I’m honestly baffled that somebody could take away from that thread that it’s wolfgangwalther who is “ruthless and cruel”.
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Pretty cruel (ruthlessness debatable) to have private talks with folks that you later release without their consent with mean-spirited commentary in which you make fun of their emotions.
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When faced with deadlock like this
Why not just put it out to a vote to the community to decide, instead of vacant seat autovotes, etc?
Just let the same people who were qualified to vote for the SC, vote to either have a new election, or keep the existing SC.
psionik, can you please stop with these long posts conflating the SC with US politics and telling the community to stop making our voices heard because we’re doing it wrong?
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Just in case you’re not sure, I’m quite certain that those voices are loud enough.
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Heard by who? This post is asking for everyone with the authority to do something to resign, no matter whose vote it seeks to erase.
This whole thing is an attempt to continue rule by Discourse, to continuing pressure campaign politics that disproportionately empower those who have a lot more to say than they have votes.
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If you truly believe that there is a silent majority then a full re-election would empower and affirm the mandate of that majority. To quote my recent post:
To me, refusing to resign under these circumstances and stand for reelection suggests a belief that voters would not return them to office.
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But that argument will be true every year. How will you ensure that this argument will just be used this one time?
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You don’t schedule re-elections on a whim because you are unhappy about a certain event. The members of the SC have a legitimate mandate and people (myself included) are expecting to see it fulfilled. If they don’t rise to the expectations, they won’t be re-elected for a new mandate (when that time will come).
Since we already have 4 mandates that will end this year, this can only be viewed as an attempt to remove the members that still have 1 more year in their mandate: John and Robert.
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Recall elections - while not present in every system - have been around for millennia.
Framing a petition aiming to achieve the same signed by around one sixth as many people as votes cast in the last election as “on a whim” seems odd to me.
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By the same argument, you could just remove re-election from the constitution entirely. This thing is there for a reason. It seems very odd to argue against repetition, when it hadn’t even been done once! Come on.
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Since we already have 4 mandates that will end this year, this can only be viewed as an attempt to remove the members that still have 1 more year in their mandate: John and Robert.
This is not accurate. There are only three mandates ending this year (Winter, Tom, and Franz and Franz already resigned). Two of the people stepping down (myself and Jan) also had two-year mandates (just like Robert and John).
A more accurate representation of events is: out of the four members that had two-year mandates, two have ended their terms early because of internal Steering Committee dysfunction. Out of the three members that had a one year mandate, two of them agree with the call for full re-elections.
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And for everyone arguing that “by re-election the voters who had voted for John and Robert are not represented anymore”: Even if you assume that no single voter changed their mind, so you look at the voters opinion at the last election, then the majority of voters is represented by (ex-)SC-members who would vote for re-election. If you believe in this line of reasoning, which I don’t, then the conclusion is that - by virtue of their elected SC members - the majority of voters wants re-election. The constitution requires a simple majority for that. This is the case. Period.
We are only in a 3:3 tie, because Franz had to step down and the constitution didn’t consider this case well enough.
The members voting against re-election are using this to their advantage. That’s all.
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I believe you misunderstand my point. I’m referring to what @Gabriella439 wrote.
The thing is that you can argue that every year no matter if people get elected for two years meaning it would basically undermine the whole idea of a two year period if you could argue each election that “I’m unsure if the remaining SC has the authority by any majority” and ask for a full re-election. I mean there was a reason why it was not designed like this in the first place.
That is one way of seeing it. The other perspective would be that they adhere to the constitution and use their full term which would be perfectly valid as well.
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No, it’s not. Because it’s not “their term”. They don’t own that. The community has handed them trust ahead of time. The community (by virtue of many arguments made above) has lost that trust.
“adhering to the constitution” is a non-argument, because everyone voting for re-election is also doing that.
The question is not whether it is legal to vote against re-election. It certainly is, according to the constitution. The question is whether it serves them or the community. And it doesn’t serve the community, as was repeatedly demonstrated. They do that for their own interests. John has even said that himself! (You will have to trust me on that or ask John to leak his own comments)
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I totally agree. We are in a situation where both sides are valid (at least from each perspective). How do we proceed other than following the written down processes of the election?
In my opinion this a limited view which does not acknowledge that there might be a different view that is also valid.
I highly respect what you have done the last days and the effort you put in to this. My opinion is not that someone is right or wrong I just see different perspectives on the same situation and a lot of hurt feelings.
I honestly whish we could get over this without loosing anyone because of this.
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A majority of those 1000-ish eligible voters? I don’t think we have nearly enough data for exactly that formulation, but I agree that a much softer formulation would hold.
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Not eligible voters. This whole paragraph that you quoted was about those who actually voted at the last election.
(We have to assume that they somehow represent all eligible voters, because otherwise the SC wouldn’t have any legitimacy, though)
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