Re: [DRAFT] Maximum term for tech ctte members
On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 10:34:25AM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 09:51:44AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 11:33:10AM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> > > 2. A member of the Technical Committee is said to be more senior
> > > than another if they were appointed earlier, or were appointed
> > > at the same time and have been a member of the Debian Project
> > > longer. In the event that a member has been appointed more
> > > than once, only the most recent appointment is relevant.
> >
> > I think it makes more sense to have someone who was previously a
> > member of the TC have more seniority, before "age" within the project:
> >
> > A member of the Technical Committee is said to be more senior than
> > another if they were appointed earlier. In the case where two members
> > of the Committee were appointed at the same time, then total time
> > served on the Committee (including previous appointments in the event
> > of a member being appointed more than once) and membership time in the
> > Debian Project as a whole will be considered, in that order.
>
> Considering the likelihood of a situation in which the two alternative
> approach lead to different results, is it worth an increase from 60
> words to 77 (including a parenthetical)?
I'm not so sure this is very unlikely.
First of all, the DAM tends to approve NM applications in batch;
sometimes in a large batch. As a result, most people in the Project are
a member of Debian for the same amount of time, to the day. Due to the
birthday paradox and the higher rate of rotation of people serving on
the TC as a result of this change, a situation where two people are in
Debian for the same amount of time ar both concurrently serving on the
TC is likely to occur at some point.
Second, a proposal to review two TC members at the same time will make
it likely that the replacement members are appointed at the same time,
too. If an odd number of people then resigns from the TC, you will at
some point have the situation where the least senior of the two "most
senior" people shares an appointment date with someone else. If the
originally-resigning people did not serve on the TC for very long prior
to their resignation, this situation may persist for a few years,
increasing the likelihood of the next item on the list of "things
considered to determine seniority" comes into play.
If the goal of this proposal is to increase the amount of fresh ideas in
the TC, then the difference between "A person having been in Debian for
15 years of which 8 as a member of the TC" and "A person having been in
Debian for 15 years of which 4 as a member of the TC" should be in
favour of the latter.
I do agree that the wording is suboptimal and could use some
improvement, though.
--
It is easy to love a country that is famous for chocolate and beer
-- Barack Obama, speaking in Brussels, Belgium, 2014-03-26
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