[aur-general] Trusted Users, Secret ballots, Openness?

[Xyne]

> Note that we used to vote in public until the AUR voting interface 
> became available.  People still got rejected.
> 
> Allan

I didn't know that nor was I suggesting that everyone would just cave
in and vote for fear of conflict and "why didn't you vote for me?"
interrogations. It does make it easier to socially engineer your way
in, which was a matter discussed during the last discussion period. If
you know exactly who didn't vote for you, you can focus your efforts to
convince that person to vote for you next time. Like it or not, it's
not actually that difficult to adapt one's behavior in such a limited
context for such a specific goal.

Do I think this would lead to the end of life as we know it? No, of
course not.

This isn't some melodramatic social networking site either. It's not as
though everyone was telling Laszlo "yeah, I'm gonna vote for you,
you'll definitely get in, no problem, mate" and then suddenly turned
around and voted no with devious, villainous music in the background. I
suspect that the ones that voted no had simply not changed their minds
since the last discussion period and did not feel the need to drudge
them up again in the absense of perceived change.

I do see the potential benefits of open voting and, now knowing that it
used to be, I do not necessarily oppose it. At the same time, once you
reach the point that you can't trust TUs to vote the way you would
expect them to from their public statements (e.g. claiming support
publicly then voting no secretly), I think you have a bigger problem
then the openness of the ballot itself.

I'm going to try to limit my replies to this thread now. Sorry for the
noise.

Xyne