Fedora Board election results

On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 09:26 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 9:12 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why do you want to know about the percentage of Red Hat voters vs.
> > community?
> >
> > Or, put another way, what difference does that distinction make? Should
> > we get the same data for Dell and IBM (as they have separate CLAs like
> > Red Hat)?
> >
> > IMHO, a voter's employer just doesn't matter.
>
> You have stated an ideal, but its not the current reality. It
> shouldn't matter... but it does...deep down in people's brains the
> distinction matters.

And I'd argue that you are only going to deepen that by continuing to
distinguish Red Hat vs. non-Red Hat.

> The fact is Mike's initial comment very much
> grounded in the distinction between inside Red Hat and outside.

His comment was directed at the fact that the newly appointed Board is
mostly Red Hat. Nothing to do with who individual voter's employers
are.

> In fact we've made quite a big deal that we have more external
> contributors then red hat contributors. We continue to draw a
> distinction between these groups in our efforts to point out there's
> no distinction.

If you want to continue to highlight that distinction to point out there
is no distinction, then have all the Red Hat contributors use a
@fedoraproject.org email alias for everything. The ridiculousness of
the situation wouldn't change either way.

> With that in mind I want a picture of the breakdown
> between redhat and non-redhat voters so I can know if we have done an
> appropriate job communicating the importance of the board elections
> out into the external community.

Just assume we haven't done an appropriate job. With a 6% voter
turnout, we have failed regardless.

> If there is a significant voting imbalance, we find it, then we take steps
> to make that identified imbalance go away next time by getting feedback
> from that segment of the community sooner rather than later.

Continuing to distinguish the two groups isn't helping anything.
Everyone that contributes to Fedora is a community member, regardless of
employer. Focus on everyone and you lose nothing. The reason your
request for geography based demographics makes sense is that we actually
have mechanisms in place to _help_ there, primarily through the
Ambassador project.

If you get your employer percentages, now what? You certainly aren't
going to tell Red Hat "oh, there was an imbalance so you need to vote
less/more." However, you _can_ tell the community as a _whole_ "Hey!
The Board vote is super important because ..." That message is the one
we need to get across to every contributor.

The goal is 100% voter turnout from our eligible contributors. We don't
care where they work.

josh

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 12:04 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> >> > IMHO, a voter's employer just doesn't matter.
> >> >
> >>
> >> It does if people outside of RH feel they are not going to be
> >> recognized or represented and thus give up on the system.
> >
> > Voting is one of the ways to have them feel recognized and represented.
> > If they didn't bother to vote, they gave up that mechanism for
> > representation voluntarily.
>
>
> That argument is logically valid but humans are not logical. If people
> feel that voting is not going to make a difference they will have no
> incentive to continue with the process.

Which is why you ask the community, at large, "Why didn't you vote?"

Again, targeting employer specific groups is _pointless_. We only have
real data for 3 employers, that data isn't even fully accurate, and you
can't hardly target an employer demographic of "unknown" any better than
you can the community as a whole.

> Or go for mandatory voting with a 'Non-of-the-above' category if
> people aren't happy with any of the candidates.

We could do that if we had a timeout on ballots. But it really wouldn't
do anything to help. We can't wait until everyone manually votes or the
vote would never end.

josh

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On Tue, 24 Jun 2008, Josh Boyer wrote:

With that in mind I want a picture of the breakdown between redhat and
non-redhat voters so I can know if we have done an appropriate job
communicating the importance of the board elections out into the
external community.


Just assume we haven't done an appropriate job. With a 6% voter
turnout, we have failed regardless.


Really? Why?

Why is a 6% turnout necessarily a failure?

IMHO, a properly functioning governance body *should* be so effective that
no one cares much either way when it comes time to replace the membership.
From my perspective, low turnout means low dissatisfaction. All other
indicators seem to point to continued success for Fedora and its
contributors.


If there were endemic problems to the Fedora project that people wanted to
fix, well, then, there's a mechanism for the disaffected to create change.
If no one feels compelled to use that mechanism, is it necessarily a bad
thing?


I myself almost didn't vote. Why? Because I liked the entire slate of
candidates. In the end, I did vote, and I voted entirely for non-RH
candidates on principle... but I firmly believe that everyone elected will
do a great job, and I firmly believe that everyone not elected would also
have done a great job.


--g

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On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you get your employer percentages, now what? You certainly aren't
> going to tell Red Hat "oh, there was an imbalance so you need to vote
> less/more." However, you _can_ tell the community as a _whole_ "Hey!
> The Board vote is super important because ..." That message is the one
> we need to get across to every contributor.
>
> The goal is 100% voter turnout from our eligible contributors. We don't
> care where they work.


I concede your point.

-jef

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 14:21 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jun 2008, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
> >> With that in mind I want a picture of the breakdown between redhat and
> >> non-redhat voters so I can know if we have done an appropriate job
> >> communicating the importance of the board elections out into the
> >> external community.
> >
> > Just assume we haven't done an appropriate job. With a 6% voter
> > turnout, we have failed regardless.
>
> Really? Why?
>
> Why is a 6% turnout necessarily a failure?

A bit of hyperbole on my part to illustrate a point.

> IMHO, a properly functioning governance body *should* be so effective that
> no one cares much either way when it comes time to replace the membership.
> >From my perspective, low turnout means low dissatisfaction. All other
> indicators seem to point to continued success for Fedora and its
> contributors.

Low turnout can either mean low dissatisfaction, or high apathy.

> If there were endemic problems to the Fedora project that people wanted to
> fix, well, then, there's a mechanism for the disaffected to create change.
> If no one feels compelled to use that mechanism, is it necessarily a bad
> thing?

Is it an end-of-the-world-we-suck thing? No, probably not. But I do
feel it's important to get as much of the voting body to vote as
possible.

> I myself almost didn't vote. Why? Because I liked the entire slate of
> candidates. In the end, I did vote, and I voted entirely for non-RH
> candidates on principle... but I firmly believe that everyone elected will
> do a great job, and I firmly believe that everyone not elected would also
> have done a great job.

As do I. But that might not always be the case.

josh

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On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk@redhat.com> wrote:
> I myself almost didn't vote.
boo

> Why? Because I liked the entire slate of
> candidates. In the end, I did vote, and I voted entirely for non-RH
> candidates on principle... but I firmly believe that everyone elected will
> do a great job, and I firmly believe that everyone not elected would also
> have done a great job.

we need a "everyone's great" button.

-jef

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 14:21 -0400, Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote:

> I myself almost didn't vote. Why? Because I liked the entire slate of
> candidates. In the end, I did vote, and I voted entirely for non-RH
> candidates on principle... but I firmly believe that everyone elected will
> do a great job, and I firmly believe that everyone not elected would also
> have done a great job.

I agree here completely, I had essentially the same mental experience.
I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing? When you have a divided
community (*cough*USA*cough*), it is easier to get fired up to vote for
or against candidates. When many are satisfied ... well, does that mean
the election is the result of only the dissatisfied getting fired up?

I also think we should compare the % of votes to the # of people in
pre-FAS2, especially pre-F9 release with the big join.fp.o campaign.

We have somewhat failed in that campaign, in that we brought in a huge
number of people who haven't a clue who to vote for, and most likely
haven't even been exposed to the election.

- Karsten
--
Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41
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On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> Which is why you ask the community, at large, "Why didn't you vote?"

Here are two reasons.

I find the whole self-nomination process distasteful. While I
understand this is normal in some cultures it is very alien to other
cultures. It seems obvious to me that there are competent and willing
members who will not self-nominate and I don't understand why Fedora
insists they be excluded from the process. I would prefer there be a
way for community members to nominate quality people they know and
those nominated in this way could accept or decline such a nomination.
Others could nominate themselves if they wish to.

Range voting is another aspect of the process I find discouraging in
general. Suppose I know 3 of 10 candidates personally (at least I've
had direct interactions with a small subset of the candidates). The
other 7 candidates I perhaps know some by reputation and don't know
some at all. By what rational process am I supposed to assign votes to
the entire slate of candidates? Honestly I feel like what my vote ends
up being is fairly random data and is as likely to distort the
process to the detriment of some candidate I don't know and don't want
to penalize as it is to elect the candidates I might prefer.

So my choice to not vote was not made out of contentment with current
leadership, not made out of apathy, not made out of being happy with
the entire slate of candidates, but rather it was not made out of
frustration with the voting process.

John

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On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 14:17 -0500, inode0 wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Which is why you ask the community, at large, "Why didn't you vote?"
>
> Here are two reasons.
>
> I find the whole self-nomination process distasteful. While I
> understand this is normal in some cultures it is very alien to other
> cultures. It seems obvious to me that there are competent and willing
> members who will not self-nominate and I don't understand why Fedora
> insists they be excluded from the process. I would prefer there be a
> way for community members to nominate quality people they know and
> those nominated in this way could accept or decline such a nomination.
> Others could nominate themselves if they wish to.
>
> Range voting is another aspect of the process I find discouraging in
> general. Suppose I know 3 of 10 candidates personally (at least I've
> had direct interactions with a small subset of the candidates). The
> other 7 candidates I perhaps know some by reputation and don't know
> some at all. By what rational process am I supposed to assign votes to
> the entire slate of candidates? Honestly I feel like what my vote ends
> up being is fairly random data and is as likely to distort the
> process to the detriment of some candidate I don't know and don't want
> to penalize as it is to elect the candidates I might prefer.
>
> So my choice to not vote was not made out of contentment with current
> leadership, not made out of apathy, not made out of being happy with
> the entire slate of candidates, but rather it was not made out of
> frustration with the voting process.

This is an excellent explanation. Hopefully we can take some of these
into account, and more like yourself will come forward.

josh

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On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:15:53 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:

> On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 12:04 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > >> > IMHO, a voter's employer just doesn't matter.
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> It does if people outside of RH feel they are not going to be
> > >> recognized or represented and thus give up on the system.
> > >
> > > Voting is one of the ways to have them feel recognized and represented.
> > > If they didn't bother to vote, they gave up that mechanism for
> > > representation voluntarily.
> >
> >
> > That argument is logically valid but humans are not logical. If people
> > feel that voting is not going to make a difference they will have no
> > incentive to continue with the process.
>
> Which is why you ask the community, at large, "Why didn't you vote?"

I almost decided not to vote this time, because in the list of eight
nominees I didn't see any real community representatives. I was and I
still am under the impression that for at least half of the nominees the
election would become a popularity contest (as in "I know him from various
places" not limited to IRC, blogs, social networking sites) -- in other
words a fun event, a virtual pad on the back with only a minority of the
CLA signers participating in the election, anyway. The Fedora Project has
grown out of proportions. Almost all essential communication channels are
flooded, including the Wiki, which still feels like a maze, or the planet,
where people post English headlines with non-English message bodies. It's
hard to impossible to stay informed about the various sub projects and
special interest groups. Vital communication is moved to IRC. I spent
quite some time on the following Wiki page,
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Elections/Nominations
reading the "Goals" and "Future Plans" again and again, many of which are
either weak or unconvincing. Especially if you cannot map a person's name
to political activity on relevant mailing-lists. It's like "okay, I've
seen that name before, but I don't remember any valuable political
contributions that sounded promising and would justify voting for that
person [again]". Is the person competent? How do I know if I've not seen
any activity before? Further, Red Hat fills several board seats
anyway. Fedora is Red Hat's baby. Red Hat still has to prove how serious
they take the Fedora community. I thought about the previous board
members. Did they perform well? Where are the testing instruments to
decide whether a particular member performed well? As a voter, what can I
do to vote _against_ somebody? Other than to give zero points and, from
the few nominees, vote for somebody else who will then disappoint me?

In the end I voted, but used only a small fraction of my voting points.
A bit like participation and boycott at the same time.

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