Difference between revisions of "RationalWiki talk:Proposed bylaws/Lumenos"

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(→‎All major parties represented: Where are vote tallies for elected bureaucrats?)
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:::::Trent hasn't "chosen" the bureaucrats in a long time. The community votes for them now (mostly). I doubt the board will be anyone but some of the current crats anyway. {{User:Π/Sig|}} 13:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 
:::::Trent hasn't "chosen" the bureaucrats in a long time. The community votes for them now (mostly). I doubt the board will be anyone but some of the current crats anyway. {{User:Π/Sig|}} 13:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 
::::::You mean there are poles for most of the "elected" bureaucrats around here somewhere? Could someone direct me to them? ~ [[user:Lumenos|Lumenos (your talk page)]] - ([http://lumeniki.referata.com/wiki/User_talk:Lumenos "my" talk page]) 06:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)  
 
::::::You mean there are poles for most of the "elected" bureaucrats around here somewhere? Could someone direct me to them? ~ [[user:Lumenos|Lumenos (your talk page)]] - ([http://lumeniki.referata.com/wiki/User_talk:Lumenos "my" talk page]) 06:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)  
 +
:::::::No, you idiot, we don't "elect" crats, we make them by fiat.  Although of late, we do pretend to pass the fiat by muster at the saloon bar.  It's a mobocracy, still. {{User:Human/sig|}} 08:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 
:::Damn right. It'll be the ultimate nerdcore porn. Instead of a moustached guy coming to fix the fridge, we'll have a guy come round to... well, I tried, struggled and couldn't complete the sentence in the end. But, on topic, for the last time; the running of the site, its content, the crats, the sysops and how it operates as far as every user at every level is concerned will not change. The only noticeable change will be that the PayPal link from the donation button will probably lead to a different account, although I imagine for practical purposes, even that might stay as Trent's personal email. {{:User:Armondikov/sig}} 13:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 
:::Damn right. It'll be the ultimate nerdcore porn. Instead of a moustached guy coming to fix the fridge, we'll have a guy come round to... well, I tried, struggled and couldn't complete the sentence in the end. But, on topic, for the last time; the running of the site, its content, the crats, the sysops and how it operates as far as every user at every level is concerned will not change. The only noticeable change will be that the PayPal link from the donation button will probably lead to a different account, although I imagine for practical purposes, even that might stay as Trent's personal email. {{:User:Armondikov/sig}} 13:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 
::::I've heard y'all claim nothing will change, but I wasn't asking if you imagine anything will change, I was asking about legal and technical capabilities. Perhaps "nothing" will change for the next 12,583 years, but then there is a coup in the [[RationalWiki:Chicken coop|coop]]. ~ [[user:Lumenos|Lumenaid]] - ([http://lumeniki.referata.com/wiki/User_talk:Lumenos "backup" chattery]) 03:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 
::::I've heard y'all claim nothing will change, but I wasn't asking if you imagine anything will change, I was asking about legal and technical capabilities. Perhaps "nothing" will change for the next 12,583 years, but then there is a coup in the [[RationalWiki:Chicken coop|coop]]. ~ [[user:Lumenos|Lumenaid]] - ([http://lumeniki.referata.com/wiki/User_talk:Lumenos "backup" chattery]) 03:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Revision as of 08:08, 19 July 2010

The following sections are Lumenous proving how "special" he is. ħumanUser talk:Human 04:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

This page is messy. Here is the current issue: It seems to me that after Trent is gone, a three person majority of a five person board, would be given complete legal and technical power by 4.4.4 G (1), which states "(1) Action required or permitted to be taken at a board of directors' meeting may be taken without a meeting if the action receives the affirmative vote of the majority of the board members." The board would have direct server access because the Foundation owns the domain name, the hardware, etc. If there is a dispute, three board members could legally promote or demote bureaucrats by direct alteration of the sever. Noone has addressed this other than to ignore the possibility that there could be a dispute between the bureaucrats, which would have to be settled by the board. ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 06:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Voting qualification

It occurs to me that once these bylaws become fact and legally binding, it would be possible for e.g. anonymous or anyone else (there were a couple of f'rinstrances here but I took 'em out) etc to create loads of editors, whether actual or socks, and take over the wiki. Should there be a level of "established Editor" with voting rights? Thoughts? 16:13, 26 June 2010 (UTC) SusanG Toast

The bylaws don't actually set up the rules for the election, but rather leave it up to the board to decide. The initial rules for electing members will be established by the first two appointed members and me. They will likely follow WP standards making eligibility a function of both time on site and number of edits (1 year, 500 edits something like that). Future boards can change that around as they like. Also bylaws themselves can be amended by the board so nothing is set in stone. tmtoulouse 16:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Don't we need to establish voting criteria for the board in the first instance? Also I would like to see some detailed accounts. I am not comfortable with Trent subsidising RW out of his own pocket, he mentioned that he can only rely on $5 a month as income with the occcasional whip-round for significant outlays. This is not a sound financial foundation. If something happens to him then we should be able to carry on regardless. Currently the hardware is hosted by TMT but what happpens to it if he is no longer in a position to support RW?  Lily Inspirate me. 12:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
The initial board will be Trent and two appointees. One of their first actions will be to establish the rules for replacing them. As far as the money/hardware/host issue, this is partly why we are doing this - to free it from Trent a bit. He has also provided several people with access to all the information required to start RW back up on a server anywhere. ħumanUser talk:Human 20:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I have machinations for trying to create some financial solvency for the site. Currently, the two biggest hurdles for someone else taking over the site are technical and financial. I have a long term plan for where I would like to see us, one year, three years, and ten years down the road. The formation of the foundation is the next step towards the vision I have for the site, and that vision does include finding ways of being financially and technically self-supported. But it takes time to implement. Establishing the foundation will however start to open up the financial situation of the site as the incoming and out going donations and costs will have to be tracked, and reports generated, etc. tmtoulouse 20:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What is "voting" and "election" anyway?

Quoted from above, "[The voting qualifications] will likely follow WP standards making eligibility a function of both time on site and number of edits (1 year, 500 edits something like that)... tmtoulouse 16:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)" ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 10:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm so all those would get one vote of equal weight and talk page edits count as much as mainspace? That would be easy to measure, at least. ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 10:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
But when we look closer at Wikipedia's policies, you find that while the officials use seemingly ordinary English terms, they may employ some rather unique definitions. You may have read that Wikipedia is not a democracy, so what is all this about elections and voting? It appears that "vote" is yet another Wikipedia neologized term (like wp:"neutral point of view", wp:"reliable source", wp:notability, etc). They finally have employed the lumenist convention of renaming the neologism for clarity. There is not to be any "voting" only !voting. This is not some uuuh voting process we are talking about, it is more a way to help appointed officials make up their minds. One might wonder, why they don't call it "polling", but I think the "official" explanation reveals that !voting is a much more meaningful term: "The exclamation mark in '!vote' is the symbol for logical negation and can be read literally as 'not vote'." I'm tempted to throw a little snowball proposal for one of those explanatory "guideline" things, which would be entitled, "Wikipedia policy is not doublespeak". See, i.i.i.it's just you gotta understand the m.m.m.map-territory realashunship. : ) ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 10:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
We're talking about voting, for the RW Foundation board of trustees, and nothing else. The only part of what we are discussing that bears any relationship to WP at all is having a way to limit such voting to actual active individual editors. ħumanUser talk:Human 11:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
I propose we make the voting criteria too high for Lumenos to qualify, or be allowed to comment. - π 11:14, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Why not make it proportional to the amount of value one adds to our culture? Perhaps, the votes of real scientists should have greater weight than those of us who may lack the necessary critical thinking skills. ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 12:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
If we took the number of edits you have made that added value to this wiki and divided by the total number of edits you have made, I suspect that it will be within rounding error of zero. - π 12:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
My orations should have negative value to any rouge lumenati. :P And I suspect my proposal on measuring consensus, and now all this talk of elections and voting, is just a big coincidence! =) ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 14:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, yes it is. Trent has been working on this for months before you reared you head again. - π 23:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
AhHAH! So you agree completely with my statement! Any allegations that I am the reason for all this debate over eventual democratic overthrow by actual scientists or-or-or critical thinkers of measurably equivalent caliber, are therefore without merit. ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 02:32, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Re to Human: I understand that. What we are not talking about is whether the board will be legally required to adhere to majority rule, or whether it will be a benevolent oligarchy of some sort. ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 12:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think you understand. The Board's only purpose is to manage the functions of the Foundation, not to run the wiki. Its members will be elected according to prescribed rules of suffrage, timing, potential impeachment, etc. @ Pi, lol... ħumanUser talk:Human 12:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
S/he who owns the wiki, pwons the wiki. Who will ultimately decide what server the domain name is attached to and who gets server access? Who will ultimately decide who the crats will be? "Rough consensus" might become a little rougher, if Mohamed Trent becomes unavailable before RationalWiki does. ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 14:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Gawd you're an idiot... ħumanUser talk:Human 15:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
How about everyone gets put on a list, and people vote for who's qualified to vote. Those that aren't in the top 50% have their votes discounted and we recount and repeat from there... Scarlet A.pngmoral 20:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
We were getting off the topic so I made new section. I would quote you there but I've apparently become very unpopular for things like "laying down block quotes" as Pi likes to call it. ;-) ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 03:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Voting systems

Quoting Trent's second post in this section, "[The voting qualifications] will likely follow WP standards making eligibility a function of both time on site and number of edits (1 year, 500 edits something like that)... tmtoulouse 16:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)"

All major parties represented

A WP editor claims, "Most Western democracies use some form of multiple-winner voting system, with the United States and the United Kingdom being notable exceptions." A half-pie table shows the results of the German election; the various political parties get a proportion of the seats according to how many votes they received. Multiple-winner systems seem to allow more liberty (consent of the governed). With the United Statian "two-party" system, with every election, one party ends up dominating the government unless the executive branch is dominated by a different party than the legislature. What do you think? ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 03:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

This about the website in general, server, DNS, possible associated activities, etc. You are unlikely to notice these in the day to day operations. Most of this is being done to create a legal entity called RationalWiki, so that no person is liable for the website's activities. No one is being governed. - π 10:46, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I imagine, in fact, that it'd be quite likely a substantial number of people won't even want to be involved or be interested in the trustee business because it bears almost no relation to what the site does or how it acts. It may come into its own a few years down the line if RW evolves a little more, but currently it's just to take pressure of Trent. Scarlet A.pngmoral 11:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Unless we start RationalPorn. - π 11:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
If the Foundation owns the domain name, trademarks, and hardware, isn't the board legally and technically able to choose bureaucrats? ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 13:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
NO YOU FUCKING MORON. !!!! ħumanUser talk:Human 03:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Please don't be angry, Sir. I am only providing an opportunity for someone to explain. If I may inquire about a specific scenario: Let's say a few thousand years go by with no lack of consensus, but then there is a very polarized disagreement over whether or not to ban a user, or oversite their edit history. A group of aggressive crats, decrat the rest of the crats. Three board members outvote the other two, and they decide to directly access the server to de-crat those crats, and restore the cratship of the others. Do those who oppose the three board memebers, have any legal or technical way to assert their will? ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 04:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Trent hasn't "chosen" the bureaucrats in a long time. The community votes for them now (mostly). I doubt the board will be anyone but some of the current crats anyway. - π 13:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
You mean there are poles for most of the "elected" bureaucrats around here somewhere? Could someone direct me to them? ~ Lumenos (your talk page) - ("my" talk page) 06:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
No, you idiot, we don't "elect" crats, we make them by fiat. Although of late, we do pretend to pass the fiat by muster at the saloon bar. It's a mobocracy, still. ħumanUser talk:Human 08:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Damn right. It'll be the ultimate nerdcore porn. Instead of a moustached guy coming to fix the fridge, we'll have a guy come round to... well, I tried, struggled and couldn't complete the sentence in the end. But, on topic, for the last time; the running of the site, its content, the crats, the sysops and how it operates as far as every user at every level is concerned will not change. The only noticeable change will be that the PayPal link from the donation button will probably lead to a different account, although I imagine for practical purposes, even that might stay as Trent's personal email. Scarlet A.pngmoral 13:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I've heard y'all claim nothing will change, but I wasn't asking if you imagine anything will change, I was asking about legal and technical capabilities. Perhaps "nothing" will change for the next 12,583 years, but then there is a coup in the coop. ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 03:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Revote instead of...

At 2.4.3 D iii, it reads "appoint the candidate receiving the next most votes to fill the resulting vacancy". I propose this be settled by a revote instead. The person with the second most votes may be very unliked by a majority. ~ Lumenaid - (the anarcho-librarian chattery) 03:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Using STV or AV to rank preferences would be easier than a voting again, although it's unlikely that someone voted in would turn out to be ineligible as we'd check that beforehand and it's equally unlikely that the second choice wouldn't have majority support. Scarlet A.pngmoral 10:31, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Who will own the domain name?

The commentary section says, "The goal is simple: create an entity that is RationalWiki that is fully separable from Trent in terms of ownership of the various copyrights and trademarks, of the hardware for running the server, and the responsibility to keep the site going." Trent currently owns the domain name, are there plans to transfer ownership of the domain name to the RationalWiki Foundation? ~ Lumenaid - ("backup" chattery) 11:42, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. - π 11:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)