Re: Ballot for leader2008

[Josip Rodin <joy@entuzijast.net>]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 05:25:40PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> b) move the address to send the ballot to up front, where we mention
>    it. 

Good idea, and it can't hurt to repeat it.

Maybe also warn against group-replies? I personally think that we should
discourage such public voting, but I'm not sure what the policy is.

> c) Added back a second reminder of the upper and lower bounds for
>    choices; every year, someone places an [ X ] next to their
>    candidate. Reminding people that they need to enter a  numeric value
>    within fixed bounds seems to be important.

Okay, good. I just wanted to skip the overly mathematical definition :)

> d) Added back the reminder to read the platforms. Again, experience has
>    taught that lacking these reminders leads to people complaining that
>    no one told them to read the actual proposal, and that they thought
>    voting based on the subject of the GR or CFV was the right thing to
>    do, and were shocked that their interpretation of the subject did not
>    match the actual working of the change.  They even went so far to
>    accuse the secretary of fraud and deceit, which is unacceptable.
> 
>    I have to be the one bearing the brunt of the criticisms about the
>    ballot; so if the reminders reduce some of these complaints, they
>    stay.

That's fair.

Just one more seemingly trivial suggestion: add another line-break in
this place:

> To cast a vote, it is necessary to send this ballot, with the text form
> (which is embedded later in this ballot) filled out, to a dedicated
> e-mail address, in a signed message, as described below. The dedicated
> email address this ballot should be sent to is:
[-here-]
>   leader2009@vote.debian.org
> 
> The form you need to fill out is contained at the bottom of this [...]

That way the address stands out better, so nobody can't miss it.
(Famous last words :)

People tend to start skipping text at the end of a paragraph. And,
not everbody is using a mail reader which emphasizes mail addresses
in plain text.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.