Re: [ga] The North American DNSO BoD chair

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, Oct 12, 1999 at 10:26:11PM -0700, Mark C. Langston wrote:
[...]
> >Sorry, that doesn't follow.  All it indicates is that people who
> >support Karl took Roberto's idea to mind, and that most of the rest
> >didn't.  According to the *actual* rules of the game, 10 supporting
> >messages were all that were required, and after that there is no need
> >to send in any more.  So therefore, if your favorite candidate has 
> >already got more than 10, no need for you to act...
> 
> 
> Be prepared for a shock.  I agree with you.  However, I'd argue
> that wasn't the case.

Sometimes it was.

>  Were it the case,  few if any of the 14 
> "qualified" candidates (I use this because there's doubt about at
> least one candidate) would have more than 10 votes.  Instead, several
> have double the necessary 10, indicating that many people (including
> youself, Kent, having demonstrated your knowledge and interpretation
> of the rules) have voted their support far beyond the initial 10,
> including yourself, Kent, on two occasions.

Irrelevant, really.  The bottom line is that the rule in effect
allows all kinds of dynamics that are different from voting.  For
example, I indicated my support for something like 7 people -- I
wouldn't have been able to do that if I was voting.  I was able to
nominate and support people from other geographic regions.  Etc. 

Nominations are not the same as votes.  One can, for example, 
support that someone have a *chance* to be elected, without them 
being someone you would actually vote for yourself.  I in fact did 
that, of course, by supporting more people than I could ever vote 
for. 

And finally, you are missing something: There are 240 people on the
GA list alone.  The candidate with the most support, Nii, got 60
endorsements.  This is but a fraction of the total -- clearly, a 
*lot* of people did just let others do the nominating.

> >> For The NC to ignore this would be a travesty.
> >
> >No, it is *absolutely necessary* for them to ignore it.  If they did
> >not, it would penalize those who took the rules at face value.  (And
> >I *know* what a stickler you are for following the rules.)
> 
> It's necessary for elected officials to ignore the will of their
> constituencies?

The NC members are very closely following the will of their 
respective constituencies.

>  It's necessary for the NC to ignore the will of the
> GA?  You'll have to go into detail on this, because I'm just not
> seeing it.

1) The pattern of nominations and support is not a good measure of 
the will of the GA.  Karl, for example, got 50 out of 240 possible, 
not even counting the members of other constituencies who were 
eligible to support him, and didn't.

2) Not to beat a dead horse, but the rules don't say "the GA will
select the Board Members".  Instead, they say that the NC will select
them, from candidates *nominated* by the GA, through a process 
devised by the NC.

3) the NC must ignore this because it isn't part of the ground 
rules.  Saying that the nominations were really elections in 
disguise changes the rules dramatically, and many people would have 
done things much differently if that were really to be the case.  
You mention my case, where I gave support to people after there were 
already 10:  *IF* I thought that this was really an election, and 
not nominations, I *would* have done things quite differently.  That 
is a fact.  Indeed I gave support to many people, but I would have 
done things much more carefully if I thought I was really voting.

The bottom line is that you can't just change the rules halfway 
along, as Roberto tried to do -- it only confuses things, and makes 
them worse.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain