On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 4:27:04 AM UTC+8, Robert Kaiser wrote: > [email protected] schrieb: > > > As I see it, Mozilla is in strong need of disengaging itself from an > > unqualified attachment to _absolute_ "meritocracy", and include more > > components of real democracy (note, I am not suggesting to replace > > meritocracy). > > > > Why? What problems/questions are you trying to address with that? You > > should always start with that when trying to propose a solution.
Sorry, I had tried to avoid particularizing it too much, so stripped that portion, but I have now given some examples in another post in this thread just now. My main interest here is to ensure due regard is given to decisions which affect particularly the small developer (such as being forced to stay on top of an excessive number of backward-incompatible API changes), or power user (whose voice may be drowned out by the "average" user). > > 1. Regularly scheduled town hall meetings (keeping world time zones in > > mind) for high level news, feedback, and idea-sharing; maybe on an annual > > or bi-annual basis, including recommendations that may be offered by the > > convocation as a whole, with a majority vote of those present (including > > those attending online), hopefully prompting Mozilla to take a very serious > > look at these recommendations. > > > > That can be done with our current system as well and has no dependency > > on "democratic elements" as you call them. Where are the regularly scheduled town hall meetings then? That is what I mean by "democratic elements". I am speaking here of democracy as influence of the masses on decision-making (albeit not directly making final decisions), not necessarily a radical change in the governance system (esp. since I see now you do have a Reps system which seems to be along some of the lines as I was suggesting). > > 2. Regularly scheduled community election of delegates who could make > > recommendations at annual meetings or such to the same > > effect as number #1. > > > > What would those do? If we do #1 regardless, I guess they'd have no > > "job" at all and would be just a pretense on having something > > "democratic" but without actual use? Both would be making recommendations to which decision-makers in Mozilla would hopefully feel some sense of obligation to give due regard for their recommendations. Even if these recommendations are not binding, I do consider that very much to be of "actual use". Reps are more likely to be regularly involved and allows a chance for intelligently filtered expression of community opinions, but whole-community expression is also positive. It is one thing for a technocrat (by which I mean the term favorably) to merely read all of the recommendations in say a group of those happening to join in on a mailing list, and another thing for them to have an officially approved consensus recommendation placed before them. The latter may give them some extra pause to better try to accommodate. > > Ideally, in my view, delegates would be elected not based on the theater of > > self-promotion, campaigning, or even nominations (and their tendency to > > elect vocal but not necessarily competent or genuinely humble collaborators) > > > > But that's what actual democracy is all about! :p :) Unfortunately, many current democracies are indeed about that, but thankfully not universally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-partisan_democracy I would like to stress again that by "democratic", I do not mean giving the masses direct decision-making power, but a genuine outlet for expression and consideration. Thanks! _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
