[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

[Jeffrey V. Merkey]

Michael Snow wrote:

>I'm not sure how "direct" a concept of democracy you have in mind, but 
>Hitler was *appointed* Chancellor. After Hindenburg's death, he declared 
>himself Führer. Thereafter, he rushed through a vote to ratify this 
>action, but if that's democracy, so was Saddam Hussein's last election. 
>If you mean that he personally was democratically elected, I don't see 
>it. If you simply mean that he became politically powerful enough to 
>turn a parliamentary republic into a totalitarian state, that too is a 
>cautionary tale, but this is an odd way of expressing that.
>
>I don't think an argument about different electoral formats is getting 
>at the right issue, anyway. The concern about elections in a Wikimedia 
>context is primarily an extension of the difficulty that the right to 
>vote in our elections corresponds only rather inexactly to anything that 
>could constitute citizenship. It might be possible to address that with 
>a membership model, but as I've pointed out before, membership has its 
>own problems.
>
>--Michael Snow
>  
>
Your comparison is accurate and to the point - with one exception.   
There are no
individual rights of any kind in the Wikipedia "Society".  You can be 
banned (digitally killed)
by any "mob" currently in power.  There are no guarantees of individual 
rights, bill of rights,
or any other instrument to guarantee equality and rights for any member 
of this community
to protect their fundamental rights to exist. 

It's not even close to democracy, as I said before, it's more like a 
Roman Senatorial Forum with a primitive
form of democratic representation, along with an "Emperor" and it 
exhibits all the same
views towards individual rights as the Roman Empire -- it you tread on 
the wrong toes, you
are summarily crucified (digitally).   Wikipedia is the closest to an 
actual "society" that exists
on the internet, but it has a long way to go to claim the honorable 
label of "democracy".  Like
all evolving civilizations and societies, it seems to need to repeat the 
long march through history
to evolve to that point -- if it ever gets there.

So much for political discourse...

:-)

Jeff