You might think that an organisation of over 1000 very smart people could do better. I certianly thought so -- until I sat through one of the Debian debates on -vote. Many of the participants acted the age they must have been when they first learned the mnemonic "Garbage In, Garbage Out." They argued, often quite belligerently, from their own narrow perspectives, unable (or unwilling) to see the situation from anybody else's point of view. [...] bureaucrats, not programmers.

Paraphrased from Rick Fienberg's editorial in November's Sky & Telescope, describing the IAU Pluto definition. The parallel seems amusing, especially since both cases involve silly votes.