Re: DPL Debates [Re: Debian Project Leader Election 2009]
On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 02:10:38AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2009, Debian Project Secretary wrote:
> > | Period | Start | End |
> > |------------+--------------------------+----------------------------|
> > | Nomination | Sunday, March 1st, 2009 | Saterday, March 7th, 2009 |
> > | Campaign | Sunday, March 8th, 2009 | Saterday, March 28th, 2009 |
> > | Vote | Sunday, March 29th, 2009 | Saterday, April 11th, 2009 |
> > I suggest that potential DPL candidates start getting their platform
> > ready. I would like to receive them before the campaign period
> > start.
> As I've apparently volunteered to moderate the debate again,[0] it
> falls to me to remind prospective candidates to calculate their
> schedule for the week of the 21st->28th, and soon after they self
> nominate forward the times during that week which they can absolutely
> not debate as well as times that they'd rather not debate to me. [This
> will help me to avoid having to schedule the debate smack in the
> middle of some erstwhile candidate's coffin time.[0.577]]
> Those who have suggestions for alterations to the format can also make
> those known in a reply to this message (refer to last year's debate
> format[1] if you've forgotten what we did last year, suffer from
> amnesia or are incapable of forming long term memories or faking them
> by the creative use of google and blogs).
> People who'd like to help run the debate and/or collect questions can
> also volunteer with a message to -vote.
I'd like to raise the question of whether these IRC debates are really
something we should have. I know Don and the panelists put a lot of time
and effort into making the debates happen, which is part of why I ask the
question: is it really worth all this effort? What do we get out of a
three-hour real-time IRC debate that we don't already get from the
candidates' platforms and three weeks of discussion on debian-vote?
All I see that we get is a measure of how comfortable the candidate is with
(English-language) IRC as a medium, which is just not that interesting to me
as a factor in deciding who I'm going to vote for as DPL. Is it to other
people, or are others getting something else out of this that I'm
overlooking?
For the last two election cycles, I've ignored the IRC debate completely,
and I don't feel that I missed anything. Am I mistaken?
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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