Re: Q to all candidates: the "DPL team"

[Anthony Towns <aj@erisian.com.au>]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 09:46:04AM +0100, Gergely Nagy wrote:
> The DPL already has the power to delegate tasks. I do not see how
> electing more than one person would help with sharing the work: if it
> can be shared, it is already possible to do so.

Hey, that's a good question. How /is/ electing more than one person
different to electing one person and letting them delegate?

Here's some ways:

 - no single point of failure (if the DPL disappears, there aren't
   new delegations)

 - delegates don't have authority of their own, and the DPL can just
   undelegate them; so an elected position is "more impressive" than a
   delegated one, and you can maybe do more impressive things with it?

 - delegates tend to have specific, well-defined powers/responsibilities
   while the DPL position can be used for lots of things (mediation,
   inspiring speeches, handing out money, setting roadmaps, negotiating
   with partner organisations, ..)

 - if one person goes off in a weird direction, it's easy to throw
   them out and choose someone different; if a whole bunch of people do,
   getting rid of all of them can be harder

> Electing more people would also overcomplicate the process.

So if one elected person and delegates is better for the DPL, shouldn't
that apply to the tech ctte too? Just appoint a chair and let them pick
half a dozen folks to help out.

> The only situation I can imagine that may work better than the status
> quo, if people nominated themselves together, as a team. That would be
> interesting to see, how it works.

(That seems more or less a description of party politics, at least in
the Westminister system)

Cheers,
aj