Ideas for improving GNOME board elections

[Allan Day <aday gnome org>]

Hi Membership Committee,

I'm writing to you in my capacity as a Foundation Director. The Foundation Board has recently discussed some ideas for how to improve the board elections, which we would love to hear your feedback on.

Some of the areas we are interested in improving are:

• Increasing engagement and discussion around the elections, in particular with more debate and discussion.
• Ensuring that the elections are accessible, so that everyone is able to cast their votes in an informed manner.
• Ensuring clarity over which candidacies are valid.

We've discussed some ideas for how to improve in these areas, including:

• Having a template that candidates have to fill in, with short questions on subjects like availability, relevant expertise and personal priorities.
• Making all the candidacy statements available in one place, such as a web page (ideally linked from the voting page)
• Have prepared questions that are pitched to the candidates, possibly written by the existing board or outgoing board members
• Having the membership committee advertise the time (and time zone) of the deadline for candidacy announcements, and possibly have them validate the candidacies

We'd love to hear what you think of these ideas, and whether you think that any of them could be implemented, either for the current elections or in the future, and we'd be happy to have a short call to discuss them, if you think that would be helpful.

Best wishes,

Allan