The Wikimedia Foundation was originally envisaged as a membership
organization. Per my recollection, everyone who ever edited would become a
member. That didn't happen for legal reasons, however, I believe in the
spirit of it being a membership organization. Unfortunately we now subscribe
to the recentist perspective that only those that maintain a certain pace of
editing are eligible to vote. We ignore, not only new editors who do not yet
have 600 edits, but all editors who have 600 edits but have contributed to
the projects in other ways recently, or have lapsed into just using the
projects as a useful information resource.
I highly doubt that a statistical analysis was carried out which found that
editors that don't meet this requirement skew the results. I also highly
doubt that editors that don't meet this requirement are incapable of
comprehending the statements created by those seeking election, ranking them
and making a perfectly valid choice that increases the power of the result.
In my view, the only reason to limit voting to editors with a certain number
of edits is to limit the effects of ballot stuffing. However, technical
measures can easily counteract this effect. Additionally, the more people
you allow to vote the more effective your anti-ballot stuffing
countermeasures will be, as the larger number of votes mutes the effect of
those who vote for the same person from several ip addresses.
Thus, I must conclude that this rule was created arbitrarily. And if it was
voted on, I seriously consider the result of that vote suspect, given
present knowledge.
/Brian
