[maemo-community] Election process referendum

[From: Dave Neary]

Hi,

Since you brought up a real-world example, let's run with it:

Graham Cobb wrote:
> Are you suggesting the "community" in my local small town only consists of 
> the shopkeepers?

In town council elections, the people who get to vote are residents.

People who come to town every week to do their shopping, but who live
outside city limits, don't get a vote. People who are passing through
don't get a vote. And people under 18 don't get a vote. These are all
people who are in some way concerned by the decisions and actions of the
city council, and yet they are not represented by the council.

> 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.

I published a breakdown of the distribution of karma at the last
election. This may no longer be accurate, but it is probably
representative:
http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-community/2008-August/002059.html

> 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?

The opinions and feedback of people who are casual maemo.org users are
important. Many of those casual users go on to be more involved later.
But I don't think that the majority of these people consider themselves
concerned by the election of the council.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
maemo.org docsmaster
Email: dneary at maemo.org
Jabber: bolsh at jabber.org