21 Nov
2024
21 Nov
'24
11 a.m.
Entirely true story: This year, I fumble-fingered my votes on Board, and
realised I was just as happy with the outcome as if I had not. Great
candidates, and if the final board doesn't include me, I'll be happy that
the Board is made up of some really good people who'll do a lot for the
XSF. I mean, vote for me, of course, but actually if you vote for other
people we'll have a great Board anyway, so really just vote if you haven't
already.
Council also has great candidates, and I'm particularly happy that not only
have most of the existing (very good) Council continued, but the "new" slot
will be filled by Jerôme, who should have run for Council years ago. But
it's a massive disappointment to see that we, as members, don't have a
choice - this has been the case for a couple of years. It's nice that the
choice we don't have is a great choice, of course. But it'd be better if we
had multiple great choices.
So, two questions:
- If you're a "technical" XSF member - written XEPs, write code, review
stuff, active in the technical discussions - what stops you from running
for Council?
- How can we encourage and enable people to run for Council?
My answer to the first is actually simple enough - I've been out of the
loop for a couple of years, and now I'm laser-focused on the server-side
(and Metre barely counts as a server). Plus, been there and done that. And
finally, I worried about the commitment level - Council needs timely,
detailed, responses to things.
My answer to the second mostly depends on everyone else's answers to the
first, though...
Anyway, it'd be good if in a year's time, there's 7 or 8 people
volunteering for Council, like Board (bewilderingly) is now.
Dave.
21 Nov
21 Nov
11:15 a.m.
Hi Dave,
I had considered running for Board, but wasn't sure if I could live up to
the time commitment. I was debating with myself if run, right up until the
application deadline passed.
For Council, my choice was easier. Doing council work seems to be
challenging work. I applaud those who do it. For me, it's not so much the
time commitment, but the mental CPU cycle requirement (to read up and
understand proposed protocols/changes). I find that a difficult thing to
do. In my caffeine-deprived head, these cycles are in limited supply. I,
somewhat selfishness, like to reserve that for the other projects that I'm
working on.
It might not be the _best_ excuse for not running, but that's mine.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 11:00 AM Dave Cridland <dave(a)cridland.net> wrote:
Entirely true story: This year, I fumble-fingered my
votes on Board, and
realised I was just as happy with the outcome as if I had not. Great
candidates, and if the final board doesn't include me, I'll be happy that
the Board is made up of some really good people who'll do a lot for the
XSF. I mean, vote for me, of course, but actually if you vote for other
people we'll have a great Board anyway, so really just vote if you haven't
already.
Council also has great candidates, and I'm particularly happy that not
only have most of the existing (very good) Council continued, but the "new"
slot will be filled by Jerôme, who should have run for Council years ago.
But it's a massive disappointment to see that we, as members, don't have a
choice - this has been the case for a couple of years. It's nice that the
choice we don't have is a great choice, of course. But it'd be better if we
had multiple great choices.
So, two questions:
- If you're a "technical" XSF member - written XEPs, write code, review
stuff, active in the technical discussions - what stops you from running
for Council?
- How can we encourage and enable people to run for Council?
My answer to the first is actually simple enough - I've been out of the
loop for a couple of years, and now I'm laser-focused on the server-side
(and Metre barely counts as a server). Plus, been there and done that. And
finally, I worried about the commitment level - Council needs timely,
detailed, responses to things.
My answer to the second mostly depends on everyone else's answers to the
first, though...
Anyway, it'd be good if in a year's time, there's 7 or 8 people
volunteering for Council, like Board (bewilderingly) is now.
Dave.
11:42 a.m.
Hi Dave,
Thank you for your words. I'm a bit disappointed too that we only have 5
candidates for council, making it a choice "by default" (and I wonder what
would happen if we had less than 5 candidates, or if someone resigns for some
reason).
I believe there are two main factors contributing to the lack of applicants:
- The commitment: in my personal case, I haven't applied before because I was
afraid I wouldn't have the time. This year, I'm still extremely busy, but the
major difference is that I now have time dedicated to XMPP (in large part
thanks to NLnet/NGI grants, and because I've founded my company), so it's not
"just" a side project anymore.
- We don't see many new people in the community, and while I still see a lot
of enthusiasm regarding XMPP (notably on Mastodon), most of the names I see on
standard@ list of xsf@ MUC are long-time members.
That said, we have good surprises coming from time to time.
In the last few years, I've been really pleased to see new actively developed
projects such as Slidge (https://slidge.im), or people experimenting notably
with XMPP, as we currently see with the work of Schimon
(https://git.xmpp-it.net/sch/Rivista) or things like https://ayllu-forge.org/. Cheogram is
also
doing interesting things, notably with WebXDC. These kinds of projects can
bring new people, who with time may be willing to participate in board or
council.
Best,
Goffi
Le jeudi 21 novembre 2024, 11:15:37 heure normale d’Europe centrale Guus der
Kinderen a écrit :
Hi Dave,
I had considered running for Board, but wasn't sure if I could live up to
the time commitment. I was debating with myself if run, right up until the
application deadline passed.
For Council, my choice was easier. Doing council work seems to be
challenging work. I applaud those who do it. For me, it's not so much the
time commitment, but the mental CPU cycle requirement (to read up and
understand proposed protocols/changes). I find that a difficult thing to
do. In my caffeine-deprived head, these cycles are in limited supply. I,
somewhat selfishness, like to reserve that for the other projects that I'm
working on.
It might not be the _best_ excuse for not running, but that's mine.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 11:00 AM Dave Cridland <dave(a)cridland.net> wrote:
> Entirely true story: This year, I fumble-fingered my votes on Board, and
> realised I was just as happy with the outcome as if I had not. Great
> candidates, and if the final board doesn't include me, I'll be happy that
> the Board is made up of some really good people who'll do a lot for the
> XSF. I mean, vote for me, of course, but actually if you vote for other
> people we'll have a great Board anyway, so really just vote if you haven't
> already.
>
> Council also has great candidates, and I'm particularly happy that not
> only have most of the existing (very good) Council continued, but the
"new"
> slot will be filled by Jerôme, who should have
run for Council years ago.
> But it's a massive disappointment to see that we, as members, don't have a
> choice - this has been the case for a couple of years. It's nice that the
> choice we don't have is a great choice, of course. But it'd be better if
we
> had multiple great choices.
>
> So, two questions:
>
> - If you're a "technical" XSF member - written XEPs, write code,
review
> stuff, active in the technical discussions - what stops you from running
> for Council?
> - How can we encourage and enable people to run for Council?
>
> My answer to the first is actually simple enough - I've been out of the
> loop for a couple of years, and now I'm laser-focused on the server-side
> (and Metre barely counts as a server). Plus, been there and done that. And
> finally, I worried about the commitment level - Council needs timely,
> detailed, responses to things.
>
> My answer to the second mostly depends on everyone else's answers to the
> first, though...
>
> Anyway, it'd be good if in a year's time, there's 7 or 8 people
> volunteering for Council, like Board (bewilderingly) is now.
>
> Dave.
>
noon
On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 at 10:15, Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Dave,
I had considered running for Board, but wasn't sure if I could live up to
the time commitment. I was debating with myself if run, right up until the
application deadline passed.
For Council, my choice was easier. Doing council work seems to be
challenging work. I applaud those who do it. For me, it's not so much the
time commitment, but the mental CPU cycle requirement (to read up and
understand proposed protocols/changes). I find that a difficult thing to
do. In my caffeine-deprived head, these cycles are in limited supply. I,
somewhat selfishness, like to reserve that for the other projects that I'm
working on.
It might not be the _best_ excuse for not running, but that's mine.
I totally get that. Also, I think it was somewhat easier to do Council when
one could skim the mailing list for comments and discussion.
The Standards list is (I think) a lot quieter than it was. Back in my early
Council days, I could rely fairly heavily on the community to raise any
objections, and therefore concentrate on deciding which objections seemed
both important and unanswered - and of course also inject my own review of
those aspects that were important (only!) to me. Now, it feels more like
the Council have to rely on their own review considerably more, and the
community comments seem (again, to me) to be scattered amongst
chatrooms rather than conveniently in a handful of mailing list threads.
So yes, Council is hard, and I think harder than it used to be as well, and
I think that's a perfectly understandable excuse for not running.
Dave.
5:15 p.m.
Hi everyone, thanks Dave for asking the questions.
Le jeudi 21 novembre 2024 à 11:00 +0000, Dave Cridland a écrit :
So yes, Council is hard, and I think harder than it
used to be as well, and
I think that's a perfectly understandable excuse for not running.
My personal choice to run only for Board is in part because I feel this Council
is hard work, but it's more that I don't feel legitimate for now. I feel like I
still have many things to learn on the current standards before being able to
really help. Perhaps I'll run next year or the year after, or later. For now I
feel I can help more by being a Board member, and this is why I proposed my
application.
I don't know what could be done to encourage more people to apply, and I don't
think the Council would currently be unwelcoming either. In my case that's a
personal feeling that is not due to how Council or election are organized.
Have a nice end of day,
Happy hacking!
--
Adrien Bourmault
Trésorier et responsable Cominfra, Libre en Communs
Maintainer, GNU Boot project
Elected member, XMPP Standards Foundation
GPG : E23C26A5DEEEC5FA9CDDD57A57BC26A3687116F6
5:16 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 12:00 PM Dave Cridland <dave(a)cridland.net> wrote:
The Standards list is (I think) a lot quieter than it
was.
I believe that is the same problem. Council recruits from people who
write, implement and comment on XEPs (and actively participate on the
standards lists). And if this group of people becomes smaller there
are naturally fewer candidates for council.
If we can increase active participation on the list (or in the XSF for
that matter) I think we will automatically solve the council issues
too.
cheers
Daniel
23 Nov
23 Nov
5:34 p.m.
- If you're a "technical" XSF member -
written XEPs, write code, review
stuff, active in the technical discussions - what stops you from
running for Council?
I am writing Jabber/XMPP code for a very long time, and I am
very
familiar with the protocols. But I have a huge respect for the council,
it is very hard work. I always thought there are other people which are
much better suited for this role.
Also, I was extremely busy in the last years with running business. This
changed a bit, and I am considering running for other roles in the
future again and help the XSF where I can.
I also wanted to bring up a potential problem again in regards to our
voting procedure for board and council.
Here is a quote of the relevant section Section 3.13 in our bylaws:
Third, the individuals elected shall be those
receiving the highest
percentage of votes cast,
up to the limit set by the Members and with the
proviso that no
individual receiving less than
a majority of votes cast shall be elected. Fourth, in
the case of a
tie for the final remaining position,
the final individual shall be chosen in accordance
with the
procedures defined in “RFC 3797: Publicly
Verifiable Nominations Committee (NomCom) Random
Selection” published
by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
With a high number of applicants, where many receive a similar number of
votes but not the required majority of votes casted.
So it could happen that even with high number of applicants we vote in
less than the number of spots we have (5 currently).
When you look at the latest results you can see that we were very close
this year.
Alex
8:02 p.m.
On 11/23/24 9:34 AM, Alexander Gnauck wrote:
I also wanted to bring up a potential problem again in
regards to our
voting procedure for board and council.
Here is a quote of the relevant section Section 3.13 in our bylaws:
We might want to consider other voting methods. For the last few years I
have been the official "observer" for elections to the Thunderbird
Council, which uses the Scottish STV method. There are several online
voting services that are quite inexpensive - Thunderbird has used
OpaVote but there are others, too.
Peter
Third, the individuals elected shall be those
receiving the highest
percentage of votes cast,
up to the limit set by the Members and with*the
proviso that no
individual receiving less than *
*a majority of votes cast shall be elected*.
Fourth, in the case of a
tie for the final remaining position,
the final individual shall be chosen in
accordance with the
procedures defined in “RFC 3797: Publicly
Verifiable Nominations Committee (NomCom) Random
Selection”
published by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
With a high number of applicants, where many receive a similar number of
votes but not the required majority of votes casted.
So it could happen that even with high number of applicants we vote in
less than the number of spots we have (5 currently).
When you look at the latest results you can see that we were very close
this year.
25 Nov
25 Nov
7:45 p.m.
We might want to consider other voting methods. For the
last few years I have been the official "observer" for elections to the
Thunderbird Council, which uses the Scottish STV method. There are several online voting
services that are quite inexpensive - Thunderbird has used OpaVote but there are others,
too.
the STV method looks very good. I like how they calculate the quota
based on the number of available seats.
But I also don't remember how we came up with 50% quota when the bylaws
were written.
Alex
8:15 p.m.
On 11/25/24 11:45 AM, Alexander Gnauck wrote:
When we wrote the bylaws in 2001, these fancy voting methods didn't
exist, or at least were not well known. :-)
Peter
We might want to consider other voting methods.
For the last few years
I have been the official "observer" for elections to the Thunderbird
Council, which uses the Scottish STV method. There are several online
voting services that are quite inexpensive - Thunderbird has used
OpaVote but there are others, too.
the STV method looks very good. I like how they
calculate the quota
based on the number of available seats.
But I also don't remember how we came up with 50% quota when the bylaws
were written.
28
days inactive
32
days old
9 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Adrien 'neox' Bourmault -
Alexander Gnauck -
Daniel Gultsch -
Dave Cridland -
Goffi -
Guus der Kinderen -
Peter Saint-Andre