Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww From: dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Cabal Message-ID: <1319@stl.stc.co.uk> Date: 8 Apr 89 23:33:50 GMT References: <3010@looking.UUCP> <63@norsat.UUCP> <288@ubbs-nh.MV.COM> <4534@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <3739@ficc.uu.net> Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk Reply-To: "David Wright" Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK Lines: 39 In article <3739@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: #Sigh. I don't like this game. But... #If you REALLY want representative democracy, why not go all-out? #Get a bunch of people to run for the Cabal. Evceryone's elected at large. #Everyone with more than N votes is in. If this leaves a Cabal too large #or too small, adjust N until it fits. No, that's not a fair voting system. Do the vote by STV (Single Transferable Vote) - voters vote in 1,2,3,4,... preference, if n votes cast, for P places, then anyone with > (n/P + 1) first-preference votes is elected. Surplus votes are transfered to second (etc.) choice candidate. If not enough people are elected, lowest vote candidate dropped and their next preference transfered. And so on. It's the fairest system for both candidates and voters. Hard work to count without computer assistance, but we should have that. While we're at it we'd better adopt a Constitution. I'm quite good at writing them, but as we do have a few real lawyers on the net one of them should do it. While we're at it, lets set up Usenet Inc as a world-wide non-profit corporation (need a bit more legal effort to make it work, but if you're going to do a job, do it properly). Then Usenet Inc can charge everyone for news feeds etc., charge a membership fee, employ full time staff who administer the net, and a Chief Executive who will decide whether new news groups are justified, and ensure that only suitable sites connect to the net. That way we'll be Properly Organised, and a really Professional Organsisation too. And of course it will stop all the controversy, argument, flaming and so on which is such a pain on the present net - after all, Usenet Inc can cut off any user/site that doesn't follow the rules, which are after all for our own good. Or we could just keep our present anarchy with its polls of users to create groups by agreed concensus. It's worked so far (usually) ! Regards, David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK dww@stl.stc.co.uk ...uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww PSI%234237100122::DWW Usenet works on the principle that 10,000 people know more about the answer to any question than one does. Unfortunately they know 10,000 different answers.