Re: Some notes on this years election

[Benjamin Berg <benjamin sipsolutions net>]

Hi,

what you wrote makes me doubt the decision even more. You have simply
dismissed my argument rather than properly arguing why the decision of
the election committee was correct and on what basis it was done.

You are basically arguing that the purpose was to allow inclusion of
late submissions of candidacy. I am baffled by this and I don't see how
the election committee can do that. The point is that it is impossible
to proof that your decision was entirely independent of the late
candidacy that arrived between the announcement and end of deadline.
This gives the impression that the election committee may be giving out
favours to people they want to see on the board.

Imagine that next year we have 10 candidates and of these one is a few
hours late. How would this years decision affect such a situation in
the future?

Also, I do *not* concur with the reasoning that a couple of days should
not be enough to change someone's mind. You are making assumptions
about the motives of people to run/not run which I don't see any reason
to believe in. There may be plenty of people who feel that they are
capable (compared to current board members/candidates), who know quite
well what they would be getting themselves into and know that they are
able to make the time. But exactly *because* they know it requires a
lot of commitment they are hesitating to put in their candidacy and
would prefer other people to step forward first.

Benjamin

On Mon, 2017-05-29 at 12:24 +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
> The membership had 12 days to send in their candidacies which is
> plenty of time to make an informed decision. If you double check the
> timeline for this elections at [1] you'll see it's clear why the
> timeline was only extended by one day and that's mainly because the
> 26th of May was scheduled as the first day votes could be accepted.
> While announcing the list of candidates can slip to the next day the
> effective starting of the elections cannot. That said, running and
> being on the Board requires you to commit a lot of time and energy
> for
> an entire year which presuppose you being *strongly* convinced on
> proposing your candidacy so it's definitely not a day or two that
> would have changed someone's mind to run.
> cheers,
>
> [1] https://vote.gnome.org/2017/rules.html
>
> 2017-05-29 12:01 GMT+02:00 Benjamin Berg <benjamin sipsolutions net>:
> > Hey,
> >
> > just had a few notes on this years election:
> >  * The extension seemed weird to me. It was extended by only a day
> >    (giving people less than 15 hours after the announcement, factor
> > in
> >    work/sleep time and people are quite likely to not be able to
> > act on
> >    it before it is too late!). This feels like mostly allowing
> > Meg's
> >    candidacy to be included rather than actually giving anyone the
> > time
> >    to reconsider running. Now, I understand there is an interest in
> >    including more candidates with such a low turnout. However I do
> > feel
> >    that this was badly managed because *if* you are extending the
> >    deadline, then this has to be about give people the time to
> >    reconsider if they want to put in a candidacy. As it is now, it
> >    feels to me like this was done to be able to consider Meg's
> >    candidacy. The point here is that such a decision should *never*
> > be
> >    made in favour of a single candidate.
> >  * Please keep the paragraphs intact on the list of candidates.
> > Talking
> >    about https://vote.gnome.org/2017/candidates.html
> >  * I am unsure as to what the processes was in previous years, but
> > I
> >    think a few days for Q&A preceding the election period would
> > make
> >    sense. This is solely to encourage discussions before the voting
> >    beings in the hope that people are a bit more informed for
> > voting.
> >
> > Benjamin
> >
> > On Fri, 2017-05-26 at 10:42 +0000, Andrea Veri wrote:
> > > Dear Benjamin Berg,
> > >
> > > The election of the GNOME Foundation Board is now open.
> > >
> > > Voting will run from May 26th until June 09th 2017, 23:59 UTC.
> > >
> > > To vote, please go to https://vote.gnome.org/vote.php?id=25
> > > and follow the instructions there.
> > >
> > > A list of candidates and their reasons for running is available
> > > at
> > > https://vote.gnome.org/2017/candidates.html
> > >
> > > When instructed to do so, enter the following details:
> > >
> > >    E-mail: benjamin sipsolutions net
> > >    Vote token: b03a893fd45fe532818f010c
> > >
> > > The election has 4 steps - first, you must identify yourself
> > > using
> > > the
> > > voting token above. Then select your preferred candidates in
> > > order of
> > > preference. A third step will show you your choice, and ask you
> > > to
> > > confirm or return to the previous step. Finally, after confirming
> > > your
> > > choice, a unique identifier will be given to you which will allow
> > > you
> > > to
> > > verify after the election that your vote was counted correctly.
> > > To
> > > ensure
> > > anonymity, no link will be kept between this token and your
> > > identifiers,
> > > so please keep this token safe. Once you have voted, you will not
> > > be
> > > able
> > > to vote again.
> > >
> > > Thank you for your vote!
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >   Andrea Veri
> > >   on behalf of the GNOME Membership and Elections Commitee
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > membership-committee mailing list
> > membership-committee gnome org
> > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/membership-committee