Re: More votes in Debian? Any idea for improvement?
On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 01:27:07AM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 03/15/2012 10:10 PM, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 03:11:28PM +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> >> On 03/12/2012 04:04 PM, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> >>> Debian is not a democracy, nor does it need to be.
> >>>
> >>> We have one elected representative, whose job it is to make sure that
> >>> the project runs smoothly. But having an elected representative doesn't
> >>> necessarily mean that this person is the best for the job. Technical
> >>> tasks should have experts doing them, otherwise they'll not work; and
> >>> while an election can give you many things, experts in a particular job
> >>> is probably not one of them.
> >>
> >> So if I understand well, you're saying that the DPL knows better than a
> >> majority that would vote
> >
> > Absolutely not. I'm not sure how you derive that from my above
> > statement. I said "having an elected representative doesn't [...] mean
> > this person is the best for the job", which seems like exactly the
> > opposite.
>
> Well, there's only 2 choices here. However you put it, we need a way to
> appoint. Either the DPL knows better (maybe thanks to a relationship
> with the team we're talking about, but it's not always about teams...),
> either the majority knows better. There's no 3rd option here, so please
> make a choice between these 2! :)
Oh, _that_ way. Right, I misunderstood you then, sorry.
No, I don't think the DPL knows better than the majority of people. The
very idea behind elections is that the electorate selects someone whom
they think will represent their best interests; whom the electorate
believes will make decisions that are in line with what they, as a
group, think is necessary. This is why there's a need for campaigning:
it should allow voters to gauge whether the candidates' opinions are in
line with your own (or at least, which candidate's opinion is most in
line with yours).
So, the DPL is supposed to represent the electorate's opinion; he
doesn't know better or worse than the electorate; he knows exactly as
well as the electorate.
At least, that's the theory. Of course, in practice, things don't go
that black and white, and thus it's the elected person's responsibility
to make a reasonable effort to get some consensus about the possible
choices, before making a decision. We even have that in our
constitution.
In even more practice, in Debian usually the choice of whom to appoint
as a delegate is a choice between 'Person A' or 'Nobody'. The choice
there is usually fairly obvious. Also, the point in time where a DPL
appoints a delegate is usually far beyond the point where the delegate
started doing the work, anyway.
And at any rate, even if that isn't the case currently, I think it
should be; so if I am elected as DPL, I don't think I will appoint
people as delegates who're not already doing the work in question,
except in extreme circumstances.
> > I'm saying there are a number of jobs that require experts, not elected
> > representatives.
>
> IMO, there are key positions that we (I mean, all DDs) all should be
> able to appoint, because we all understand what the work is (for
> example, ftp team, release team, etc.), and some where we know less (for
> example DSA...). Thoughts?
I think I understand what you mean now, but I disagree with it, for
reasons as stated above.
--
The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by
the following formula:
pi zz a
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