[maemo-community] Community council elections

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Wednesday 13 August 2008 19:39:57 Jonas Hurrelmann wrote:
> In particular those points concern me:
> > - Elligible voters will have:
> > * a maemo.org account for more than 3 months on the date of the end
> > of the election (that is, 2 months ago)
> > * more than 25 karma points, as of 23:59 tonight
>
> Following the discussion on IRC today, I want to raise my voice against
> this. 

I agree with Jonas.  I believe that everyone who has a garage account as of 
the date the election is announced to the world (or last week, or two months 
ago, I don't really mind) should be able to vote in this first election.  It 
would be up to the council to decide if the rules should change for future 
elections (if, for example, karma becomes more effective).

In my mind, really the only reason for limiting it at all is that otherwise 
some idiots on Slashdot might come along to vote just to have some fun!  In 
general, anyone who is using, reading about or contributing to Maemo probably 
deserves a vote.

> > - Candidates should have 100 karma points as of tonight, 23:59. I can
> > post the list of elligible candidates tomorrow.
>
> The arguments above apply here as well, but I am not as opposed against it
> as to the voting rights.
> I do not think it is necessary to have karma as a criteria for being a
> candidate. If persons are unknown to the community, they will not get a
> significant amount of votes anyway.
> If a person that has less than 100 karma points would get elected, this
> would only show how insignificant the karma actually is.
>
> So it would make much more sense to just accept everyone volunteering.
> I guess there will not be many with less than 100 karma anyway, but if
> those with less karma are committed enough and show their commitment (not
> by karma) then i can't see any reason why they should not get a chance for
> getting a seat in the council.

I am less sure about this one.  I have a slight fear that fewer than 5 people 
will volunteer and so we may find anyone who volunteers gets elected by 
default!  

My suggested compromise is that, for this first election, we leave the 100 
karma point restriction for being an eligible candidate but have no karma 
restriction for having a vote (but do require a garage account).

Graham