Re: Opposing strict time limits

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

Hi Nikolaus,

On Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 11:20:13AM +0100, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> On Oct 22 2021, Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> wrote:
> > I also  believe that a ballot with options that were written by people
> > who do not support that option will usually result in a cluttered
> > ballot, with various options that are almost but not quite the same
> > thing, and options that are irrelevant noise and which will never win. I
> > think this behavior should be discouraged if not outright forbidden
> > (although, again, I'm not sure how to forbid them),
> 
> How about something like this?
> 
> "My proposing or seconding a ballot option, every proposer/amender
> commits to rank this option above FD and (in case of multiple ballot
> options) higher than at least half of all the options. Should the
> proposer/amender's ballot not confirm reflect this at the time of the
> vote, proposer's/amender's vote will not be counted."

I had considered something along those lines, but decided against it.
Firstly for the same reason that Sam also pointed out: people should be
allowed to change their minds.

Additionally, while I think it is wrong to *draft* an option that you
consider incorrect, I do not consider it wrong to *second* an option
that you consider incorrect. As an example, consider that AJ Towns
seconded GR 2006_005, his own recall vote. I think that was a
reasonable thing to do, and I don't think we should forbid such behavior
by anyone. If you consider that plus the fact that Russ's proposal
allows proposers to withdraw their ballots, then this would incentivize
withdrawing proposals that otherwise still have sufficient support,
which is not necessarily a good idea.

So thanks, but no thanks :)

-- 
     w@uter.{be,co.za}
wouter@{grep.be,fosdem.org,debian.org}