Re: Picking a new member - process [and 1 more messages]
Bdale Garbee writes ("Re: Picking a new member - process"):
> Why do you equate this to not working?
>
> The candidate I intend to rank first is on the ballot, so I really don't
> care if other candidates are on the ballot or not. The process seems to
> be working fine?
I agree. I think it's working fine.
> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
> > At the least, I think we should have a larger slate than we do right now
>
> I'll accept that assertion at face value, but personally, I'm completely
> happy to proceed with a short candidate list on the public ballot.
I agree.
But, having said that, if there are candidates that Russ thinks ought
to be on the ballot then all that has to happen is for him to propose
them. But personally I think it would be better not to vote on
candidates that (based on the private discussion) we don't think
stand a serious chance of winning.
Russ Allbery writes ("Re: Picking a new member - process"):
> Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com> writes:
> > The candidate I intend to rank first is on the ballot, so I really don't
> > care if other candidates are on the ballot or not. The process seems to
> > be working fine?
>
> Well, Ian's point was that we should have a public vote, and Steve pointed
> out that Condorcet often chooses compromise candiates and benefits from a
> larger pool from that purpose.
What I said was that the Constitution requires us to have a public
vote. Publicly rubber-stamping the single candidate from an informal
private vote wouldn't be right.
> Well, similarly, my top choice is on the ballot, so I guess you could also
> see this as a reflection of a private consensus process. Maybe I should
> say instead that it seems surprising?
I think that the consensus is indeed that we should have one of the
two people currently on the ballot. There is disagreement or
uncertainty about which.
> If we actually do have a consensus, then that's great. I just want to
> make sure that's how we're constructing the ballot, since there was some
> discussion saying that we should nominate everyone we would vote above
> further discussion. If *that's* the process we should be using, I should
> nominate a bunch more people.
There is no agreement about what the criteria are for being on the
ballot. The Constitution sets the process, and it is clear from it
that TC members are free to nominate anyone they feel like.
My personal view is that I would definitely want to vote on my own
first choice.
If I felt there was a significant chance of the vote going to someone
I felt unsuitable I would want to nominate all the suitable candidates
with a chance of winning. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
I would normally rather avoid voting on a candidate that any TC member
had said they would rank below FD (assuming that the TC member who
said this had what appeared to me to be cogent reasons). Certainly, I
would not nominate such a candidate unless I felt they had a good
chance of winning. The reason being that it is not worth forcing
other TC members to decide between snubbing the candidate and
misrepresenting their views, unless we really have to to get the right
answer.
Or to put it another way: I am content to vote on a short slate if the
results of that are going to be the same as a hypothetical (honest)
vote on all the candidates. In this situation, voting on a short
slate avoids the need for TC members to disclose opinions which are
socially troublesome and not relevant to the actual decision.
OTOH if you think that someone not on the ballot stands a significant
chance of winning, I won't think ill of you nominating them.
Ian.
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