[Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

[Ray Saintonge]

Alex R. wrote:

>Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the 
> logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of 
>registration before voting. That is done in practically all 
>democracies including member and shareholder corporations. 
>
I didn't know we had become a democracy.  I've seen no evidence that 
Wikimedia is anything but a proprietary organization.  

>Otherwise someone with a lot of friends can stuff the ballots. 
>There is the question of fixing the registration deadline date: 
>has it past, is it now or is it a future date? Past dates prevent 
>anyone from signing up under many names, a future date will 
>allow more people to register effectively giving newcomers 
>a voice.
>
The best way to deal with possible ballot box stuffing is still to 
create a situation where it doesn't matter anyway.  Anything else 
devotes an awful lot of energy on a purely speculative problem.  I don't 
dispute that we have had a few people who voted two minutes after they 
found out about Wikipedia, but what difference do a few people like that 
make?

>Perhaps 2nd  round votes can be posted on the voting pages 
>in two categories.  Registered or anonymous. The anonymous 
>vote can be compared with the registered vote to see if  
>they differ signficantly.  Having voting counted in two 
>categories should not be very complicated and the results 
>could then be posted so that Erick's proposal is embedded  
>into the second stage voting procedure; someone will not  
>have to spend lots of time analyzing data. We will see if there 
>is a wildly differing outcome between registered Wikipedians  
>and the public at large and can discuss it then.  There will  
>also be some hard data to discuss beyond allegations.
>What ever decision is taken then, we will know who was 
>the significant voting block, registered users or anyone who 
>comes onto the site and votes; objections to including the 
>public votes can be discussed then. 
>
The entire process for choosing a logo has me ROTFWL.  The only thing 
that it's proving to me is what's wrong with voting.

Ec

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