[Foundation-l] Fwd: Election vote strikes

[Samuel Klein]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 11:50 PM, Brian<Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
>> This is important:  NO ONE WAS DISENFRANCHISED BY THE ERROR. People
>> were given suffrage who weren't entitled.
>>
>>
> This comment makes my skin crawl. Everyone is entitled to have a voice and
> it is only the Board's impoverished vision of the community and limited
> sense of what technology can accomplish that has led them to create
> arbitrary rules about how to best stifle the voices of the vast majority of
> the actual community. Not only that, but the Board has forgotten the WMF's
> original vision where all editors were highly valued members of the
> community. Because the Board does not have to sit face to face with these
> people they feel free to treat our community members as if they were not, in
> fact, people, with highly valued and varied life experiences whose votes do
> in fact contain useful information - in the information theoretic sense.

Brian, I like many things you say while ranting, for instance I think
we need to think about suffrage as something essential to our identity
as a community, not a quick hack that balances commitment and
flood-proofing against openness of process. However, a prickly tone
tends to discourage people from responding to you.

Can you provide some positive examples of what you would like to see
instead?  Would you prefer to have no requirements for editing or
contribution, only a requirement that a voter prove they are a real
and unique snowflak^B^B^B^Bperson?

SJ