Re: Accounts -- to be active or not to be

[Muhammad Alkarouri <malkarouri at yahoo dot co dot uk>]

On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 11:37, Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 14:10, Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj wrote:
> 
> > 10,000 years of human history tell me the honour system doesn't work. If I'm
> > planning to run for core, I could get, say, 20 of my friends to all sign up
> > with Arabeyes and make a single CVS commit, and they would all vote for me in
> > the elections, and I would win even if everybody else hated me like poison.
> > 
> > Thats not the worst part of it. The worst part is that soon you will have
> > "camps" budding up within Arabeyes. So you will have X and his buddies, Y and
> > his gang, and before you know it we're engaged in the pettiest (sp?) stupidest
> > bickering, much akin to parliments in the real Arab world I might add ;)
> > 
> > I'm in favour of restrictions. Just a thought,
> > 
> 
> There are two things that can attempt to protect us from this. Note
> point 14 and point 17 in the election section [1].

While I am not with the thesis 'honour system doesn't work', because the
history of the honour system in open source and voluntary organizations
in rather above average, I would say that the two points mentioned by
Elzubeir protect us from nothing..

Point 14 effectively gives the right to the existing core team to
suspend elections, but no real way to solve. Don't tell me they simply
will change the constitution or voting by-laws to get to a better
situation, as coupling the right to suspend and the right to amend the
constitution in the hands of the current core team will almost render
voting meaningless. I would rather let core choose the new team all by
themselves.
If core will suspend elections and suggest a way forward for new voting,
which itself will be voted on to pass, this voting will be subject to
the same fraud procedure.
In short, I don't like to change the rules while playing the game:)

Point 17 doesn't stop anything, because if I find enough friends to
register and vote, they will be more than enough to stop any endeavour
to get 80% for a no-confidence (they will be much more than 20%, to be
able to get me inside core).

My personal suggestion is that we use the honour system, with some
qualifications.
Anybody committed in last 6 months can run and anyone committed in last
12 can vote (the suggestion) +
the list of runners and voters are to be announced before hands. Any
person who should not be able to run and/or vote is disqualified by
core, possibly after a complaint by a member, _before_ voting actually
occurs.

So in the current list there are no such complaints. Say next year some
1500 persons appear out of no where, they can be noted and disqualified.
By the way, is it that easy to get a cvs account? I don't think it is.

What this mean:
- We need a point in the handbook for voter/runner disqualification.
- We need a period for complaints
- No change of rules while elections are running

k