In the (hopefully temporary) absence of a wiki, I have been applying a little thought on the electorate membership process and the issues I've been struggling with in defining the electorate. So, to provoke further discussion and feedback:
How do people become members of the electorate? I think that we should follow the notion of a meritocracy, with people moving through the ranks. Therefore in order to vote, there must be some sort of qualification. This could be: - time based - contribution based - recommendation based There is then also the question as to who sets the qualification standard, and who validates it. Given that the community is broken up into collectives, we could have either done at either the local (collective) or global (community) level. Consider: Local standard, Local qualification - Each collective makes up its own rules and applies them; the central electorate authority is merely a register of those elected in their collectives. Global standard, Local qualification - The rules are defined centrally, but are applied locally; the central electorate authority is both a register of those elected in their collectives and a setter and monitor of the standards. Local standard, Global qualification - In this model the local standard isn't that of qualification for the electorate, but of some other standing in the collective; anybody who has reached a standing in a collective can go to the electoral authority and apply for membership. Global standard, Global qualification - In this model anybody can go to the electoral authority and request membership; qualification criteria are established solely by the electoral authority. Each has pros and cons: LL - pros: easy to administer, and lightweight - cons: no uniformity between collectives - issues: some collectives are just too small GL - pros: distributed administration, uniformity - cons: heavyweight - each collective has to run an electoral authority, and have its procedures vetted by central authority - issues: some collectives are just too small LG - pros: no work needed in individual collectives - cons: lack of uniformity - issues: need electoral authority to do the work monitor abuse GG - pros: no work needed in individual collectives - cons: no link between local effort and global recognition, and need a strong electoral authority The current mechanism is based on local standards with no real qualification at all. It's closest to LL in practice. The problem with local standards is lack of uniformity; the problem with global standards is that defining and maintaining common standards across varied and disparate collectives requires significant machinery at both the local and global levels. The problem with local qualification of eligibility is that each collective needs to have the machinery to do the work. In the old world of few Community Groups, this proved difficult; in the new world of many small collectives it's much harder. My preference here is for a variation of LG: Local Standards, with a central Electoral Authority. I am not overly worried about a lack of common standards - in fact, the problem I see is that some collectives may be too strict rather than too lenient. I'm more concerned about valid members being denied rights than invalid members being given rights too easily - the electoral committee can easily stop grants of membership that are too easy, because it sees the application. I'm going to call this model LGA: Local standards, Global qualification, with Advocacy. So the way this works is as follows: A prospective Member becomes qualified to apply for Membership by virtue of having been recognized as having contributed to a collective. Any contribution counts. Application is supported by an Advocate who must be an existing Member (it isn't unusual in many organisations for new members to be introduced and sponsored by existing members). The Membership Committee accepts or declines the application. I expect essentially all applications to be accepted. So what point is there in having a membership committee? It does all the paperwork and bureaucracy, so individual collectives don't have to; it makes sure that all applications are dealt with; it makes sure that people are aware that they can become Members; and - critically - it provides Advocates for prospective members who can't find one. (That last point is worth noting: it makes the system scale to the smallest collectives, and allows new collectives to contribute - large mature collectives will have their own Membership Advocates [naturally - I don't see this as a title, just that collectives will have Members who want to bring other Members into the community], those in small collectives can still gain Membership through their actions. I also see the Membership Committee as a proactive body, looking for new contributions and prospective Members rather than passively sitting in the background.) So, to become a Member, someone: 1. Makes a significant contribution worthy of note 2. Is sponsored by an Advocate, either by asking them or being asked by them 3. Is accepted by the Membership Committee While it looks like the standards are being applied locally, in practice the actual standards are applied by the Advocates, who are the existing Members. Peer pressure will weed out advocates who are too lax; while Advocates who are too strict (or too lazy or too busy) can be trivially bypassed. -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/
