[pp.int.general] Online voting versus online discussion

[Zbigniew Łukasiak]

Short version:

online voting - no
(http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/10/155536-internet-voting-in-the-us/fulltext)

online discussion - yes

Longer version:

Comming from the Open Source world I am surprised by the scarcity of
international disscussion in the Pirate Movement.  This list and the
PirateTimes are perhaps the only places where the international pirate
topics are discussed.  This is not enough - if that was an Open Source
project you'd have many individual blogs and many more mailing lists
where people would discuss stuff from many angles and also in more
personal less formal ways.

I have the feeling that all that discussion that does not happen
online is then crammed into the General Assemblies.  In my opinion GAs
should be just a matter of recording the consensus on matters that
would be exhaustingly discussed online.  That is not to say that
discussion would be forbidden - only that we should try to avoid it.

Online voting is a can of worms - it can probably work well for
non-secret voting - but to get it right is much more difficult than it
seems.  Especially in the context of international negotiations we
cannot put so much faith in the  administators of the system.  And
please read the paper linked above.
Of course discussion systems are subject of similar concerns - but it
does not need to be so centralized - and beside that it would be
subject to the supervision of the safe, in person, GA.


--
Zbigniew Lukasiak
http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/