[WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

Mon Sep 18 16:28:46 UTC 2006

On 9/18/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> I voted for three people who I felt would be the best and most-qualified:
> there is one who I think is the most qualified, and two who are about equal.
> I wonder if I am doing my first choice user a disservice by voting for the
> other two, and instead just vote for the one who I think is the clear
> frontrunner.

Based on the counts in the previous elections a huge number of people
only supported one... In my discussions with people I found that many
that supported only one in the election actually thought that multiple
would have done an okay job, but either didn't understand or didn't
feel comfortable with the approval voting process.

For each person like you who used the approval process correctly there
will probably be four who tried to game it by only picking their first
choice.

Based on the power lawish  distribution of approval in the last
election, it's safe to say that your first choice is likely the same
as a lot of other people's first choice.... so your preference is
still represented even if you approved multiple people.

It's unfortunate that we're using an approval vote when it appears
that most of our voters view it as something else.