[maemo-community] Election process referendum

[From: Markus Schneider]

> The council should, indeed, represent these members of the
> community
> (after all, to some extent they have a maemo.org account),
> but should
> this silently majority have the ability to change the
> outcome of the
> election for those who *do* actively contribute on a daily
> basis?

That said, I repeat, why not increase the needed karma to 100? This way we surely have active contributors. Karma 25 is far too easy to reach in that sense.

> commented on a Debian bug; it's limited to the contributors
> who are
> expected to have the ability to make an informed choice
> through their
> constant, and active, participation in the community, and
> are aware of
> the issues which affect it.

Still Debian is not Maemo, as the entry barrier is getting a device which costs money and more importantly the project leaders have much more power than the council in a political sense.
Besides it is reasonable to assume that passive members of the community (who also want to vote) do read blogs, forums and mailing lists and are indeed informed. You do not need to contribute to get information.

> Let's set up a strawman: karma requirements for candidates
> &
> electorate are scrapped. Someone stands saying "I want
> NOKIA to make
> MAEMO like an IPhone and I think it should have a full PIM
> and office
> suite shipped with it". This is likely to be a popular
> platform - but
> anyone who participates in Maemo in reality knows that a)
> it's not
> something the Council have any real influence in; b) it's
> not
> something that Nokia are likely to change in response to
> the community
> electing this candidate. Should this candidate be able to
> stand?
> Should the majority of the maemo.org members with less than
> 25 karma
> be allowed to elect him?

Yes. If that is the only concern I would take the risk.
Still I think it is not about dropping the requirement for being a candidate but for actually voting. So if you think there are 100+ karma candidates that seek such unrealistic ideas, then we can equally assume that there are people with more than 25 karma to support such people.

Still I see no point of getting in the council with such aims as it brings no direct benefits in that sense. So I would claim your scenario is quite unlikely for dumping at least 1/3 of the current electorate.

Markus