Re: Petition for referendum

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 10/10/05, David Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
> Bill Haneman wrote:
> > The way this is currently worded makes it sound as though signing
> > indicates a desire to reduce the Board size.  I don't think that was
> > what you intended, but it's kept me from signing.
>
> The wiki says: "The people below, members of the GNOME Foundation,
> request that a referendum be held to reduce the board size from its
> current 11 members to 7."
>
> I read this as "the people below request a referendum". I understand
> that all petitions for a referendum must include the thing that is going
> to be requested in the referendum. In this case, that would be a
> reduction in size of the board from 11 to 7.

I agree that the wording on the wiki _can_ be read the way you did. 
However, the wording is ambiguous and can easily be taken to mean that
those signing want the board size to be reduced from 11 to 7 as
opposed to just wanting a referendum to discuss and vote on it[1].  I
happened to interpret it differently than you and I'm not sure if I
want to sign especially since the wording is ambiguous.  If you change
it (I suggest breaking up into two sentences so that the first ends at
"request that a referendum be held"), I will more than likely add my
name before Wednesday.  If you don't, I'm not sure what I'll do yet. 
Clarifications should be on the wiki, though, not just in long threads
that not everyone will necessarily have the time to read.


Cheers,
Elijah

[1] Think of the sentence "Elijah wanted to take the car to go to the
store".  "Taking the car" was incidental and what I really wanted was
to "go to the store".  Might be a lame example but I hope it explains
how I interpreted the wiki sentence in case others don't see the
connection.