[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

[Kelly Martin]

On 9/19/06, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyways, my point was that indirect elections _might_ turn out to have
> inaccurate results (though that is a rather rare situation), and that
> it would be especially hard to arrange this on Wikimedia projects.

Indirect election of officials in voluntary organizations with large,
geographically diverse membership is common and may actually be the
norm.  Comparisons with election of geopolitical leaders ("involuntary
organizations") are simply inapposite; there are so many functional
differences between electing a head of government and electing the
officers of a voluntary organization.

Rejecting the idea simply because it superficially resembles the
American college of electors (which, by the way, is a very strange
form of indirect election) is, frankly, silly.  Rejecting it because
it seems too difficult to implement today is shortsighted.

Let's also not forget that direct democracy elected Hitler, and yet we
still use it as well.

Kelly