[Elections] Re: Who votes? how does voting work?

[Lex Spoon]

Daniel Vainsencher <daniel.vainsencher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Like I said the last time you posted this list, the barrier against 
> these people under SqP is practically non-existent. Just make them 
> users, certify them, and send them their password. With about 20 minutes 
> of your time, the problem is solved. Let me know, I'll certify people I 
> know from that list.

You describe here a theoretical way to define the community using Squeak
People.  It remains theoretical, though.  Squeak People has had over a
year in action now and has yet to provide any reputation at all for the
majority of people I have collaborated with on Squeak projects.  Most
dramatically, it doesn't even give a reputation to the guy who formed
the project.

How much tweaking will it require?  How much work will people have
to put into making reputation designations?

Further, why is the reputation system approach preferable, even if we
can tweak it up enough?  Membership and rank will fluctuate as the
reputation flows shift around.  If the system is anything like the
current algorithm, then applicants will get their rank depending on a 20
off-the-cuff reviews instead of 1-3 careful ones.  And that's at best --
it is still theoretical whether a reputation system will work even
to give cursory rankings that are in the ball park.

Also, there is still no answer on a critical question for SqP's
algorithm: who gets the initial root reputations that then flow through
the system?  I guess that, right now, Cees has simply hand picked some people?


> On who proposes referenda, a seconding mechanism would be a fine 
> alternative. So one person proposes, one seconds? Proposer gets to set 
> the date?
> 
> And a critical matter - do we need a lower bound on voter turnabout for 
> a proposal to pass? if not, we probably want a lower bound on voting time.

A mere seconding might be enough, but it's impossible to say until we
try.

An additional requirement that seems helpful is to require d weeks of
discussion (2 weeks?  4 weeks?) before a proposal can be submitted for
real.  Assuming full members play nice with each other (and in the end,
we have to make that assumption to some extent!), a preliminary fielding
on a mailing list would frequently make it pretty clear whether it is
worth a vote.

Regarding time, a minimum time seems important--one month, perhaps? 
Referenda are fundamentally slow; it's not a mechanism for fast
turnaround, anyway....


-Lex