Community Council/Council voting rights
The following referendum is to decide once and for all what requirements will be needed of Maemo community members before they may vote in community council elections. The choices proposed are to maintain the current levels, to reduce the karma requirement to 10, to reduce the karma requirement to 10 and allow anyone with an account over 1 year old to vote, or to drop all requirements other than having a maemo.org account.
Proposed options
The changes mentioned below will be made to item #3 in the Council election process for all Community Council elections after the Q1 2009 election.
- 25 karma minimum and 3 month old account (status quo)
- Item #3 remains as "Only community members who have had maemo.org accounts for over 3 months, and have karma of 25 or above, may vote."
- 10 karma point minimum and 3 month old account
- Item #3 becomes as "Only community members who have had maemo.org accounts for over 3 months, and have karma of 10 or above, may vote."
- The advantage of this option is that it requires both a knowledge of the community and some contribution before you are entitled to vote. The disadvantage is that it may not take into account certain contributions to the community which are not included in the calculation of karma.
- 10 karma point minimum or 12 month old account
- Item #3 becomes as "Only community members who have had maemo.org accounts for over 12 months, or have karma of 10 or above, may vote."
- The advantage of this method over the second is that members who have created account will eventually get a vote, regardless of whether their contributions are not included in the karma calculation. The disadvantage is that over time more and more of the electorate will be made up of people whose accounts are inactive, and who are no longer in touch with the community.
- Karma ignored, account age ignored
- Item #3 becomes as "Anybody with a maemo.org account will be entitled to a vote."
- The advantage of this method is that it is very easy to gain a right to vote in Maemo council elections. This is also the disadvantage, as ballot stuffing through mass creation of accounts before an election becomes possible.
- None of the above.
- No change is made to the election process, and so please be aware this is a vote for option 1. However, it does allow you to indicate that you think none of these options is satisfactory.