We've done a couple of experiments with voting.
I've always been a
skeptic of voting, but the one thing that voting can do is generate
legitimacy for decisions. People can support the outcome of a vote,
even when the vote doesn't go their way.
I like one of the logos best of all. I hope that it wins. But if it
doesn't, I can live with that. They are all reasonable choices, and I
like that we went through a process that people can live with.
But it is JUST A LOGO. So a serious amount of relaxation is probably
in order. :-)
--Jimbo
Sure, more friendly are relations, more easy are decisions ;o)
If I enter the debate it's just because I worried to see Oliezekat spend all
his time to try to found alternative proposition (he really worked hard) and
to be bother just because he didn't strictly respect the saintly rules.
Imho, the wikipedians must to be more flexible and patient; especially with
those you have difficulty to speak/understand English. Next time, a
non-American organizer!?
Thanks for your answers.
Aoineko