Le vendredi, 9 avril 2021, 19.12:26 h CEST Sam Hartman a écrit :
> On another list, there was discussion of the DPL encouraging the
> secretary to make the vote on the rms GR secret.
For what is worth; let me bring a slightly dissonant voice in that discussion.
While abundantly aware of the concerns around making project member votes
public after this GR, I'd rather let our usual processes finish their course;
I'd rather let the secretary proceed with publishing the tally sheet as usual
after the vote has ended.
I am of course highly concerned by reports of members declining to vote in
fear of retaliation by individuals or organizations external to the project.
By no means do I intend to neglect the gravity of what these external menaces
on our project members' sanity and health are.
But I'm quite concerned by the prospect of making this vote a special case in
our grand scheme of things. Looking at past GRs (specifically, the systemd
ones), some have been quite divisive, and also had important external
pressures, including on individual project members. I don't feel we're in a
_much_ different situation now, for this GR.
I don't think changing our 25+ years worth of GR practice (and GR tradition)
*right in the middle of a vote* will do any good; not internally, and not
externally.
Do I think we should have procedures to decide _before a vote is called_
whether individual votes will be published after the vote? Absolutely; very
clearly. But do I thing we should do this change for that very vote, while
some votes have already been tallied, by "consensus" decision and/or pressure
on the secretary? No. Clearly not.
One other important point I think really matters: I am sad to acknowledge that
I don't think I can trust *all* the project members to keep a privately shared
tally sheet private. We're a _huge_ crowd of voters, and the vote is likely to
be going to draw strong divide lines; I wouldn't be surprised by fleets of
resignations after the (aggregated, public) results are published. (Clearly,
if some of the options win, I would resign myself). Where I'm going at it that
emotions are high currently, and I wouldn't be surprised (but very sad) if a
privately shared tally would be leaked, either publically, or privately to
external, potentially hostile actors. If we do make the votes private for the
larger public, I don't see a viable way to make them private to ourselves
only, while keeping our members sufficiently safe from external harassment.
Finally, dear Kurt, as project secretary; I know I wouldn't enjoy filling this
role in these moments, and I send you all the positive vibes I can to
hopefully make these decisions easier to take for you. You have all my trust.
Best regards,
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