Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

sm-discuss - Re: [SM-Discuss] voting process

sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Public SourceMage Discussion List

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Jeremy Blosser (emrys)" <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>
  • To: SM Discuss <sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] voting process
  • Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 21:17:24 -0600

On Feb 09, Sergey A. Lipnevich [sergey AT sourcemage.org] wrote:
> Jeremy Blosser (emrys) wrote:
> > The IRC discussions I've seen on this have only referenced past
> > discussions
> > about the voting process which I believe primarily took place on the ML.
> > Reference is usually made to people being opposed due to the potential for
> > "intimidation" or "vote buying"; these are standard objections to open
> > voting systems in political circles, I don't know if anyone has
> > experienced
> > anything like that here (I don't think so) or if it's a theoretical
> > objection.
> >
>
> I have a strong feeling that becoming more political is definitely not
> going to help SMGL more forward. There's nothing political in personal
> conflicts (and we have a share of these), they can be resolved without
> hiding from each other and behind somebody or something else. But,
> politics is about power and resources, so I assume that too many people
> are concerned that they don't have enough power.

I doubt anyone would say "I want SMGL to become more political". By
"political" I only mean the most basic definition: we have leads, we have
authority figures, there are elections. Yes, leads wield power, that
doesn't mean there's necessarily anything nefarious if people experience
peer pressure.

> It's a very bad thing in itself, because in FOSS the degree of power is
> usually determined by the community, and not assigned. If the community
> cannot determine the worthiness of any participant openly and we are too
> suspicious or afraid of one another, we're frankly speaking not a very
> healthy community.

Be that as it may, remember that the *current process* is closed voting.
It was open before, and this changed due to various feedback and
discussions which are logged in the ML archives and elsewhere. For that to
change would require the people that requested and got it changed before to
have their minds changed.

That is a separate issue from the one the original mail was meant to
address: the current process also has no way to be audited. Auditability
is both inseparable from the closed voting system that causes it, and also
an issue that can be dealt with on its own. That is, whether or not we can
have open votes, we at least need to be able to audit our votes.

Do others have comments on the original proposal? Particularly those in
favor of closed voting, since this is essentially proposed as a compromise
between those that want anonymous votes and those that want auditability?

Attachment: pgpO08A4BiFtf.pgp
Description: PGP signature




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page