Re: Amendment to GR on GFDL, and the changes to the Social Contract

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 07:21:22PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > This is silly.  It seems like the constitution effectively says "if the
> > resolution passes it required a simple majority; if it failed, it needed 3:1".
> 
> The only silliness is the verb tenses.  Once some concept passes
> supermajority it doesn't need to pass again, because it has already
> passed.

To phrase it differently, it seems like the vote says "the DFSG means this",
and the notion is that if the vote passes, then it did, in fact, mean that;
since nothing changed, no supermajority was required.  If it failed, then
the DFSG did not mean that, and making it say what the option claimed
would have been a change to the DFSG, and require a supermajority.  That's
just what this argument seems to have turned into.

In reality, even if it passes, it's changing the DFSG by overlaying an
enforced interpretation.

I suppose this was an underlying glitch with GR2004-003: its changes
were "editorial" to you if you agreed with them beforehand, but not to the
people who didn't.  That should be a strong hint to anyone who doesn't
want their GR to be attacked by the minority for all time: avoid calling
changes "editorial" or "interpretive".  Even if, to you, they really are,
they won't be to the people who disagree.  That doesn't mean the GR text
can't say things like "this is believed to already be the interpretation
held by most DD's", if that's what the proposer and seconders actually
believe, but recognize that you *are* changing the DFSG for those who don't.

(The above isn't intended to spawn another "editorial" argument, but rather
to give the proposer of this option another reason to think about rewording
it: whether editorial or not, the labelling of GR2004-003 as such *has*
caused such attacks.  If you want invariant sections and the rest of the
problems to be considered free, say so.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard