[Noisebridge-discuss] Voting experiment.

[Jacob Appelbaum]

On 09/10/2010 03:46 PM, Sai Emrys wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 5:16 PM, Jacob Appelbaum <jacob at appelbaum.net> wrote:
>> I was being sarcastic - you caught me.
> 
> You're being bombastic. Big difference.
> 

I think I'm going to go with sarcasm but I'll not nitpick too much.

>>> , and can be done in a privacy-preserving way.
>>
>> [citation needed]
> 
> Special case of privacy-preserving votes in general, which are a
> special case of token based crypto.
> 

Yes, I know about those ideas but I see you claiming it can be done - I
was actually looking for a citation of a privacy preserving voting
system that is deployed by one of the groups that you feel uses it.

> And again, it's not really relevant here, because votes (proxy or
> direct), like blocks, should *not* be private here.
> 

Whaaaaat? You want a ballot but not a private ballot?

We allow anonymous issue raising or blocking through a proxy. To my
knowledge, we've never had a really serious issue with it. That is to
say, the blocking *issue* is not private by the *person voicing the
concern* may have privacy.

Surely you only mean the result of a tally?

>> I find that people are not heard very well in a system that
>> values ballots over discussions.
> 
> And I've found that the "discussions" around Noisebridge, as you
> exemplify here, tend towards bombast over entrenched positions rather
> than seeking concensus.
> 

It's a mailing list - it isn't nicknamed noisebridge-disgust without
reason. :-)

> It's just a less explicit tyranny of the majority - one based on
> social bullying rather than votes. You seem blind to it.

What's the discussion up for consensus? I see none. Al is proposing an
experiment and no one is stopping him at all. I think his idea is
interesting and it will probably provoke some great discussions.
Probably most of them will happen in a face to face context and it may
bring some social unity. I think that's great and I hope that happens.

If you feel socially bullied you should attempt to resolve it with the
person(s) in question. In private or public, it's probably better than
blaming a system that encourages discussion over ignoring each other.

That's really the crux of voting - I feel that it implies a coercive
force of authority in the group. Who enforces the decision on the group?
What's the goal? Why do it at all?

> 
>> Actually, I'm making a point. If the government of India isn't getting
>> it right - how will we?
> 
> You're making an irrelevant, flamebait point. Government-scale voting
> systems, and the many problems they have to deal with, are irrelevant
> to the blunt fact that the Noisebridge consensus process is broken and
> bears very little resemblance to a sane one where people actually do
> try to seek consensus.

Actually - it's totally relevant. It's not the scale, it's the idea of
forcing rule over another. That's part of the rule of law, the losers
get to lose and they have to deal with it - sometimes they get to appeal
if they're lucky. Often they're simply taxed and pay for the things they
disagree with.

If you think the Noisebridge consensus process is broken - I encourage
you to come up reforms that we may incrementally be able to implement
given the current system.

I'd wish you luck with it.

> 
> You're part of why that's true - your rhetoric is polarizing, not conciliatory
> 

I'm rubber and you're glue Sai - figuratively, of course.

With that said - we're like oil and water. I find you to be just as
polarizing and difficult to deal with as you seem to find me. I can live
with it though because I am never forced by you to do anything.

If anything, I often find common ground to agree with you, even if it
isn't always loudly stated.

> Your argument (and aestetix's) also reminds me of the Republicans now
> - basically, you're arguing that the fact that it's broken is a good
> thing, because it means that the consensus process is in practice
> completely ignored (which is true) and that actual decisions are made
> by other means (i.e. people do whatever they want) which you claim to
> be a better method.
> 

I don't care about partisan political labels Sai.

I am arguing that the consensus process is in practice *not used* for
things where *it is not required*.

Members of Noisebridge are just that: Capital M members in the eyes of
the law. While we do have some board people, we're actually all members
of the corporation in a serious and legally binding way. What we choose
to do it a lot more than others in another 501c3 may be able to do.

Being a member of the NRA/EFF/OtherNGO is not the same level of
responsibility, risk or power.

As an example - Spacebridge happens by some other process, self
organized under the umbrella of Noisebridge. They self-fund, they do
awesome stuff and the people who don't care about space lose nothing, no
real money, no huge amount of time, nothing is forced on them.
Spacebridge gets all the benefits of being an NGO without going off to
make a brand new one.

If the group ever needed the group to do something - we'd have a
discussion as a whole and work out the details.

> I wonder whether you would support extending that claim, so that e.g.
> people become members merely by writing their name somewhere without
> requiring somebody's approval, and other people can remove members by
> deleting their name, too. That would actually be analogous to how
> everything else gets done.

That's bogus. I would not support that claim and I disagree that this is
how everything else gets done.

We as a group have made decisions together and I think that it's great
that it happens really rarely.

> 
> If you really believe that doöcracy is better than consensus, and you
> *like* consensus being broken, why defend consensus rather than
> suggesting it be replaced with whoever-acted-last-ocracy?
> 

I think doing is good but I also think we need a consensus process.

It doesn't work to go select a new space next week and expect everyone
else to move simply because someone has our bank information. Etc. Etc.

For some choices - making the NB Paint wall, I think doing is obviously
awesome.

For other things, like say, renting a new space, I think the group
should agree and make decisions slowly with conciliations across the
group, all along the way to creating a shared vision.

That is in fact what we have done and it looks like it is working great
from where I'm sitting.

All the best,
Jake