[OSM-talk] Proliferation of path vs. footway

[Alex L. Mauer]

John Smith wrote:
> Forced is probably the wrong word, gamed the system is what I would have said.

The system was used exactly as it was intended.  It's not my fault if
few people choose to participate.

> If there is over 100,000 accounts and at least 1% of them actively map and have actively mapped for over 1 year 30 or 40 votes compared to a possible 1000 participants isn't a very indicative outcome.

We only reached 100,000 accounts this year.  When the final vote was
registered on highway=path (May 2008) we were at 35000 users.  Not all
of those who map also use the wiki regularly.  Your "possible 1000
participants" is a very high estimate, I would say. Regardless...

> The current system is flawed when it comes to making decisions on complex issues, this is why democracies aren't democracies, nothing would ever be decided if everyone had a vote on everything. Instead we have republics where a few are elected or nominated to make the decisions.

No arguments with this, but would would you have had us do?  I'm pretty
sure there'd be even more screaming if we'd just unilaterally changed
the wiki.  Do nothing?  Despite some peoples' objections, it certainly
does fill a need.  If you have a proposal for a better system (and I'm
pretty sure that doesn't include any kind of wiki masters who get to
decide what's useful and what's not), I'm sure we'd be happy to hear it.

-Alex Mauer "hawke"

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