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.
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@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.
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@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.
On Thu, 21 Nov 2024 at 10:15, Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen@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.
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
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 12:00 PM Dave Cridland <dave@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
- 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
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:
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.
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
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
On 11/25/24 11:45 AM, Alexander Gnauck wrote:
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.
When we wrote the bylaws in 2001, these fancy voting methods didn't exist, or at least were not well known. :-) Peter
participants (7)
-
Adrien 'neox' Bourmault -
Alexander Gnauck -
Daniel Gultsch -
Dave Cridland -
Goffi -
Guus der Kinderen -
Peter Saint-Andre