[maemo-community] Election process referendum

[From: Ryan Abel]

On Feb 2, 2009, at 4:21 PM, Graham Cobb wrote:

> On Monday 02 February 2009 20:12:29 Ryan Abel wrote:
>
>> On Feb 2, 2009, at 9:12 AM, Graham Cobb wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe
>>> that is the way it should be: maybe the council **should** represent
>>> contributors rather than users, but we should at least get the
>>> opinion of the
>>> users on whether they care.
>>
>> Dave also hit the nail on the head here, but I'll elaborate a bit.
>>
>> The Council isn't in place as a consumer activism group. We're here
>> for the *community* and its members (i.e., contributors), which is
>> only a subset of all users (i.e., owners).
>
> When I said "users" I didn't mean tablet users, I meant Maemo.org  
> users . . .

s/Maemo.org/maemo.org/g ;)

I don't really think in terms of "maemo.org" or "not maemo.org".  
maemo.org is only a website. Generally, when people refer to users,  
they mean "owners of tablets".

> . . . who I consider to be just as much members of the community as  
> the contributors.


I disagree. In order to belong to a community you have to participate  
in it and contribute to it.

> Are you suggesting the "community" in my local small town only  
> consists of
> the shopkeepers?   There are well over a thousand (probably many  
> more -- I
> got bored flicking through the pages in the user listing) people  
> with Maemo
> accounts and fewer than 25 karma points.  Many more than have more  
> than 25
> points.

A flawed analogy, as"contributing" isn't just developers "selling"  
their wares, but I'll humor you for the sake of argument.

You live in the area, shop at the stores, attend social events and  
interact with others in your community in a dozen different  
significant ways, right? Obviously you're a member of the community.  
But what about somebody who stops in for a weekend, rents an apartment  
then is never seen again? That is the type of person who we're  
discussing here. Somebody who stops by, registers an account and is  
never heard from again.

Now, obviously there are people who do care about and pay attention to  
the community who have less than 25 karma (the number of these people  
is steadily dropping with every karma improvement), but if they truly  
are that interested in participating, it isn't difficult to accumulate  
25 karma in a relatively short period of time.

> All these people have visited maemo.org and created accounts.  Why  
> should the
> council only represent people who contribute to the Maemo community,  
> not all
> those who are trying to use our downloads, our documentation, our
> community-contributed software, our forums, etc?

Well, first, (as Benson pointed out) are these people's interests  
really so radically different from the interests of the people with  
more than 25 karma that they wouldn't already be covered? If so, I'd  
be interesting in hearing exactly how.

Second, we'd like to prevent ballot stuffing, and requiring each  
account that gets a vote to have some sort of appreciable presence  
accomplishes this nicely.

Third, let me flip the question back on you, why do these people  
_need_ a vote? What is being overlooked that makes it so important for  
them to have a vote? Many of them may not even _want_ a vote (can you  
delete a maemo.org account if you no longer have an interest in the  
community?). . . .

> I'm not saying that the council is doing a bad job of dealing with  
> those
> people's concerns (the new site, the debmaster, all these things are  
> helping
> those users) but why on earth don't they get a vote?
>
> I must admit, I completely fail to see why we do not give a vote to  
> anyone who
> has a maemo.org account.  Can someone explain the rationale?

Well, if all they've done is register an account, how on earth are  
they going to make an informed decision about which candidates to  
pick? Democracy for democracy's sake is very high-minded and all, but  
it's rarely very useful.


--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council chair
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