Re: TC nomination procedure v0

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 10:48:25AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Nov 2017, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 09:40:45AM +0100, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> > > Question:
> > > 
> > >   - Does this private vote respect letter and/or intent of §6.3.4 "votes on
> > > appointments must be public"?
> > 
> > No. However, I think it is wrong for anyone to insist on that, and I
> > think the constitution should be updated to match the current (proper)
> > procedure.
> 
> I think it respects both the letter and intent.
> 
> My rationale is that the private "vote" isn't a vote on the appointment,
> it's a vote to figure out whether the future appointment vote will have
> consensus or not.

It's a vote that will have effect on the appointment of a person to the
TC. The constitution specifically wants appointment votes to be public.
Without wanting to comment on the letter, I think this is contrary to
the intent.

To be clear, I also think the consitution is wrong to require that such
votes are public. I think the TC should not have to make appointments in
public, for the very same reason that we also have secret ballots on DPL
votes. However, I think the correct course of action here is not to
ignore the constitution and explain that by some clever choice of words,
but rather to amend the constitution to make it be in line with that
rationale.

> If people feel strongly that the vote should be public,

Clearly, I don't feel that way.

Having said that though, I'm also not convinced that the current
completely private system is working very well.

Speaking as someone who's been a candidate for a number of past
appointments now, the process feels too much like a black box to me. You
submit your candidacy, you answer some questions, and then several
weeks or months later you learn that you haven't been chosen; and that's
it. I know from private conversations with certain TC members that the
reason for my non-selection was something along the lines of "there were
other people which seemed like stronger candidates", but none of that
was very clear, nor was it officially communicated.

I think a simple email to candidates after the appointment has been made
with some basic facts would be rather helpful. It could be something
along the lines of:

---
Thank you for your candidacy. However, you were not chosen this time
around.

There were about [5|10|15|20|30] candidates[1]. You were [eliminated
early on in the process|eliminated about halfway through the process|one
of the final contenders].

Apart from your own self-nomination, the TC received nominations from N
other people who thought you would make a good candidate, too.

In the end, person X was chosen mostly because [basic rationale].
---

This (intentionally) doesn't give too much detail, but it does allow
someone to evaluate whether their candidacy was a good idea, and whether
he/she should try again next time. I think doing so is necessary, indeed
even critical, if you want people to keep sending in their candidacy;
currently you don't get *any* feedback as a candidate, and that's not
very helpful, indeed even somewhat demotivating.

Additionally, similar feedback could be sent to people who sent in an
email to nominate others.

> one compromise is to allow nominees to the CTTE to choose to make
> their names public and force a public vote, with the default being the
> current private consensus process.

That could work too, but I'm personally not convinced that such a thing
is necessary, nor that it would be very beneficial to the process.

Thanks,

-- 
Could you people please use IRC like normal people?!?

  -- Amaya Rodrigo Sastre, trying to quiet down the buzz in the DebConf 2008
     Hacklab