[WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

[SJ]

On 9/16/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On 16 Sep 2006, at 08:01, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I invite an open discussion here of the candidates.  This is your
> > community, speak openly of who you trust and why.
>
> Well, I'll start off then.

I've missed a week of mail.  What was the spur for this thread?  Was
there a sudden drop in candidate discussions online?  A rise in
disendorsement?  An announcement of election results?

I recall discussions of a more general nature -- involving input from
the candidates -- the week that voting started.  Those never quite got
off the ground... I suppose we could start building ad-hoc trust
networks now to identify statistically-sound community reps for the
future, but is this the way to go?  (are trust nets in use anywhere
any more on de:wp?)

I do wish that more wikimedians -- candidates and community members,
in and out of election-time -- would write more often about their
interests and concerns, in ways that support direct comparison and
editing of one anothers' writing.  One of the strengths of wikis as
media for conversations is how powerfully they allow subtle
point-by-point disagreement without requiring* the rhetorical dance of
ad hominems and clashing sweeping statements.

SJ

* ad hominems and sweeping statements are still allowed, but not
required; and regularly lose out to persistent subtle discourse.  Of
course more memorable cases may be those where they do not...

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