On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 01:15:45PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Except I have not found the paper to be convincing; I think
> that the underlying assumptions are about mechanisms that are far
> different from ours, and that this difference is enough to invalidate
> the conclusion reached.
The mechanism discussed is any balloting method that selects among
exclusive alternatives, can produce a winner by numerical count, and has
only one vote to a voter.
Does that not apply to Debian's voting mechanism?
> I suggest people read the paper and reach their own conclusions.
Indeed.
> 1. Consisting of the greatest number or quantity; greater in
> number or quantity than all the rest; nearly all.
>
> I meant the nearly all nuance.
>
> >> So, supermajorities are, in my opinion, still needed for cases
> >> where we want a (very) rough consensus, where mere majority ought not
> >> be the sole criteria for adopting a measure.
>
> Branden> consensus
> Branden> n : agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief [syn: {general agreement>
>
> Word games, I see. The common usage, when it comes to making
> decisions in debian, has been a term closer to unanimity.
"Word games"? Since when is 67% or even 75% close to "unanimity"? In
the Debian Project today, the minority is going to be on the order of
one-hundred fifty to two hundred people.
> Branden> Hear, hear. I agree that we should have a rough consensus
> Branden> before changing such documents.
>
> I would have defined rough consensus to be about 90% of the
> people agreeing.
Then why don't we have a 9:1 supermajority requirement anywhere in the
Constitution?
> Branden> We just don't need a supermajority to have it.
>
> I beg to differ.
I submit that the Constitution doesn't resemble the status quo you claim
to defend.
--
G. Branden Robinson | It's like I have a shotgun in my
Debian GNU/Linux | mouth, I've got my finger on the
branden@debian.org | trigger, and I like the taste of
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | the gunmetal. -- Robert Downey, Jr.
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