On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 12:42:32AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 07:03:52PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: > > For some reason, some people think that quorum should be assessed after > > the vote and should be used to toss the vote if not enough votes were > > received. That has bad properties which can discourage some voters when > > participation is already low. Interestingly enough, most of the people > > who have been "confused" by the concept of quorum have been advocating > > this approach. > > In essence, the issues we're trying to address, with quorum, are different > > from the "Everybody meets in the big hall and votes, and if not enough > > people show up we can't vote" concept of classic quorum. If people are > > confused by the fact that we're voting on a mailing list (rather than > > in person), that's sad but it's not a reason to use an inferior mechanism. > What's wrong with "classic quorum" though? Why is your method superior? In a physical meeting, you're either present or you're not, and you're counted towards quorum for all business conducted at the meeting; therefore it's always in your best interest to vote your true preference. In contrast, with an electronic vote that's open for an extended period and for which quorum is calculated per-vote, classic quorum means it may be in your best interest to *not* vote on a particular issue if turnout is low, in order to avoid reaching quorum when you don't agree with the majority of those participating. In other words, classic quorum in Debian would be subject to abuse by strategic *non*-voting, which we want to avoid; democracy is most effective when constituents have a vested interest in participating, and at a minimum this means constituents should never be penalized for voting their true preferences. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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