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Re: electing multiple people



> On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 06:08:41PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> > It's probably better than the first solution, as the first solution isn't
> > clone-proof: we could have elected n Sams!! ;)

So the first question is why would that be a bad thing?

(Of course, we don't have n Sams, we only have one, so there'll
be alternative points of view no matter what; but let's go with the
hypothetical)

Having one person do all the work can be a problem if they're not
available or get exhausted, but if those are the only problems we're
trying to solve by having a committee instead of one person, having
"n Sams" does actually solve it, and doesn't come at a cost of creating
friction and indecisiveness within the group, which is the downfall of
lots of committees.

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 04:48:20PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> I've had enough bad experiences with committees and groups in the past
> that I've developed a deep dislike of voting or nomination systems that
> don't take into account the ability of the chosen slate to work with each
> other.  I'd rather end up with a weaker candidate who can cooperate with
> the leading candidate than the two strongest candidates who will then be
> at loggerheads.

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 06:24:38PM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 06:08:41PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> > Or, we could elect a list directly (ie each option is a list of people
> > willing to work together as SC), which would allow to elect a SC which
> > is actually representative for Debian.
> This means parties, and I don't see any proof that this would help with
> being representative?

It doesn't necessarily mean parties in the normal sense. You could, eg,
have two rounds of nominations; first letting people nominate themselves
to be on the committee, then letting the nominees pick their "dream team",
so if your nominees for a three person committee are Alice, Bob, Carol,
Dave, Eve, and Fred, they might pick their teams as:

	Alice, Carol, Eve
	Bob, Carol, Fred
	Carol, Bob, Alice
	Dave, Bob, Carol
	Eve, Alice, Bob
	Fred, Carol, Dave

ie, you can get a genuine mix, rather than just a party-line split
(Alice, Carol, Eve versus Bob, Dave and Fred, eg).

It still doesn't guarantee representation though; you could easily
have 49% of people wanting Fred (or at least Dave or Bob) on board,
with the other 51% voting for the Alice, Carol and Eve ticket. 

But then, maybe we feel comfortable relying on the 51% to notice the
49% strongly want a guy on board, and deciding to vote for the Carol,
Bob and Alice or Eve, Alice and Bob ticket instead as a compromise --
you only need a few people from the 51% to do that to end up with a
49%/49%/2% split, with the result being a compromise.

Cheers,
aj

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