[maemo-community] Election process referendum

[From: Benson Mitchell]

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Sebastian 'CrashandDie' Lauwers <
crashanddie at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't give a toss about my karma. I just remember that the last time this
> was discussed, I was disqualified from voting. Yet, I was more using this as
> an example. We could have quite a few members who are silently listening,
> and analysing what is happening in the community, and who do not feel the
> need to voice their opinions, who do not blog, who do not like HTTP forums.
> People like that are being banned from voting, just because they don't
> express their opinion publicly?
>
> I don't recall any constitution requiring people to talk so that they would
> be allowed to vote. It's not because one has the ability to talk that they
> should be forced to.
>

If, by constitution, you're referring to constitutions of state3, they have
citizens, and generally give their citizens (subject to some criteria), the
right to vote. There's two possible analogs here for the karma requirement:
there's generally a time limit required for naturalization, and there's an
age limit for voting. FWIW, I see the former as more analogous, but they are
both limits a potential voter must have fulfilled.

Unlike states, which control land and can consider those born in that land
as citizens from birth, the maemo community can have no native citizenry;
every one starts as an outsider, a foreigner, with relatively limited
rights. The reason we don't allow anyone to vote is the same reason a state
does not allow anyone to vote, and the reason we don't allow anyone with a
maemo.org account to vote is the same reason states don't allow anyone in
their territory to vote.

>
>
>
>> I just don't understand the fuss you're making, Nokia said - when
>> karma was first introduced - it'd be used as an indication for any
>> future possible device programmes. Why is that OK, but using it as a
>> benchmark to indicate someone's involvement in the community, to elect
>> a council - to represent that community - is such a Bad Thing[TM]?
>> Perhaps you can explain, rather than assert? Any power the council
>> holds (and, despite a few assertions, we DO have some power[2]) will
>> impact less on 99.9999% of the community than the chance of having
>> shiny, new, cheap device.
>
>
> I respect the council, please do not shift the focus of this conversation.
> I do not undermine its knowledge or the members that compose it. I was
> extremely proud and happy to hear the Maemo community was being given the
> chance to have a council. Yet, there is a huge difference between utilising
> an arbitrary number based on useless data gathered here and there to feed
> egos, and empowering trolls with a vote, by removing that vote from others.
> Yes, there, I said it. A troll has more chance of gathering karma than a
> silent user.
>
Fine, so we need to do something to stop the trolls. That doesn't mean that
silent users (leeches? outsiders? trolls? We can't tell!) should be handed
control, just because stopping them doesn't stop trolls.

>
>
> One of the roles of the council is to give a voice to the community's
>> cacophony, to make it easier to be heard by Nokia. If someone's not
>> contributing to that cacophony, *why* should they get a vote in who
>> filters, summarises and condenses it?
>
>
> Because I choose to work the cacophony (btw, nice opinion of what you're
> supposed to represent... Very.. Honorable, no, sorry that's not the right
> word, very condescending) in different manners than by blogging,
> incrementing my posts on itT, or yell about on this discussion list 24/7. I
> talk with people, about their views, about their choices. I talk about how
> they should brace themselves for the things that are to come, how to help
> their project going forward. Because I care about other aspects of this
> whole Maemo community which are most definitely not measurable by adding the
> bits stored in a database.
>

But how do you propose we distinguish between you and your ilk, who
apparently make this valuable but completely unmeasurable contribution, and
those who make no contribution at all? If it's really unmeasurable, we can't
measure it, so we have to throw those people out, or include even
deliberately disruptive users who make a new account with a clean email.


> [1] http://maemo.org/profile/view/crashanddie/
>
>
> Aye, and the only reason I have karma points is because I need to sometimes
> come here and reach out so that some people don't hurt themselves with their
> ignorance. Aye, I'm arrogant as well. At least I care to admit it.
>
> And even doing only that, you racked up almost double the current
requirement for karma.  Since the world has no shortage of either ignorance
or karma, I expect people like you will be quite able to keep enough karma
in the future. So some people with even stealthier contributions might have
to actually go work on their karma to build it up; that doesn't seem so
horribly bad, and the alternative you present seems worse. (If you don't
think the possibility of outsiders causing grief in a maemo.org election is
realistic, you haven't been on teh intarwebs long enough. Some people will
do anything for lulz, if you know what I mean.)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-community/attachments/20090203/7f0fa382/attachment.htm