> Why does it always seem as if such proposals are written by clueless people? Whenever you start to think that a complex thing was done by a clueless person,

> Why does it always seem as if such proposals are written by clueless people? Whenever you start to think that a complex thing was done by a clueless person, you should stop, and consider the possibility you might be lacking a clue yourself. That doesn't mean the other side wasn't missing a clue either, or isn't acting in bad faith, of course. But I find it rare that there's no actual good reason ideas happen. In this case, it's definitely true that the "right" to refuse renumeration has been abused, on many levels — from free-of-charge press effectively displacing and forcing the rest to follow on the "big guy" scale, to unpaid internships on the "small guy" scale. There are good reasons to reject the proposal — as outlined in the OP — but that doesn't mean the author was clueless. Whether incoherence comes from a difference in perspective or bad faith we don't know (though you can guess what I - a socialist - am guessing about the good faith of a CDU politician). But there _are_ reasons. > Can't we, people of HN, draft proposals collaboratively, perhaps with some moderation system? There aren't "we, people of HN", but if you want to collaboratively draft proposals, join your nearest political entity. My own even has a Discourse forum where you can get all meta about the policy process.