Re: Amendment to GR on GFDL, and the changes to the Social Contract
On 10 Feb 2006, Anthony Towns verbalised:
> Meh, -devel dropped.
>
> On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 10:27:03PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> On 10 Feb 2006, Anthony Towns outgrape:
>>> That view, namely "other people may propose ballots that aren't
>>> good enough, and it's my job to stop that", is precisely a
>>> supervisory one.
>> The secretary is responsible for running the vote, and also has the
>> final decision for the form of the ballot. It would be remiss of me
>> to let a ballot go by which i consider incorrect.
>
> That's the way you see it, and it's an entirely fair view. It's not
> the only possible view, however. It would be just as possible to say
> "I don't make the call on what's correct or not" -- eg saying "it
> was called `editorial amendments' because that's what the proposer
> thought it should be called, no other reason" instead of "it was
> called `editorial amendments' because I think that's the right thing
> to have called it". I think it'd also be easier on you, no more
> burdensome on the rest of us, and more efficient.
And it would end up in me rubber stamping something I know is
wrong, which is more than I could stomach. Suppose I had been
amongst the people who did not consider the change to be editorial --
the course of action you propose would have me being actively in
cahoots with a "deceptive" or "misleading" title on the GR and
ballot.
For the sake of making things easier on me "I don't know -- I
was just following orders" I would have engaged in a course of action
which was detrimental to the project in my eyes.
I don't think I can do that.
> It might be better at setting people's expectations: where they
> might expect the secretary to be "unbiassed", or at least to pretend
> to be, presumably they wouldn't expect that of people proposing GRs.
So people would prefer a rubber stamp mindlessly going along
with whatever is put before them? Umm, then change the constitution,
and take away this power of the secretary to adjudicate ballots and
matter of procedure. I am sure one can write up a front end to set up
and start off devotee, based on mailed signatures.
If that happens, of course, it would end my tenure as
secretary, since I could not, in good conscience, go along being just
a rubber stamp.
> Obviously, YMMV, and it's YM that counts -- don't get me wrong, it's
> 100% appropriate for you to make the call which way you'll handle
> your role; I'm just saying I think the other choice would be better.
>
>>> Personally, I'd rather the secretarial role be as automatic as
>>> possible, even to the point where votes would be run without any
>>> human intervention. I've thought about that before, but I don't
>>> have the inclination to write any code for it.
>> You know how to change the constitution. Currently, the
>> secretaries role is far from being a rubber stamp.
>
> Hrm? I don't agree -- looking over the summary of ballot
> descriptions and setting 3:1 requirements seem incredibly minor to
> me; the "rubber stamp" aspect of running the vote and making
> announcements seems much more important.
I guess we differ in what we consider important in the
secretaries job. Running votes can be automated, really. I'm pretty
sure I would not, barring that automation, go through the hassle of
running votes if I thought that was all the office was good
for.
manoj
--
Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10!
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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