[csw-maintainers] proposal

[Jonathan Craig]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 12:49 PM, Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> wrote:

> politicians who attempt to limit voters' choices, are politicians who
> manipulate the whole principles of democratic voting.

Phil, I dont nearly have the time I would like to participate in this
organization and you are one of the reasons that I am personally not
vocal on this list.  While most posts are constructive and attempt to
help one further their issues your posts generally do not.  I don't
need you to lecture me on the evils of authoritative systems.  The way
you drone on with comments like the above implies that others have
hidden agendas with aims to destroy the world as we know and your
simply trying to save the unwashed masses from their machinations.
Any post authored by you which is longer than a single word,
"batched", tends to raise my blood pressure to unhealthy limits.

The reason governing systems don't employ direct democracy is that it
doesn't scale.  We can't vote on every clause for every law we might
elect to have.  Voters tend to decide major issues:  Automated
publishing system vs. Human controlled w/ manual inspection.  Once the
main issue is decided then everyone digs in and crafts the best
solution that fulfills this goal.  To date, the only person I recall
staking out a position that a manual process is preferred is you.

For my two cents worth:  Given the size of the group and the demands
in terms of packages to support, automated publishing solutions turn a
subjective process into an objective process.  Any subjective control
that needs to be wielded can be handled by the bug process.
Increasing the ease and throughput of package development will be
beneficial and is unlikely to bring an end to democracy.  Not even the
US IRS attempts to individually review every tax return.  Automation,
and the development of an effective exceptions process, allows one to
handle this with increased efficiency.

While you have whined incessantly on this list about amendments, I
don't recall actually seeing an amendment.  Stop complaining about how
you should have the right to control the ballot before you start
turning out some verbage.  If your changes have merit, then people
will listen and incorporate your ideas.  Your current strategy seems
to employ a delaying tactic in the hopes that everyone will get tired
and leave so you may maintain the status quo.  If you want to be
heard, then lets see some original ideas that don't try to codify the
status quo or stop whining about the downfall of the democratic state.
 If you instead choose to continue attacking the governing process or
try to convince me of your virtue, don't bother as I'm tired of those
tactics already.

I'm sorry my post doesn't forward the discussion beyond stating: +1 to
an automated process