Greetings, all!
The elections for FESCo - May 2018 have concluded, and the results are shown below.
FESCo is electing 4 seats this time. A total of 86 ballots were cast, meaning a candidate could accumulate up to 430 votes (86 * 5).
The results for the elections are as follows:
# votes | name - --------+---------------------- 290 | Till Maas (till/tyll) 286 | Stephen Gallagher (sgallagh) 254 | Randy Barlow (bowlofeggs) 234 | Petr Šabata (contyk/psabata) - --------+---------------------- 231 | Justin Forbes (jforbes)
Congratulations to the winning candidates, and thank you all candidates for running this elections!
For more information please check the Voting App: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/voting/about/fesco-may-2018
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 10:06:24AM +0200, Jan Kurik wrote:
Greetings, all!
The elections for FESCo - May 2018 have concluded, and the results are shown below.
FESCo is electing 4 seats this time. A total of 86 ballots were cast, meaning a candidate could accumulate up to 430 votes (86 * 5).
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us :(
The results for the elections are as follows:
# votes | name
- --------+---------------------- 290 | Till Maas (till/tyll) 286 | Stephen Gallagher (sgallagh) 254 | Randy Barlow (bowlofeggs) 234 | Petr Šabata (contyk/psabata)
- --------+---------------------- 231 | Justin Forbes (jforbes)
Congratulations nonetheless to all candidates!
Pierre
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 9:03 AM Michael Cronenworth mike@cchtml.com wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.
Around 100 is historically typical. 85 for FESCo is a low spot. I would not discount "apathy" as a reason. For many contributors, who is on the governing bodies has no material impact to them at all so they just don't care.
josh
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:02 PM, Michael Cronenworth mike@cchtml.com wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.
I've heard from several people (warning anecdata!) that they often don't vote when they are happy with the way things are. One person specifically said they didn't vote because they liked the whole slate of candidates and were ok with whomever won.
We can debate if this is good or bad, but it does mean that low turn out is not automatically bad.
regards,
bex
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On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 8:27 AM, Brian (bex) Exelbierd bexelbie@redhat.com wrote:
I've heard from several people (warning anecdata!) that they often don't vote when they are happy with the way things are. One person specifically said they didn't vote because they liked the whole slate of candidates and were ok with whomever won.
I think that might have a lot to do with the turnout, indeed. I believe there's a general perception in the community that FESCo has been doing a good job, and there's not really any significant issues involved in the election.
But also, consider election burnout. FESCo, Mindshare, and Council elections, every six months or thereabouts... it turns out to be a lot, right? We've had nine completed elections in the past year, or fourteen if you count the five cancelled elections. [1] That's a quirk of our releases not being exactly six months apart, but it's also kind of a lot, right? Reading the interviews for the same candidates again and again each year gets old pretty fast. So if we want to increase turnout and improve our elections, the first thing I would do is make the elections less frequent, to reduce voter burnout, e.g. once hold them all once per year (for three elections per year) instead of twice per year.
I would also double the terms served by the candidates (at least for FESCo), since otherwise we'd wind up with twice as many candidates on the ballot at each election, which would make the elections more confusing (more names to recognize, more candidate interviews to read) and could backfire on us (as I'd expect voters are more likely to vote in simpler elections). Longer terms would also make the results of the elections more consequential, i.e. it becomes more important to vote if you care about FESCo because the people elected are going to be there for two years instead of one.
Michael
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 09:34:48AM -0500, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
I would also double the terms served by the candidates (at least for FESCo), since otherwise we'd wind up with twice as many candidates on the ballot at each election, which would make the elections more confusing (more names to recognize, more candidate interviews to read) and could backfire on us (as I'd expect voters are more likely to vote in simpler elections). Longer terms would also make the results of the elections more consequential, i.e. it becomes more important to vote if you care about FESCo because the people elected are going to be there for two years instead of one.
There's another aspect of burnout: two years is a big commitment. In the past, we've bad people who really were getting burned out or busy with other commitments but who felt they couldn't really step down without abandoning their responsibilities. If we did go to two year terms, I'd rather see one year + automatic re-up if you want.
On 06/14/2018 12:13 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
I would also double the terms served by the candidates (at least for FESCo), since otherwise we'd wind up with twice as many candidates on the ballot at each election, which would make the elections more confusing (more names to recognize, more candidate interviews to read) and could backfire on us (as I'd expect voters are more likely to vote in simpler elections). Longer terms would also make the results of the elections more consequential, i.e. it becomes more important to vote if you care about FESCo because the people elected are going to be there for two years instead of one.
There's another aspect of burnout: two years is a big commitment. In the past, we've bad people who really were getting burned out or busy with other commitments but who felt they couldn't really step down without abandoning their responsibilities. If we did go to two year terms, I'd rather see one year + automatic re-up if you want.
Another way to achieve a similar goal (fewer elections) is to have all of FESCo swap in/out together, rather than tick-tocking 4 and 5 seats. This way we keep a year long term, but also only one election per year. Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow bowlofeggs@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On 06/14/2018 12:13 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
I would also double the terms served by the candidates (at least for FESCo), since otherwise we'd wind up with twice as many candidates on the ballot at each election, which would make the elections more confusing (more names to recognize, more candidate interviews to read) and could backfire on us (as I'd expect voters are more likely to vote in simpler elections). Longer terms would also make the results of the elections more consequential, i.e. it becomes more important to vote if you care about FESCo because the people elected are going to be there for two years instead of one.
There's another aspect of burnout: two years is a big commitment. In the past, we've bad people who really were getting burned out or busy with other commitments but who felt they couldn't really step down without abandoning their responsibilities. If we did go to two year terms, I'd rather see one year + automatic re-up if you want.
Another way to achieve a similar goal (fewer elections) is to have all of FESCo swap in/out together, rather than tick-tocking 4 and 5 seats. This way we keep a year long term, but also only one election per year. Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
josh
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
Kind regards Till
On Thu, 2018-06-14 at 23:50 +0200, Till Maas wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
Theory will always become reality at some point. I think there is very good reasons to keep the staggered approach to electing FESCo members.
Dennis
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 04:53:58PM -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote:
Theory will always become reality at some point. I think there is very good reasons to keep the staggered approach to electing FESCo members.
The lack of candidates and voters is a practical problem that we have now. Not sure if reducing the amount of elections would help, though.
Kind regards Till
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM Till Maas opensource@till.name wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
It was a solution to a practical problem when we came up with it. Fedora was young, core and extras had just merged. People were excited about guiding Fedora at a technical level. We needed the structure to ensure we didn't have massive swings in direction on technologies and sufficient transfer of knowledge. The overall number of contributors was smaller, but the interest level was greater.
I'm not against reworking the election schedule or terms, but it's good to know why something was put in place before you change it. Dismissing it as theoretical does nothing but make me feel old, which is OK because I am. I'm not convinced a change in the election structure or term limits is really going to drum up interest in FESCo though. The problems we face there are more fundamental than that.
josh
I simply forgot to vote this time - saw the announcement was busy with other things and then the elections where already over.
Having a longer voting period would have helped but I am not sure if others simply missed it as well.
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018, 10:42 PM Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM Till Maas opensource@till.name wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be
no
members who know the current state of things. We would also need to
do
something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
It was a solution to a practical problem when we came up with it. Fedora was young, core and extras had just merged. People were excited about guiding Fedora at a technical level. We needed the structure to ensure we didn't have massive swings in direction on technologies and sufficient transfer of knowledge. The overall number of contributors was smaller, but the interest level was greater.
I'm not against reworking the election schedule or terms, but it's good to know why something was put in place before you change it. Dismissing it as theoretical does nothing but make me feel old, which is OK because I am. I'm not convinced a change in the election structure or term limits is really going to drum up interest in FESCo though. The problems we face there are more fundamental than that.
josh
Over the past five years or so, the membership in FESCo has rarely changed except when an existing member voluntarily gives up their seat. The elections rely heavily on name recognition and so being on FESCo is self-reinforcing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. Clearly it has been working for Fedora, since the Project is thriving.
I'd like to suggest a more radical approach then: what if we only hold elections under two circumstances?
1) An existing member steps down and announces that a seat is opening.
2) A vote of no-confidence is raised for one or more individuals currently serving. In this case, those individuals can also remain on the ballot to retain their seat. The details of the no confidence clause would need to be worked out to avoid constant jeopardy and too frequent elections, but I think that could be feasible.
On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 6:08 AM Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018, 10:42 PM Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM Till Maas opensource@till.name wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
It was a solution to a practical problem when we came up with it. Fedora was young, core and extras had just merged. People were excited about guiding Fedora at a technical level. We needed the structure to ensure we didn't have massive swings in direction on technologies and sufficient transfer of knowledge. The overall number of contributors was smaller, but the interest level was greater.
I'm not against reworking the election schedule or terms, but it's good to know why something was put in place before you change it. Dismissing it as theoretical does nothing but make me feel old, which is OK because I am. I'm not convinced a change in the election structure or term limits is really going to drum up interest in FESCo though. The problems we face there are more fundamental than that.
josh
Over the past five years or so, the membership in FESCo has rarely changed except when an existing member voluntarily gives up their seat. The elections rely heavily on name recognition and so being on FESCo is self-reinforcing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. Clearly it has been working for Fedora, since the Project is thriving.
Hm. I mean no disrespect by this, but it could also mean that FESCo is somewhat irrelevant to Fedora's current trajectory. It's likely a culmination of turning a crank at this point, with small nudges from FESCo to make sure nothing gets in the gears. I know we do a lot of rubber stamping because process requires it. I'm not sure that's what I'd call thriving, either for FESCo itself or how our project works. I think the reality lies somewhere in the middle though.
To be clear, I think Fedora produces an outstanding set of Editions that have continued to work very well. We should be proud of that. That's our "product" though, not our project.
I'd like to suggest a more radical approach then: what if we only hold elections under two circumstances?
An existing member steps down and announces that a seat is opening.
A vote of no-confidence is raised for one or more individuals currently serving. In this case, those individuals can also remain on the ballot to retain their seat. The details of the no confidence clause would need to be worked out to avoid constant jeopardy and too frequent elections, but I think that could be feasible.
I'd be OK with this, but no-confidence is really hard to nail down.
josh
On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 2:34 PM, Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 6:08 AM Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018, 10:42 PM Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org
wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM Till Maas opensource@till.name wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely)
for
all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd
be no
members who know the current state of things. We would also need
to do
something a little awkward to get into this state since we
currently
have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
It was a solution to a practical problem when we came up with it. Fedora was young, core and extras had just merged. People were excited about guiding Fedora at a technical level. We needed the structure to ensure we didn't have massive swings in direction on technologies and sufficient transfer of knowledge. The overall number of contributors was smaller, but the interest level was greater.
I'm not against reworking the election schedule or terms, but it's good to know why something was put in place before you change it. Dismissing it as theoretical does nothing but make me feel old, which is OK because I am. I'm not convinced a change in the election structure or term limits is really going to drum up interest in FESCo though. The problems we face there are more fundamental than that.
josh
Over the past five years or so, the membership in FESCo has rarely
changed except when an existing member voluntarily gives up their seat. The elections rely heavily on name recognition and so being on FESCo is self-reinforcing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. Clearly it has been working for Fedora, since the Project is thriving.
Hm. I mean no disrespect by this, but it could also mean that FESCo is somewhat irrelevant to Fedora's current trajectory. It's likely a culmination of turning a crank at this point, with small nudges from FESCo to make sure nothing gets in the gears. I know we do a lot of rubber stamping because process requires it. I'm not sure that's what I'd call thriving, either for FESCo itself or how our project works. I think the reality lies somewhere in the middle though.
I think exploring the mandate and objectives for FESCo relative to what the project needs today is a very useful effort. It may be that we don't need rubber stamps and instead we need informed decision making that allows for reversal. This could reduce the processes "hoops" required. We are looking at similar things with Mindshare to reduce the amount of approval activity required to do things we know we want to do, like Release Parties.
regards,
bex
To be clear, I think Fedora produces an outstanding set of Editions that have continued to work very well. We should be proud of that. That's our "product" though, not our project.
I'd like to suggest a more radical approach then: what if we only hold
elections under two circumstances?
An existing member steps down and announces that a seat is opening.
A vote of no-confidence is raised for one or more individuals
currently serving. In this case, those individuals can also remain on the ballot to retain their seat. The details of the no confidence clause would need to be worked out to avoid constant jeopardy and too frequent elections, but I think that could be feasible.
I'd be OK with this, but no-confidence is really hard to nail down.
josh _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists. fedoraproject.org/message/RD345JRWBT7D5P2XB2NX6DLYO44HQ4B5/
"JB" == Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org writes:
JB> I know we do a lot of rubber stamping because process requires it.
This is one of the primary reasons why I lost interest in serving on FESCo way back in the day. It felt like an endless stream of feature process documents without much real involvement in anything. Of course, that was many years ago now.
If I want to be involved in actually making something happen, I just need to put my head down and do some work. I don't need to be on FESCo to get things done.
- J<
On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 02:31:45PM -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
If I want to be involved in actually making something happen, I just need to put my head down and do some work. I don't need to be on FESCo to get things done.
That seems like we're doing things right!
"MM" == Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org writes:
MM> That seems like we're doing things right!
Yes, of course, one nice thing about Fedora is that if you are willing to do work, people will let you do work. But it also might explain why there is something of a lack of candidates for FESCo. There are probably several people who would serve if asked to do so, but don't see the need to run. (I'm one of those people.)
- J<
On Fri, 15 Jun 2018 at 21:32, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
"JB" == Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org writes:
JB> I know we do a lot of rubber stamping because process requires it.
This is one of the primary reasons why I lost interest in serving on FESCo way back in the day. It felt like an endless stream of feature process documents without much real involvement in anything. Of course, that was many years ago now.
If I want to be involved in actually making something happen, I just need to put my head down and do some work. I don't need to be on FESCo to get things done.
+1
- J<
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On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 12:06 PM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018, 10:42 PM Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM Till Maas opensource@till.name wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely)
for
all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd
be no
members who know the current state of things. We would also need to
do
something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
It was a solution to a practical problem when we came up with it. Fedora was young, core and extras had just merged. People were excited about guiding Fedora at a technical level. We needed the structure to ensure we didn't have massive swings in direction on technologies and sufficient transfer of knowledge. The overall number of contributors was smaller, but the interest level was greater.
I'm not against reworking the election schedule or terms, but it's good to know why something was put in place before you change it. Dismissing it as theoretical does nothing but make me feel old, which is OK because I am. I'm not convinced a change in the election structure or term limits is really going to drum up interest in FESCo though. The problems we face there are more fundamental than that.
josh
Over the past five years or so, the membership in FESCo has rarely changed except when an existing member voluntarily gives up their seat. The elections rely heavily on name recognition and so being on FESCo is self-reinforcing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. Clearly it has been working for Fedora, since the Project is thriving.
I'd like to suggest a more radical approach then: what if we only hold elections under two circumstances?
An existing member steps down and announces that a seat is opening.
A vote of no-confidence is raised for one or more individuals currently
serving. In this case, those individuals can also remain on the ballot to retain their seat. The details of the no confidence clause would need to be worked out to avoid constant jeopardy and too frequent elections, but I think that could be feasible.
I understand the sentiment here, but it worries me in several ways:
* These kinds of policies make it harder for those on the border of burn out (or similar issues) to step back. Elections/terms reverse the question to a "do you want to keep doing this" instead of "we assume you are still good."
* It is very hard to get a no-confidence movement together. It makes it hard to deal with small issues because no-confidence is a "huge deal." This is not to say that lots of people have small issues, but elections/terms create a natural opportunity for turn-over based on a variety of factors.
regards,
bex
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On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 06:06:57AM -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018, 10:42 PM Josh Boyer jwboyer@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 5:51 PM Till Maas opensource@till.name wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM Randy Barlow
Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be
no
members who know the current state of things. We would also need to
do
something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
This seems to be a very theoretical problem because it would mean that we have nine times the number of new candidates that we have now and everyone is so unsatisfied with FESCo that only new candidates will be elected. And if there is so deep dissatisfaction, a fresh start might even be a good idea. Also there would still be other people around to provide guidance or there is another problem.
It was a solution to a practical problem when we came up with it. Fedora was young, core and extras had just merged. People were excited about guiding Fedora at a technical level. We needed the structure to ensure we didn't have massive swings in direction on technologies and sufficient transfer of knowledge. The overall number of contributors was smaller, but the interest level was greater.
I'm not against reworking the election schedule or terms, but it's good to know why something was put in place before you change it. Dismissing it as theoretical does nothing but make me feel old, which is OK because I am. I'm not convinced a change in the election structure or term limits is really going to drum up interest in FESCo though. The problems we face there are more fundamental than that.
josh
Over the past five years or so, the membership in FESCo has rarely changed except when an existing member voluntarily gives up their seat. The elections rely heavily on name recognition and so being on FESCo is self-reinforcing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. Clearly it has been working for Fedora, since the Project is thriving.
I'd like to suggest a more radical approach then: what if we only hold elections under two circumstances?
- An existing member steps down and announces that a seat is opening.
- A vote of no-confidence is raised
I'm against such a change.
Essentially, it would make the membership calcified. It is good to have the occasional re-assessment that the elections provide.
IMHO the two conditions are not enough for some common cases:
Re 1. experience shows that when other priorities arise to the point that it is hard to keep participating at an adequate level, people usually scale down their involvement, often to the point of becoming non-responsive, rather then quitting outright. (I do this, and every time I tell myself "it would have been better to just quit one year ago", it's always one year too late. This is not bad intentions, just human psychology). I don't think such "voluntary quitting" works at all.
Re 2. a vote of no-confidence is confrontational, a lot of work for the people raising it, so people would avoid it except in a dire situation. It would work if there was just one member who was clearly "bad" (in whatever sense), but for example doesn't work at all for the all-too-common case of "this body is not responsive enough, we need some new blood".
Zbyszek
Stephen Gallagher wrote:
I'd like to suggest a more radical approach then: what if we only hold elections under two circumstances?
An existing member steps down and announces that a seat is opening.
A vote of no-confidence is raised for one or more individuals currently
serving. In this case, those individuals can also remain on the ballot to retain their seat. The details of the no confidence clause would need to be worked out to avoid constant jeopardy and too frequent elections, but I think that could be feasible.
This would essentially turn FESCo into an oligarchic dictatorship.
Case 2 is not going to happen very often which leaves us with people sticking to their terms for as long as they want with no possibility of election, the definition of a dictatorship.
There are several practical issues making case 2 impractical. The first two are: (i) Who gets to start a vote of no-confidence? (ii) Who gets to vote on it? If the answer to either or both of those questions is FESCo, this means there is no way for the community to get rid of a rogue FESCo, so we end up in a complete dictatorship. But if we do not restrict (i) in some way, there could be many votes of no-confidence getting started (and most of them would likely fail, but people would get tired of them and election turnout would suffer as a whole). Which leads us to: (iii) Under what conditions can a vote of no-confidence be started? If it is too easy, voters will tire out of the many votes. If it is too hard, the whole concept is ineffective. And finally: (iv) How likely is it for a vote of no-confidence to succeed in practice? Due to voter psychology, I expect most of them to fail no matter what.
Kevin Kofler
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
Another way to achieve a similar goal (fewer elections) is to have all of FESCo swap in/out together, rather than tick-tocking 4 and 5 seats. This way we keep a year long term, but also only one election per year. Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
We could do it for Council and Mindshare, though, since those bodies are not entirely elected anyway.
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 6:19 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 03:57:36PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
Another way to achieve a similar goal (fewer elections) is to have all of FESCo swap in/out together, rather than tick-tocking 4 and 5 seats. This way we keep a year long term, but also only one election per year. Downside is that it would be possible (though I'd guess unlikely) for all of FESCo to suddenly change to 9 different people and there'd be no members who know the current state of things. We would also need to do something a little awkward to get into this state since we currently have staggered terms.
The election structure was setup specifically to avoid this problem. The alternative solutions were all pretty poor.
We could do it for Council and Mindshare, though, since those bodies are not entirely elected anyway.
Sure.
josh
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 2:52 PM, Randy Barlow bowlofeggs@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Another way to achieve a similar goal (fewer elections) is to have all of FESCo swap in/out together, rather than tick-tocking 4 and 5 seats. This way we keep a year long term, but also only one election per year.
I recommended against this, because:
we'd wind up with twice as many candidates on the ballot at each election, which would make the elections more confusing (more names to recognize, more candidate interviews to read) and could backfire on us (as I'd expect voters are more likely to vote in simpler elections).
I would guess that the more names there are on the ballot, the less likely voters will be inclined to vote. Choice paralysis!
Michael
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 11:13 AM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
There's another aspect of burnout: two years is a big commitment. In the past, we've bad people who really were getting burned out or busy with other commitments but who felt they couldn't really step down without abandoning their responsibilities. If we did go to two year terms, I'd rather see one year + automatic re-up if you want.
Semi-concrete-ish proposal: let's either do that, or do something really similar.
Premise: we currently have too many open positions in too many elections.
Under your proposal, we'll have one FESCo election per year, electing 4 or 5 seats at minimum, plus extra seats for any members who have decided not to re-up. So there would be between four and nine seats open in each yearly election, but generally I'd guess it would probably be between five and seven. On the whole, I think this would be a positive change, because decreasing election frequency will increase the importance of the elections. There is a sweet spot between too frequent and too rare, and my intuition says we are too frequent right now. But there will probably be more open positions per election than we have now, and that seems negative to me.
5-7 spots (up from 4-5 currently) is kind of a lot. We'll have reduced the frequency of elections (good), but the elections we do have will be busier and more complicated and harder to vote for (bad). I think it would still be a net win, but I'll propose one more change to reduce open spots: FESCo members get *two* automatic re-ups. This way, a FESCo member could serve up to three years between elections if desired, but there are still annual elections, and there is never any expectation of serving more than one year: that's just something each member would decide at the end of the year when it's time for new elections. Instead of 5-7 open seats, my guess is we'd probably have more like 3-5, depending on how many candidates decide to re-up, which is more in line with today's elections. This should make the elections more significant, and hopefully also easier for voters.
I could even support more re-ups than that, but I'll only propose two. It seems like the sweet spot to me. We don't want to overcorrect and wind up with too few open positions and too few elections. And we don't want terms to be *too* long, because FESCo members should still be responsive to the Fedora developer community.
Aside: we might also want to align elections to calendar years instead of Fedora releases, since otherwise the schedule could get screwy if we ever wind up getting too far off of the target May/October cycle.
Michael
I think that might have a lot to do with the turnout, indeed. I believe
there's a general perception in the community that FESCo has been doing a good job, and there's not really any significant issues involved in the election.
But also, consider election burnout. FESCo, Mindshare, and Council elections, every six months or thereabouts... it turns out to be a lot, right? We've had nine completed elections in the past year, or fourteen if you count the five cancelled elections. [1] That's a quirk of our releases not being exactly six months apart, but it's also kind of a lot, right? Reading the interviews for the same candidates again and again each year gets old pretty fast. So if we want to increase turnout and improve our elections, the first thing I would do is make the elections less frequent, to reduce voter burnout, e.g. once hold them all once per year (for three elections per year) instead of twice per year.
I do agree here, +1
On 2018-06-14 09:27, Brian (bex) Exelbierd wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:02 PM, Michael Cronenworth <mike@cchtml.com mailto:mike@cchtml.com> wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote: I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:( Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :( Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.I've heard from several people (warning anecdata!) that they often don't vote when they are happy with the way things are. One person specifically said they didn't vote because they liked the whole slate of candidates and were ok with whomever won.
This was the first time I've ever voted despite using Fedora from the beginning (well, RH 4.0 days actually). Anyway, much of what's been said here holds true for me. Why did I vote this time? It certainly wasn't because I hoped for a change, rather it was just me trying to increase my involvement. Oddly enough, after reading the Q&A of each contender I realized my proper vote would effectively be a no-op.
So the universe is telling me that my vote on FESCo could have a significant impact, yet I'm happy regardless of the outcome. Meanwhile, my vote for US elections has almost zero impact, yet I can't be happy with the outcome. Why does it feel like Douglas Adams is behind all of this? :-)
We can debate if this is good or bad, but it does mean that low turn out is not automatically bad.
I agree. I don't see this as bad. In fact, I might argue that it is most definitely good. Therefore, in that spirit, congrats to all, winners and "losers".
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 08:02:33AM -0500, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.
I assume lack of badges for voting, misalignment with the other elections and not enough contributors/candidates.
Also in the past there were wore blog posts about people who voted on planet etc.
Kind regards Till
On Fri, 2018-06-15 at 00:01 +0200, Till Maas wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 08:02:33AM -0500, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.
I assume lack of badges for voting, misalignment with the other elections and not enough contributors/candidates.
Also in the past there were wore blog posts about people who voted on planet etc.
Kind regards Till
It struck me that we could have "I Voted" badges in the Fedora badges subsystem, so I've filed: "Family of badges for voting in Fedora elections: "I Voted"" https://pagure.io/fedora-badges/issue/626
(possibly with an element of penance for forgetting to vote myself)
On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 11:53:13AM -0400, David Malcolm wrote:
It struck me that we could have "I Voted" badges in the Fedora badges subsystem, so I've filed: "Family of badges for voting in Fedora elections: "I Voted"" https://pagure.io/fedora-badges/issue/626 (possibly with an element of penance for forgetting to vote myself)
This has been suggested before, but there was a lot of pushback on the anonymity issue. Personally, I think having a "Get my badge for voting" checkbox — or even a final button — is a fine compromise.
On 06/21/2018 08:53 AM, David Malcolm wrote:
On Fri, 2018-06-15 at 00:01 +0200, Till Maas wrote:
On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 08:02:33AM -0500, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising? I voted.
I assume lack of badges for voting, misalignment with the other elections and not enough contributors/candidates.
Also in the past there were wore blog posts about people who voted on planet etc.
Kind regards Till
It struck me that we could have "I Voted" badges in the Fedora badges subsystem, so I've filed: "Family of badges for voting in Fedora elections: "I Voted"" https://pagure.io/fedora-badges/issue/626
(possibly with an element of penance for forgetting to vote myself)
See: https://pagure.io/fedora-badges/issue/45
basically they were proposed, but people objected to the elections app emitting fedmsgs when people voted, so it was decided they should be 'claimable' from the elections app after you voted (or anytime after)
However, it looks like that was never implemented in the elections app: https://pagure.io/elections/issue/45
So, we just need to implement that and we get badges going for it.
I'm not sure how hard that would be off hand.
kevin
On 06/14/2018 03:02 PM, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
On 06/14/2018 03:42 AM, Pierre-Yves Chibon wrote:
I know we never manage to motivate many people to vote, but 86 votes is really low, even for us:(
Yes, I was checking out the voter count on other pollings and the turnout is around 100. Disappointing. :(
Lack of awareness or advertising?
Neither - IMO, lack of "democratic culture".
I voted.
I did not, because I could not find any suitable candidates and did not see any reason to vote.
Ralf
On 06/21/2018 01:46 AM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
I did not, because I could not find any suitable candidates and did not see any reason to vote.
Ralf,
It's great to see you. Every comment seems to be a polar opposite of anyone that has a discussion.
You know you can vote "0" and no candidates get your vote, but the voter count will still tick up.
FYI.
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