Hi Didier,
Thanks for caring.
On Fri, Feb 09, 2018 at 12:36:07PM +0100, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> Le jeudi, 30 novembre 2017, 14.03:15 h CET Wouter Verhelst a écrit :
> > 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.
>
> The TC has had this feedback from multiple persons. There's clearly room for
> improvement here.
Right.
> > 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.
>
> (Not speaking specifically about you) An aspect to keep in mind is that the TC
> is not _obligated_ to fill two of its seats; according to §6.2.{2,3,4}, the TC
> can freely navigate between 6 and 8 seats. As the TC nomination is a
> coöptation (in that it picks project members it is willing to work together
> with), there's a strong "personal fit" aspect that comes into play, and that
> is both hard to explain, and to justify.
Yes, I understand where you're coming from, and I think it makes sense.
In fact, the above paragraph reminds me of an argument that was brought
up during the DPL election eight years ago, wherein a DD asked DPL
candidates (including myself, at the time) whether they thought the TC
should be allowed to self-appoint new members.
At the time I wrote a lengthy reply[1] that I won't repeat here, but
suffice to say that it shows I mostly agree with the above paragraph,
and that I still stand by most of what I wrote eight years ago.
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2010/03/msg00183.html
> In practice, the TC nomination is kinda like a hiring process. There are hard
> facts, there are hard and soft skills, and there's personal fit. Not all of it
> is justifiable, or explainable, so I'm not in favour of asking the TC to
> publish the ins and outs of its coöptation decisions, be it publicly or even
> just towards the nominees.
[...]
That makes sense, and I fully support that, but a basic level of
feedback should be possible. I notice you've started announcing numbers.
I think that's a great start, but I would like to encourage you to not
stop there. Other options could be:
- If the number of candidates is large enough, give a vague description
to the losing candidates how well they did in the secret election.
Things like "You were one of the frontrunners", "You were somewhere in
the middle of the pack" or "You were closer to the back than most
people", for instance.
- If a general feeling of "this candidate may not have the right
background for the TC" is common among current members, indicate so
towards the candidate (without needing to go into too much detail).
etc. Also note that I think it's perfectly fine to reply to questions
for more detail with a "sorry, but we're not going to do that".
I also think it's perfectly fair to give less feedback if the number of
candidates is rather low (or, at least, to change the type of feedback
that you give in that case).
Anyway, thanks again, and feel free to completely ignore all that
feedback too if you think it makes no sense :-)
--
Could you people please use IRC like normal people?!?
-- Amaya Rodrigo Sastre, trying to quiet down the buzz in the DebConf 2008
Hacklab
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