[xasop]

We are going to have a vote on every single member? That will take weeks.

You don't need to have a separate vote for every single member. The method of electing Australian Senators can be trivially adapted for our use case. It uses preferential voting, so people would vote on a list of candidates from 1 to n, and after counting up all the votes we would have a decision.

This does require in advance to know how many Council members we want. I would suggest starting with five; keep things small until such time as we know they need to grow.

I think we have a pretty good idea already, don't we? Can't we just start with a list and argue until people don't care anymore?

No.

[Thork]

We are going to have a vote on every single member? That will take weeks.

You don't need to have a separate vote for every single member. The method of electing Australian Senators can be trivially adapted for our use case. It uses preferential voting, so people would vote on a list of candidates from 1 to n, and after counting up all the votes we would have a decision.

This does require in advance to know how many Council members we want. I would suggest starting with five; keep things small until such time as we know they need to grow.

I think we have a pretty good idea already, don't we? Can't we just start with a list and argue until people don't care anymore?

No.

Great. Make the list and lets get voting.

[xasop]

Great. Make the list and lets get voting.

The first step in my outline was to define the process for electing candidates. This includes the fairly important step of determining who is allowed to vote.

Allowing any forum member to vote would include spam bots, noobs and alts, which is definitely not what we want. I like the idea of restricting the vote to official members, if we can decide how to define an official member on this forum.

Suggestions?

[Thork]

Anyone who held an account on the old forum for more than 12 months?

[Lemon]

Well, if it helps, examine me. I should not be allowed vote. That might help decide what kind of person shouldn't be allowed.

[xasop]

Anyone who held an account on the old forum for more than 12 months?

That would exclude you, unless you can prove you ever had an account other than this one:

http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=194682

It would also include anyone who made an account and spammed AR for a year.

No, we can't base this solely on time or posts spent on the forum.

[Thork]

Well, if it helps, examine me. I should not be allowed vote. That might help decide what kind of person shouldn't be allowed.

Do you want the society to be successful? If so, you'll vote for the right people. You know everyone here. Why shouldn't you be allowed to vote? You live here as well.

Anyone who held an account on the old forum for more than 12 months?

That would exclude you, unless you can prove you ever had an account other than this one:

http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=194682

It would also include anyone who made an account and spammed AR for a year.

No, we can't base this solely on time or posts spent on the forum.

Well you aren't making this very easy. At least duration of accounts (yeah ok I'm an exception but I have been at FES a long time), is a quantifiable yardstick.

Picking people we deem to give a shit, or that we like isn't very fair or democratic.

[Lord Dave]

If you're going to have a council, it must be made up of actual FEers.

So the first thing you should do is make up a contract that all members who wish to be on the council need to agree to.

Then find out who wants to agree to it.

Then vote.

[xasop]

Well you aren't making this very easy.

It's not an easy problem to solve. Let's take the time to get it right.

Picking people we deem to give a shit, or that we like isn't very fair or democratic.

I agree. That's why I think official member status is a good measure to go by.

The old website has a register of all official FES members. Some of them won't be registered on this forum, of course, but if we establish the set of users here who are official members, then we have the set of people who can vote.

It's not a perfect measure, and it means I won't get a vote, but at least it's fair and consistent.

I also think we should have periodic elections of this nature by all official members. I would actually sign up as an official member if we had a Society run by someone who isn't Daniel, and I suspect many others would do likewise.

[Thork]

I'm not on the list of official members.


Picking people who gave Daniel money is no use.

[xasop]

I'm not on the list of official members.

And?

[Thork]

I'm not on the list of official members.

And?

So now I can't vote on the election.

I'm sure there are others who didn't want a crappy certificate from Daniel who should also get a vote.

[xasop]

So now I can't vote on the election.

Why should you be able to vote in an election pertaining to a Society you aren't a member of?

[Thork]

Ok, work something out and tell me what happens. This is getting ridiculous.


If I can't vote, I can't be a part of organising it either for the same reasons.

[Lord Dave]

If a zentic council is formed, doesn't that essentially mean a few society is being formed?

[Thork]

If a zentic council is formed, doesn't that essentially mean a few society is being formed?

I would have thought so. What Daniel has to do with it I don't know?

[xasop]

Ok, work something out and tell me what happens. This is getting ridiculous.

If I can't vote, I can't be a part of organising it either for the same reasons.

I don't agree. There's no reason you can't be part of the discussion. I'm not an official member either, but I'm happy to accept that I don't get a vote this election as a result.

If you would prefer to decouple this Society from the old one and define an "official member" in some other way, I'm all ears, but I don't see an easy way to define that.

If a zentic council is formed, doesn't that essentially mean a few society is being formed?

Yes, which brings us back to the matter of how to define "official member" for the purposes of this election.


I don't like this way of defining voting privileges any more than you do, but I don't see a fairer alternative. If somebody can come up with one, I will be more than happy to listen.

[Thork]

Yes, which brings us back to the matter of how to define "official member" for the purposes of this election.

The people who are here. Give everyone a vote. They are the people that suppoerted this new forum and they are the ones who are helping to build a new society.
We have no noobs. We have no trolls (you just banned the only one). Lets just vote. Whatever will be.

[xasop]

The people who are here. Give everyone a vote. They are the people that suppoerted this new forum and they are the ones who are helping to build a new society.
We have no noobs. We have no trolls (you just banned the only one). Lets just vote. Whatever will be.

That's a reasonable argument. Let's do that.

I'm going to duck out for now, as I've steered the discussion more than I intended to. I'm happy to act as mediator for the election, given that I have both a reasonable knowledge of voting systems and a lack of interest in being on the Council myself. Let me know if you want me to do so, but it's your choice.

[Lord Dave]

Ok, work something out and tell me what happens. This is getting ridiculous.

If I can't vote, I can't be a part of organising it either for the same reasons.

I don't agree. There's no reason you can't be part of the discussion. I'm not an official member either, but I'm happy to accept that I don't get a vote this election as a result.

If you would prefer to decouple this Society from the old one and define an "official member" in some other way, I'm all ears, but I don't see an easy way to define that.

If a zentic council is formed, doesn't that essentially mean a few society is being formed?

Yes, which brings us back to the matter of how to define "official member" for the purposes of this election.


I don't like this way of defining voting privileges any more than you do, but I don't see a fairer alternative. If somebody can come up with one, I will be more than happy to listen.

Well whenever a new country forms they just define a voter as whoever is there.
So it stands to reason that we just make a cutoff date and say that anyone with at least 1 post here (and isn't a spam bot or alt) on or before this date can vote in the first election provided they pledge to be an FEer.

After that the council can figure out how to evaluate who is an FEer.