Re: Amendment to: reduce the length of DPL election process
On Wed, 08 Aug 2007, MJ Ray wrote:
> The organisers and most time slot limitations could be identified
> before nominations close and the possibilities announced. The
> organisers were already being identified before nominations closed
> this year, after all:-
The problem is really that figuring out a slot which will work for all
individuals concerned is non-trivial, and depends on finding out the
exact set of people involved.
> Organisers sought 15 Feb 2007 http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2007/02/msg00150.html
> Nominations closed 25 Feb 2007 http://www.debian.org/vote/2007/vote_001
>
> Asking before nominations open probably would get a more neutral
> panel than now. Candidates could be asked times as soon as they are
> nominated, with a preference for an early debate.
It's not been my practice to discriminate in accepting people for the
panel; so it should be as neutral as possible. [Whoever is the
moderator is always going to be biased, but I don't think there's any
way to get around that.]
> The time this year was decided about 5 days after nominations
> closed:-
>
> Announced 2 Mar 2007 http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2007/03/msg00023.html
Right; I imposed a time limitation on the responses from the
candidates to the debate schedule, and a rapid last call to the
scheduled time. I don't think that time can be cut down very much
unless the organizers were to send the "fast moving black objects"[1]
after the candidates.
> While we're shortening the election, maybe the debate could be cut
> down from three hours, if it would make it simpler to organise. That
> would also reduce the amount of material generated for voters to
> read.
The actual time that the debate takes isn't particularly troublesome
from an organizational standpoint, and if it becomes the case that we
can't fit a 3 hour (or whatever length the organizers decide on)
debate into the schedule of candiates, it can be abridged
appropriately.
The main issue from where I sit is allowing enough time for nominees
to post position statements and to have enough time for those position
statements digested by the electorate, and enough initial discussion
to occur so that interesting questions can be found for the debate. If
candidates don't have these ready at the beginning of the campaign
period, then the quality of the debate (and discussion) suffers.
Don Armstrong
1: TINCAITIIDNOH
--
Information wants to be free to kill again.
-- Red Robot http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=1372
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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