Re: Secret Ballots: Handling Disagreement with the Secretary
I plan to release a complete proposal for secret ballots including the
proposed 4.1.8 within the next couple of days.
Is
https://salsa.debian.org/rra/webwml/-/commit/3f0f679ae97095915eea4b7299f16d74874c80da
my best starting point for a diff?
>>>>> "Don" == Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> writes:
Don> On Fri, 04 Feb 2022, Sam Hartman wrote:
>> I see two ways of reading section 4.1.7:
>>
>> 1) If the DPL and secretary disagree on any issue then the
>> project can replace the secretary.
>>
>> 2) If the DPL and secretary disagree on the only issue where the
>> two of them both get to have an opinion (namely who is the next
>> secretary), the project decides.
>>
>> So it's not clear to me that section 4.1.7 allows the secretary
>> to be replaced out of cycle. If we had a big conflict with the
>> secretary, I'd obviously argue for interpretation 1, but that
>> aspect of the constitution is not so clear to me.
Don> I think the plainest reading is #1, but I can see the argument
Don> that #2 was the intention.
Unless I hear objections I will propose text clarifying this to be
unambiguously #1.
>> I don't understand what you mean here. Are you worried that the
>> project might replace the secretary with a 1:1 majority to get
>> around a determination that some ballot option required a 3:1
>> majority?
Don> Yes. I think the additional complexity of requiring a 3:1
Don> majority to overrule the secretary isn't enough to always have
Don> the desired effect if §4.1.7 isn't also modified accordingly.
Don> That said, if a majority uses the blunt force of §4.1.7 to try
Don> to get its way by removing people, I'd be more concerned about
Don> the health of the project than whether we had written rules to
Don> prevent it.
For this reason, I don't currently plan to propose to modify 4.1.7.
The project is fairly good about interpreting the reasons behind
proposals.
I actually think in practice it would be harder to remove a secretary
for doing their job and making a controversial call about what super
majority was required than it would be to get a 3:1 majority behind
anything.
On the other hand, I can see cases where the project would try to take
advantage of an override that was lower than the super majority.
I'm not even imagining situations where people are trying to abuse the
process--just a case where they disagree with the secretary, and where
if we don't have language in the constitution, the override vote could
be easier than winning the super majority itself.
That said, I'd certainly be happy to revise things if we get a consensus
here.
I think most of what we're discussing would be things I'd rank well
above NOTA.
Reply to: