On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 03:50, Glynn Foster wrote: > Dear Members, [snip] > Why anonymous voting? > ===================== > We feel it is crucially important to vote for the right group of people > - those that are dedicated and willing to spend the time doing > potentially menial tasks. The GNOME Foundation board of directors is not > a glamorous job, but important for the development of the project. > > Many people have felt pressured to vote for people that were colleagues > or friends, not because they would make a suitable foundation board > member. Similarly, many people felt pressured because they didn't want > to be seen voting 'against' one of their colleagues, while we appreciate > that the GNOME Foundation board of directors is on an individual basis, > and not corporate. So, as far as I can see, anonymous voting only makes a difference here in cases where 'peer pressure' is involved. That is, it makes no difference whatsoever in cases where "real power", as in the power of an employer over an employee, is involved. I'm not sure how much of the membership this peer pressure is an issue for. I know that I don't want my vote to be secret, and given the loosely defined systems posted so far, it would be easy enough for me to make my ballot public. However, I'm not sure what implications some percentage of the voting pool making their vote public is. As for if making ballots public is important, I certainly feel that it is so. There are a number of people who I talk to extensively about the various candidates for the Foundation Board each year, and we all discuss who we're thinking of voting for, and why. Once the voting and counting is complete, I've certainly gone through and "browsed" a number of ballots, to see who has voted for whom. I certainly don't hold this information against any of them, though I have asked "why did you vote for so-and-so", if it was someone who I know, but isn't among the folks who get together and discuss candidates and votes. Well, I think those are my thoughts on the matter, from having read all of the posts to the thread so far. Folks have been caught up in arguing about the system, but I don't know how anybody other than myself uses the current system, so it's hard to figure out if secret ballots would be an improvement or not. TTYL, Greg
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