Re: [Debconf-team] DC12 Travel Bursaries ("Herb Team"): Ping? Discussion?
Hi
Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> writes:
> Hi Moray,
>
> Le mardi, 14 mai 2013 12.24:49, Moray Allan a écrit :
>> The main reason to disallow people who ask for sponsorship from being
>> part of the team is to ensure the appearance of correctness/probity.
>>
>> As has been pointed out, each year we have easily enough (sufficiently
>> knowledgeable) people who are not asking for travel sponsorship, so
>> there is no reason to make the process look murkier by including people
>> who ask for it on the team.
>
> I think _actual_ correctness matters more than the appearance of it. As
> already mentionned, ways to ensure that include having more people on the
> team, request that the team publishes its guidelines and processes, status
> updates, etc. Taking people off the team is not convincingly improving
> anything in that regard to me.
I agree that actual correctness matters most. But exactly because of
this I think we should not allow raters that themself request *travel*
sponsorship. Not only because of the reasons moray already mentioned,
but more also because it influences the ratings for team members of the
other team members. I was part of the rating team last year and it
certainly influenced my ratings that some requestors were also on the
team. This is inherently a social issue and I don't think that we can
solve this problem with procedures or by technical means. And IMO it's
not only about the appearance of correctness but also about actual
correctness.
>
>> Hypothetically, asking for travel sponsorship yourself might influence
>> ratings of others in a much more complex way, not only change what
>> rating you would give to yourself (rating yourself was already
>> disallowed anyway), might influence your ratings in an unconscious way
>> rather than because you intend to play the system, and also might
>> influence what ratings other people on the team give you, in case you
>> look at their ratings/comments.
>
> If you see it from the other side: not asking for travel sponsorship also
> introduces bias: if the rater doesn't need to ask for monetary support to be
> able to attend, she could also maybe dismiss requests by being less able to
> put herself in the shoes of the requester.
>
> So I (currently) stand to my opinion that having people in the team from all
> over the monetary-needs spectra brings more to the herb@ team than is taken
> away from it in terms of probity.
I agree that there might be a bit of a bias in the team if we exclude
all requestors, but IMHO this is far less a problem than the problems
outlined above.
Gaudenz
--
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
~ Samuel Beckett ~
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