Sock Puppets and Nit Picking

Wikipedia is electing a board. Interesting example in the space of how to structure your goverance.

In order to vote you must have at least 400 edits prior to 00:00 May 30, 2005 (UTC) on the Wikimedia project from which you cast your vote. The first edit must have been 90 days or more before the time of voting. Please note that the Election Officials have the power to disqualify votes from permanently banned users or sockpuppets.

Oh, so they have decided to disenfranchise the sock puppets. Beware the angry sock puppets!

New England towns often end up governed by a peculiar demographic because they have open town meetings. It’s the people who can spare a few hundred hours a year to pick nits at meeting. That “400 edits” rule implies a simplistic model of the distribution of value across the space of edits. Edits are not like bushel’s of wheat. I guess they have a lot of faith in the law of large numbers.

2 thoughts on “Sock Puppets and Nit Picking

  1. Pingback: Learning The Lessons of Nixon » Portrait of the artist as a young sock puppet

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