[governance] oh those ballots

[Avri Doria]

Dear Dr. Mueller.

I am sorry that you have had such difficulty with the ballots.  I  
knew they would be difficult and that is why we have been running  
test on them for a few weeks.  I was hoping that everyone would  
acclimate to the difficulties and would find all the fixable bugs  
before we started the charter vote.

As I said, I was hoping to have a web interface that would mask the  
complexities.  Unfortunately that was not possible in time for this  
vote.  I do hope that it will be possible to simplify things for you  
in time before any future votes.  However, when technical work is  
done on a volunteer basis, it is difficult to make demands.

Specific answers to your comments can be found inline:

On 19 sep 2006, at 13.28, Milton Mueller wrote:

> Avri:
> You say in the ballots to send the ballots to
> igc-voters at igcaucus.org

Which is the best alternative and the on I recommend people follow.

>
> Then you say,
>
>>  NOTE:  These two steps are easy.  Just use *
>>     your reply-to key on this message!  *
>
> But that is not true, if you use reply-to
> it sends a message to ïgc-voters-eVote at tla-group.com, which is
> not the right address - is it?

Thank you for pointing this out.  I have changed this so that it  
should work.
I.e. this is now set as an alias for igc-voters at igcaucus.org

>
> So you have to hit "reply all" and then delete one of the addresses

Well that is certainly one way to do it.
Others may have found other solutions to the problem.

>
> In general, the ballot is horribly difficult for a casual user to  
> follow.

Yes sir, I understand.  That is why I had hoped to make it easier for  
you.  That is also why I had a practice vote and why I sent sample  
ballots out several weeks ago so that everyone could comment before  
the voting started. I just regret that this was not enough to prevent  
your difficulties.


> The actual voting instructions come AFTER "poll instructions,"  
> which consist of coder gobbldegook, and AFTER instructions telling  
> you how to find out how other people voted. I suspect that many  
> people, by the time they work their way down to the actual voting  
> instructions, will be thoroughly confused. Can you change the order  
> of those elements?

At this point, most unfortunately, no.  that is, not without stopping  
and restarting the vote and reworking some of the text generation  
code.  This is specifically why I asked people to look at the ballots  
on 23 August.  At that point I still could have tried to make  
changes.  Unfortunately it is too late for me to do so at this point.


> Oh, and if you don't put a space between the numeral and the Y or  
> N, it doesn't work. sheesh.
>

Please accept my deepest apologies for any pain and suffering you  
have experienced in dealing with this ballot.  I will endeavor to  
improve the situation before any future ballots.

I do hope the difficulties you have experienced will not cause you to  
abandon the attempt to vote on the charter.

Sincerely yours,

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