[Foundation-l] Voting requirements for community selected seats (Was: unable to vote)

Thu Jun 5 18:18:37 UTC 2008

On 6/5/08, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>
> Dan Rosenthal wrote:
>
> > The distinction is that the community board members will
> > represent the community, of which you are a member,
>
> The problem is the unclear and unfair definition of this
> "community".  It is not self-evident that I am a member or that
> this community even exists.  Who's in and who's out?  If you are
> speaking *for* this group, who are you speaking *againt*?

That is the question that Lodewijk posed. There is no answer to this
question, at least as of yet. My statement regarding the board members is
meant to be a lens (one of many) within which we can view the considerably
more important discussion of what the community is.

I happen to be white-skinned, blue-eyed and right-handed, but I
> refuse to be counted among "the community of right-handed people",
> where someone claims to "represent" the interests of this
> community, inevitably against the interests of left-handed people,
> or even against people without hands.

I don't think that follows logically. I am right handed. I could represent
the interests of right handed people in such a way that does not
discriminate or work against the interests of left handed (ambidexterous
controls, for instance, support both groups and harm neither) or no handed
people (voice activated supplementary controls, for instance, support this
group and do not harm my group). We're not playing a zero-sum game here.

I happen to edit Wikipedia and to have the edit count required
> (this year!) to be able to vote.  But I would not want anybody to
> count people like me and use that large number as a platform for
> speaking out against non-members of this so-called "community".
> For example, old-timers who have been inactive in the last 18
> months could have radically different ideas about username
> usurpation, but if you exclude them from your definition of the
> "community" (of currently active contributors), you don't need to
> take their opinions into account.

I have not yet seen anyone saying that they would speak AGAINST
non-community members. In contrast I think the idea of quantifying the
community helps because it gives us a more definite way to know how to bring
in more people from outside the community. And again, simply because they
are outside the "official" community does not mean that we don't care about
their needs. One trait I've noticed among Wikimedians is that they tend to
care about groups other than their own (to take an example, non-gays being
worried about the rights of gays at Wikimania). We have many people who are
considerably opposed to an idea that would preclude anonymous IP editors
from editing projects. However, those IP editors, under many definitions of
"the community", would not likely be included. We still care about them and
speak in support of them.

In any political party, church or other membership association
> (such as the national WMF chapters), I have the right to leave.
> On Wikipedia I supposedly have the [[right to vanish]].  But once
> I have edited Wikipedia and reached the required edit count, there
> seems to be no way for me to voluntarily leave this "Wikimedia
> community", that you wish to represent.  I can refrain from voting
> (as I have done so far), but you will still count me as a member.

Is that any different than real life? It's a reflection of the dichotomy of
which groups you self identify with, and which ones you choose not to. For
instance, I can choose to not self-identify as an American, and thus try to
exclude myself from the community of Americans, but that community can and
should still count me as a member. It works with some things (for instance,
swap out nationality with race) and not with others (i.e. religion). What
you are arguing here, however, is not a question of the validity of the
community itself, but rather how to leave it. That's something that
certainly should be brought up in the ensuing discussion on what the
community is.

> I don't agree with actions taken by the the U.S. Government.
>
> But if they start to burn books, you are free to leave. Would you
> ever want to live in a country that didn't allow you to leave?
> If you become really unhappy with the people who represent the
> right-handed, would you start to write with your left hand? Or
> would you refute the whole idea of "handedness communities"?

I am free to leave the country, just as you are free to leave Wikipedia. But
according to the US Department of State, I may not renounce my citizenship
(they choose not to recognize it). If I leave the country and happily begin
my new life in Iceland, however, do I really care what the vast (and now
distant) community thinks of my action?

--
Dan Rosenthal

--
> Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
> Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>
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