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Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

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Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#91

Post by salawat »

gizmo686 wrote: post #79
salawat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the hell is with that tabulation of data? You don't even have raw vote counts. You have that weird floating relative representation going on, and no formula is given for the totals, or I'm not aware the procedures are that line that out. Example: 2 dimensional matrix Value at (x, y) coordinates should be read as option X received more votes than option Y. The diagonal is blank since it degenerates in this rep…

Voting procedure is documented here [0] section A.6 I agree that it would be nice to include the total number of ballots in the final results, but that isn't really relevant to the results. Each voter submits a ranked choice vote ballot. The table indicates that 113 ballots prefer option 1 over option 2, whicl 137 ballot prefer option 2 over option 1. The majority calculation is a bit weird. All Debian votes include…

That'd be it. There was an entire dimension going on there I was unaware of the ranked choice. I was thinking FPTP. Thank you for the reference.

So there is no general 'nay' vote on a proposal except to vote it at a lower rank than the default option? I think I get it now.

I'm actually kind of glad most people don't want to make any statement at all. It isn't really something tht should matter. Beyond my vocal opposition to lending any credibility to the original smear with regards to RMS, I'm kind of in the camp we should all just move on. Most of FSF's insiders that have a problem with him have more than enough points actually relevant to his missing opportunities to make a worthwhile push at ousting him without relying on controversy and lies, but they'd also have to defend it from an equal playing field then. LLVM, GPL issues, etc... Though even looking into the LLVM controversy, I can still see the wisdom in not accepting it and keeping GCC monolithic after having come across a few oldtimers who were there back when proprietary everything was the norm.

If someone is to be dismissed, let it be on technical merits. Not some tabloid smear.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#92

Post by captaincurrie »

umvi wrote: post #12

Can someone fill me in on the RMS drama/politics? Is this because he was cancelled due to (supposedly) defending Epstein and he's now trying to uncancel himself?

Alot of babies saw an oppurtunity to gain power and took it.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#93

Post by Shish2k »

heikkilevanto wrote: post #70

I think "no comment" is the most reasonable and mature result. Debian is not directly involved in that fight, and adding fuel to the fight, on either side, is not going to help much.

I wish more people felt this way. The pressure for all people (and all organisations) to pick a side in all issues doesn’t seem like it’s actually helping to fix very many issues...

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

nextaccountic wrote: post #8
madars wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian uses the Condorcet method for elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method . Each voter is to rank a subset of all options, and this is the resulting pairwise preference graph.

If it's the pairwise preference, shouldn't it be a complete graph? (a graph with edges between any two nodes)

I think (I’m not sure) its pairwiss preferences excluding those consistent with transitive preferences. ( so if A > B and B > C, the A to C preference is omitted.)

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#95

Post by toomim »

krastanov wrote: post #60
toomim wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound very intolerant of said "intolerance".

I am not certain whether you are making a very erudite joke or trolling, but either way, the "Paradox of Intolerance" might an interesting read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Being "intolerant to intolerance" is a fairly well accepted idea in societies that value personal freedoms.

I'm aware of the paradox, and it's a wonderful idea!

It still looks to me that in this case, it's the people calling RMS intolerant that are the intolerant ones. On the contrary, I think RMS actually tolerates a whole lot. He clearly has different views than others on a variety of topics, yet he doesn't let it affect his technical decisions. He's been attacked viciously in the media, but he's tolerated it and is coming back to the FSF. An intolerant person would disappear. Consider all the people on the board of the FSF with opposite political views than his, that he tolerates on a day-to-day basis. An "intolerant homophobe/transphobe" would not tolerate having homosexuals/transexuals on the board, for instance.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#96

Post by krastanov »

toomim wrote: post #95
krastanov wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not certain whether you are making a very erudite joke or trolling, but either way, the "Paradox of Intolerance" might an interesting read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Being "intolerant to intolerance" is a fairly well accepted idea in societies that value personal freedoms.

I'm aware of the paradox, and it's a wonderful idea! It still looks to me that in this case, it's the people calling RMS intolerant that are the intolerant ones. On the contrary, I think RMS actually tolerates a whole lot. He clearly has different views than others on a variety of topics, yet he doesn't let it affect his technical decisions. He's been attacked viciously in the media, but he's tolerated it and is comi…

Ah, yes, I am mostly on board with the specifics of what you said in this message, even if I disagree with some of the generalizations. The original one lacked too much context for me to understand it.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#97

Post by Pfhreak »

swebs wrote: post #67
Pfhreak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Do you have evidence that anonymity would have mattered? The vote totals seem in line with historical votes.

Are you asking for evidence that secret ballots prevent voter intimidation? Or evidence that people are harassed online for their stance on this specific issue?

Neither. I'm asking for evidence that this phenomena would have materially moved the result. I'm willing to believe that 5% of people cast a vote here contrary to their opinions (though that feels high). Even so, the results likely don't shift materially.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#98

Post by jbicha »

raverbashing wrote: post #88
cbmuser wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Debian will issue no comment, 2/3+ of voters in Debian supported calling for RMSs removal. It's clear which way the tide is moving, even if Debian says nothing. FWIW, some people didn’t want to vote because the results would be publicly with names. So the result of a secret vote might have been different.

I'm surprised Debian didn't invent a way to do secure secret voting by email already (and by some of the technical comments on the results page I kind of though it was secret)

Debian knows how to do secret voting. In fact, Debian's latest election of their Project Leader which also ended last night was secret.

It looks like it would need a General Resolution to allow secret voting for future General Resolutions.

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#99

Post by ekianjo »

Pfhreak wrote: post #39
ekianjo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear which way the tide is moving It's only clear that the way this is measured is heavily biased: 4 options out of 8 are against current FSF/RMS' statu quo. Only 2 are for supporting the statu quo. And 1 is for indifference, and the last one for more discussion needed. If you overcharge the negative choices, it's kind of given most of the answers will fall in them. Survey design 101. For reference: - Option…

You should read up on how they conduct votes. Every voter essentially gets a chance to rank every option against every other option. So the number of options should not impact the vote totals.

You forget human perception. If I expose someone to 10 negative statements and only 2 positive ones, you believe that this does not affect their overall perception of the issue?

Re: Debian votes to make no statement regarding RMS readmission to the FSF board

#100

Post by ikerdanzel »

cbmuser wrote: post #13
Pfhreak wrote: post #6

If you look at the results they link, the picture becomes clearer. They proposed 8 options. 2 directly called for resignations at FSF, 2 directly supported RMS, one said to stop working with FSF, one said to call for governance improvements at FSF, one was no comment, and one was discuss further. The two options in support of RMS were not majority held opinions, and were held by ~1/6-1/3 of voters. No comment beat "c…

> Debian will issue no comment, 2/3+ of voters in Debian supported calling for RMSs removal. It's clear which way the tide is moving, even if Debian says nothing. FWIW, some people didn’t want to vote because the results would be publicly with names. So the result of a secret vote might have been different.

Public vs secret voting will always be different. I encountered this on daily basis. If vote in secret, one tends to be what one wants even if that is detrimental to others. As for self belief, public disclosed/known belief may not always be the same as self belief. This may consciously or unconsciously known by oneself. People do tend to vote in group if others see your vote.
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