Am I the only one who missed the election?

[Benjamin Lewis]

On Tue, 11 Dec 2012, inode0 wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 4:17 AM, Benjamin Lewis <ben.lewis at benl.co.uk> wrote:
>> There is really no reason why the election messages couldn't go to all
>> of FAS, and just have a note explaining that you need cla_done to vote.
>>
>> There is equally no reason, aside from it being more admin work, why you
>> couldn't have two lists. I just don't see how this is in any way better than
>> just catching some people who are ineligible to vote...
>
> When only 200 people choose to vote in elections I'm not sure we need
> to spam thousands of people who don't care in the least. If you do
> care about them then there are plenty of opportunities to help run
> them and there are plenty of opportunities to become aware of them
> happening.
>

Obvious follow-up question: why do these people not care? It might be
that our elections are just of no interest, in which case they can just
ignore the e-mail... There will be >5 e-mails of that nature per year
(I'm not sure of the precise number, perhaps its more, but it's of that
order!) I'm not sure they necessarily would have such an objection to voting
that being told about it would bother them...

My argument, however, was more about whether or not FAS should
auto-subscribe one to the announce list.

> I understand there are times when people who do care are extremely
> busy and just can't deal with every piece of email that comes through.
> We can't change that fact of life. For anyone who does care and is
> worried about missing the announcement please subscribe to the main
> announce list and read it.
>

If we don't do some sort of "e-mail all of FAS" or "subscribe all of FAS to announce", 
I agree entirely; but it is essential that we are consistent on where those announcements 
- or at the very least the authoritative ones - go.

By extension, they should be in e-mails was obvious subjects, etc.,
etc.

-- 
Benjamin Lewis
Returning Officer and Past-President
Durham Union Society