[Noisebridge-discuss] Voting experiment.

Rachel Lyra Hospodar rachel at fernworks.net
Sat Sep 11 20:45:50 UTC 2010


jacob writes:

 > 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.
<snip>
 > That's really the crux of voting - I feel that it implies a coercive
 > force of authority in the group.
<snip>
 > the losers get to lose and they have to deal with it

The issue as discussed at the meeting did address some of these points, 
if i may paraphrase ruthlessly: social bullying will exist no matter 
what system we use, as will coercion. Decision-making might be less full 
of asshole behaviors on both sides if people did have to sometimes lose 
and deal with it rather than drag out discussion forever.  That is, 
people with unpopular opinions are the target of social violence. 
Letting their opinions be voted all the way down allows them the freedom 
of rejection, assumedly ending this violence.

Having not participated in the NB version of the consensus process yet, 
and in general having a rather robust personal defense system against 
social violence, I abstain from having an opinion here.  There was also 
some valid discussion of the fact that many people do not really 
understand how consensus works here.  separate set of issues, maybe.

Streamlining and cleaning up some processes, including the 
membership/binder process, seemed to be in order.  It was agreed that 
the membership of noisebridge has wildly varying levels of social 
skills, and it was discussed what impact these might have on members 
trying to agree with each other.  We might use the space and these 
processes to hack our own social skills for the better.  Maybe there is 
a way to incrementally add functionality for this into the consensus 
process (ie, help teach dick and jane to not be dicks).


jim at well writes:

 > Regardless the size of the majority, a voting process as
 > usually practiced does not formally guarantee that a new
 > proposal must address existing concerns in the case that
 > existing concerns may be threatened.

This point was not specifically raised at the meeting IIRC but i think 
is a specific and strong argument in favor of consensus over 
supermajority voting.


R.
mediumreality.com



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