On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Alfio Puglisi wrote:
On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Marc Girod wrote:
>> "Jan" == Jan Kulveit jk-wikitech@ks.cz >
Jan> we would like to elect something similar to ArbCom on cs
Voting is a bad idea. In general, and especially in the context of Wikipedia. Voting is a sickness of democracy. [...] Bush supports voting. That's what he means by democracy.
It is said that democracy is the worst government system, except for all the others. If you can come up with an alternative to voting for ArbCom or whatever vote on Wikipedia which is simultaneously morally superior, possible to implement and with equal or better results feel free to propose it.
That trite old platitude about democracy has nothing to do with it. Suggesting that democracy implies voting may be comforting for those with a fetish for politically correct moral superiority. In most cases any alternative is better if it strives to find a common ground between positions.
It is better if it strives *and* succeeds. I sait "feel free to propose it", and that's not a rethorical question. On wikipedia, there are votes about deleting pages, about admin elections, about ArbCom decisions, and others. So, instead of saying "voting is bad", one should propose an alternative mechanism that works when people have different opinions.
Alfio