[Wikipedia-l] Vote on voting method for final round

[Jake Nelson]

A lot of interesting points being made, hmm.
Some replies, in no particular order:
I'll note that the FPTP vote on voting method wasn't a great choice, but eh,
we can live with it. It shouldn't be a terribly different result with any
decent system. I'd recommend establishing some sort of standards for voting
system... not 'we use X system always' (though if we could find one people
consistently agree upon as good enough, that'd be /nice/ (I'm not holding my
breath here)) but maybe 'we use system X, Y, or Z' (Which to me are
Condorcet, IRV, and Average, in no particular order). And if we really feel
the need, specify how we choose among X/Y/Z  (I'd say by average voting).
I find it distressing that our French friends think 'silly' equates to
'idiot'. Silly is mostly a friendly term... it can be considered a little
patronizing to have your idea called silly, but it's not really personally
offensive, and being called silly as a person can almost be a compliment.
I wouldn't vote in favor of a Miwki-ed logo, but I don't have an issue with
the existence of such variants. We really should have (or should have had)
more variants... and I'd have liked to see some creation of new logos after
the Round 1 determination of what people want to see... more fusions of
logos, etc. (The black/white/grey example is a good one.) I could make more
detailed suggestions, but it'd be academic now, the current system isn't
bad, and suggestions of "I'd do it this way" would seem like undue
criticism. I can understand if Erik gets very irritable about such things
(Though he seems to show quite good restraint on this so far...)
I definitely understand the concerns of the foreign-language Wikipedians
about having to go through intermediaries, and possibly being ignored by the
English-only-speaking majority. For starters, I suggest that posting in
their language may be better than staying quiet: translation can happen.
Babelfish doesn't exactly produce brilliant prose, but it rarely fails to
convey the gist, and has improved drastically from how it used to be... and
sometimes you'll be surprised who understands you. Also, try not to read
American or Anglophonic conspiracies into things- any that exist are likely
unintentional. Remember Hanlon's Razor: 'Never attribute to malice that
which can be adequately explained by stupidity.' (Though I don't think
stupidity is necessarily the right word here, perhaps ignorance might be
better.)
I have a lot of thoughts on voting, governance, and including
non-Anglophonic Wikipedians, but they're lengthy and scattered, so I'll not
burden you with them... maybe I'll post something on my userspace later....
though I'm still rather self-conscious about making such statements, not
having been here terribly long.

Anyway, in general, the best prescription for all of us is just to relax.
I'll shut up for a while now ;).

--Jake