On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 12:48:14PM -0600, Chris Muller wrote:

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Ha! I just voted, and it looks like the number of different opinions exactly matches the number of people who have voted so far.

If we could get one more person to vote, then stop the election, we would have a decision ;-)

Joking aside, there is something to be said for taking of poll to find out what most people want, without regard for who has the loudest opinion.

It already is without regard to loudness, the loudest voters still only get one vote.

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So folks - if you have an opinion on this topic, please follow the link above and click on your preference.

Voting has been a last resort, not a first resort, of decision-making by this community. When an issue comes up, the people who care enough about that issue to step up and present the reasons of their position to their peers, so that a community consensus is arrived at based on community-input from those with a vested interest.

By contrast, some external, anonymous poll in which dozens folks who don't participate much, don't care that much because they started a Squeak image 3 times in their whole life, -- those folks having as much pull as everyone else who is more-vested.

Besides, how can we know such an external poll is even fair? Could someone vote multiple times from different computers, for example? Right here, we know any votes are fair, and by the discussions we know the *reasons* for the outcome..

Sure, no disagreement. Like most attempts at democratic processes, it probably will not work very well.

But sometimes we don't actually know how people are using the system, and asking the broader community for input is one way to get information. Think of the poll as a way to ask for input that you can use to make an informed decision. I don't know if it will work, but it seems worth a try, so let's see what happens.

Dave