[Foundation-l] Steward elections: summary, week one

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/2/9 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>> 2009/2/9 Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de>:
>>> I dislike this argument very much. People cannot choose that they are
>>> born in Iran or in China, or in the USA or Europe. Use such a trait that
>>> cannot be influence by a person against him is a kind of discrimination.
>>
>> True but it's based on reality rather than predudice.
>>
>>> So long as the person doesn't handle against the rule there is no reason
>>> to assume that he would do that. Keep a good faith is one of the
>>> principles of how Wikimedians should meet each other.
>>
>> Good faith is one thing but we also assume the person we are dealing
>> with is human. Realistically the Iranian government is able to put
>> enough ah pressure on it's citizens to arrange for them to cooperate
>> (this is true for most governments). It is also the case that the
>> Iranian government is more likely to do so in a problematical manner
>> than western governments.
>
> I agree, but it's pretty unlikely. And even if they do, stewards
> aren't *that* powerful. I'm not really sure what they would do. A
> vandal getting steward access could cause a hell of a mess, but why
> would Iran want to do that? They can't shut us down or censor us with
> just a steward account.

It is also not useful for Iran, as Mardetanha has declared that they
will not use the tools in any situation that Iran is likely to be
interested in.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mardetanha/recusal

The candidate has *asked* that the steward flag be removed if the
account breaks those simple rules.  In most of these rules, breaking
the rules will be immediately spotted before any CU could be run.

--
John Vandenberg