Re: GFDL position statement ballot invalid
On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 18:36 +0100, Thomas Viehmann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Oliver Elphick wrote:
> > I object to being asked to vote on a meaningless proposal. If I vote
> > for 3, am I voting for an amendment to DFSG, Social Contract or
> > Constitution? Which one of those? What exactly is the text of the
> > change? I am a good deal more reluctant to vote for a fundamental
> > change than for a position paper.
>
> > To express the ballot choice in such a way automatically imposes biase.
That is meant as a statement of fact, not a personal attack. If
something is listed as a constitutional change it will certainly bias
against it those who dislike such changes.
> Manoj was absolutely clear that he sees the drastic interpretation
> change as a change to the DFSG and brought up the problem[1] and
> explicitely encouraged Anton to pursue his goal by the means of
> proposing a clarifying explicit amendment[2] on February 1st.
>
> Given that Anton's mail suggests that the Secretary's asessment of the
> 3:1 supermajority requirement might be subject to a challenge[3], it
> seems that the Secretary took a very prudent route here.
I'm sorry, but I think the current ballot is a mess. If Amendment B is
passed, we will supposedly have changed the DFSG or Social Contract, but
the actual text of both will remain unchanged. The text of the
amendment is not listed as a foundation document in itself. If a future
GR should propose to amend the text of the current amendment (once
passed) will that also be an amendment of a fundamental document? It
won't be listed as one in the constitution. This is not prudence but a
recipe for chaos.
I don't object to Manoj's determining that this is a modification of a
fundamental document, but I think he should then require the text of the
amendment to be changed so as actually to accomplish what he deems it to
be doing.
Of course, he may -- possibly correctly -- be anticipating that
Amendment B will not get a 3:1 majority, in which case there won't be
any future problems with it.
> Let me add that I think that the Secretary succeeds at handling this
> vote in the most impartial way possible.
I'm sorry to have implied otherwise.
> It's not a glamorous job and
> Manoj deserves more appreciation for doing it than he currently gets on
> this list. Thank you, Manoj!
Agreed.
--
Oliver Elphick olly@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/A54310EA 92C8 39E7 280E 3631 3F0E 1EC0 5664 7A2F A543 10EA
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