Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-17 Thread Quim Gil
After more thinking...

On 10/16/07, Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Picking 11 from 12 is a farce.

Picking N from N+1 or anything closer to N than to 2N is going to be a
farce or a light decision no matter what election procedure you
design.

I agree with Vincent: the current system already allows to vote 6 or
less candidates, no need to change a tool that we know it works.

I'm not even sure we want to promote people to vote just for 3
candidates instead of a broader number i.e. 6-7. In the way we are
organized it doesn't matter how many votes you got once you are in the
board: every board member counts as one. I don't see where does it
help to have bigger differences in votes received between elected
board members.

About the specific case of not reaching 7 people, the situation is of
total crisis: elected board members should choose people for the
remaining seats either from candidates with 0 votes or GNOME
contributors that didn't even run for election.

So in fact I would recommend otherwise: picking 3 candidates is
generally easy for everybody, but make the effort to find 7 names
from, the candidates because at the end this is the number of people
that will run the Foundation board. In fact the dubious votes pointing
to newcomers or not so popular contributors can make a bigger change
than the sure bets to the well know rock stars that get elected ijn
the first 3 choices.

What needs improvement is the fact of getting at least 14 candidates,
so there is really variety to choose from.

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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Quim Gil
What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes?
On 10/16/07, Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi,

 I have a suggestion for the coming board elections which I think might
 make things more interesting (and, coincidentally, better).

 We've always proceded by giving members N votes, where N is the number
 of seats available. What this results in is a very strong yes vote for
 one, two, maybe three people, and a tepid meh, why not for another few
 candidates. At least, that's my experience.

 I suggest that forcing people to choose more tightly who they're voting
 for would be a good thing. If there are 10 candidates, picking 7 from 10
 is no good. A few years ago, we had 12 candidates for 11 places. Picking
 11 from 12 is a farce.

 Members could be limited to 3 votes, a nice balance between
 first-past-the-post and preferential voting.

 The number of seats stays the same, the election mode stays the same,
 from my reading of things, there is no need for any change to by-laws,
 all that's needed is a decision from the board as to how the election
 will be run.

 Cheers,
 Dave.

 --
 Dave Neary
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Dave Neary

Hi,

Quim Gil wrote:
 What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes?

I don't understand - you mean if there are fewer than 7 candidates?

Constitutional crisis, I suppose... everyone's elected, and they invite
specific people to fill up the board maybe?

That's unrelated to my suggestion, though.

Cheers,
Dave.

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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Alan Cox
On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:53:28 +0200
Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
 Hi,
 
 Quim Gil wrote:
  What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes?
 
 I don't understand - you mean if there are fewer than 7 candidates?
 
 Constitutional crisis, I suppose... everyone's elected, and they invite
 specific people to fill up the board maybe?

What usually happens is someone really unwanted and undesired stands as
part of the seven or less at which point lots of people sudden become
willing to stand 8)

Alan
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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Jonathon Jongsma
On 10/16/07, Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi,

 Quim Gil wrote:
  What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes?

 I don't understand - you mean if there are fewer than 7 candidates?

 Constitutional crisis, I suppose... everyone's elected, and they invite
 specific people to fill up the board maybe?

 That's unrelated to my suggestion, though.

 Cheers,
 Dave.

no, the scenario is: you have 12 candidates, but everybody votes for
the same 3.  then what?

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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Jeff Waugh
quote who=Dave Neary

 Quim Gil wrote:
  What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes?
 
 I don't understand - you mean if there are fewer than 7 candidates?

Quim meant fewer than seven who receive votes at all (implying that there
would be other candidates running who received none). I don't think it's a
huge issue, as those who were elected can choose to appoint more directors
should they wish to.

I think it would be better to go with a widely used and familiar system,
such as those proposed by James Henstridge and Ryan Lortie in previous
years. In fact, I would be happy to appoint a group (including James and
Ryan) to come up with a proposal for the Board.

- Jeff

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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Dave Neary
Hi,

Quim Gil wrote:
 What happens when you get less than 7 people with votes?

Excuse me, I think I misunderstood.

You mean, suppose we have 10 candidates, 150 voters, and the
distribution of votes is:

Candidate 1:  120
Candidate 2:  107
Candidate 3:   64
Candidate 4:   63
Candidate 5:   52
Candidate 6:   44
Candidate 7:0
Candidate 8:0
Candidate 9:0
Candidate 10:   0

Aside from the fact that it's extremely unlikely (everyone at least
votes for themselves, don't they?), would you really want a candidate
who got 0 votes from the membership joining the board?

Cheers,
Dave.

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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Luis Villa
On 10/16/07, Dave Neary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I'm certainly not against moving to STV, but that would need software,
 and considerable retraining for members not familiar with the system.

http://selectricity.org/

open + easy.
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Re: Suggestion for coming elections

2007-10-16 Thread Vincent Untz
Le mardi 16 octobre 2007, à 08:44 -0500, George Kraft a écrit :
 Here is the balloting scheme used by the former Free Standards Group.
 It was simple and I'm not aware of any resulting controversy.
 
  In approval voting, each voter selects as few or as many 
  candidates for whom they wish to vote, or 'approve'.
 
  Mathematically, for votes to have meaning, each ballot 
  should select between 1 and (n-1) candidates to approve, 
  where n is the total number of candidates. Voting for 
  fewer candidates indicates a stronger preference for 
  those you selected, with little disapproval of those 
  not selected. Voting for more candidates indicates a 
  lesser preference for each of those approved, while 
  allowing you to vote for more candidates. Ballots with 
  none or all of the candidates selected may have symbolic 
  meaning, but will not affect the outcome of the election.
 
 http://www.linux-foundation.org/docs/FSG_Election_Policy.pdf

Actually, with the current system, members can vote for N candidates
where 0 = N = 7.

Dave, maybe it's just a matter of communicating more about the fact that
we don't have to vote for 7 people, but for up to 7 people?

Vincent

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