[gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-dev-announce] Referendum on Gentoo Foundation Inc. accepting advertising from major Gentoo Users

[Jeroen Roovers]

Neither the ballot nor the announcement contains the actual
question that is to be voted on. In the case of the announcement the
problem isn't as huge as with the ballot, so the latter should be fixed
soon, I guess.

Roy's message does mention the actual question (and I must say that
it's rather vague):

"Should major Gentoo users be permitted to purchase ads on the sidebar"

Notice the lack of a question mark at the end and also that voters are
unlikely to know what "major Gentoo users" are supposed to be without a
lot more background information. Why allow only major Gentoo users to
purchase ads on the sidebar? Why not all Gentoo users? And what kinds
of ads would they be? Flashing, shoot-the-monkey types of ads, or
should the banners only be allowed to advertise IT related products and
services? I'd rather restrict sponsor ads to have wording like "this
site is sponsored by XXXX". That's not the same as "purchasing
advertising but either of these would probably make my vote swing the
other way.

Roy's original message leaves these questions unanswered (provides no
background) and so does the announcement.


So that's two issues:

1) The ballot and announcement do not mention the question we are
   voting on.
2) The question is vague.


Regards,
     jer


On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:11:21 -0100
"Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto" <jmbsvicetto@g.o> wrote:

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>
> Fellow Foundation members,
>
> as decided and requested by the Gentoo Foundation Trustees[1], the
> elections team is running an election to conduct this referendum. The
> election polls are now open and will remain so until 23:59:59 UTC
> Friday, December 11th 2009.
>
> The election officials for this election are Alec Warner[2], Jorge
> Manuel B. S. Vicetto[3] and Patrick Lauer[4]. The infrastructure team
> contact for the election is Shyam Mani[5]. You can reach all the
> officials for this election at the elections[6] alias.
>
> If you're a current Gentoo Developer, to cast your vote for this
> election you need to login to dev.gentoo.org and run the following
> commands, in the specified order.
>
>     * votify --new foundation-referendum-2009-01 - This creates a new
> ballot in your homedir.
>     * Edit the .ballot-foundation-referendum-2009-01 file and rank the
> 2 votes: "yes" and "no".
>     * Once you're sure, run votify --verify
> foundation-referendum-2009-01 to check the validity of the ballot.
>     * If that goes through fine, the next and final step is to submit
> your vote using votify --submit foundation-referendum-2009-01
>     * In case you're stuck, detailed help can be accessed by using
> votify --help or feel free to drop by #gentoo-elections on IRC. If you
> think you are eligible to vote, but cannot, please contact one of the
> officials.
>     * Grab a beer, have fun, sit back and enjoy the show ... till we
> announce the results  ;)
>
> If you're not a current Gentoo Developer, please send your ballot to
> the officials[6] alias and don't forget to sign the email with your
> gpg key on record in the Foundation member list[7].
>
> As this should be the first election with a "yes" and "no" ballot, let
> me clear any doubts that in case of a ballot with both in the same
> line, the ballot will have no influence in the final result. Also,
> omitting one of the votes from the ballot is the same as putting it
> alone in the bottom line.
>
> * [1] -
> http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-foundation-announce/msg_7b3516ffb09ca4cdf7c7cb1badbf2a66.xml
> * [2] - antarus@g.o
> * [3] - jmbsvicetto@g.o
> * [4] - patrick@g.o
> * [5] - fox2mike@g.o
> * [6] - elections@g.o
> * [7] - http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/20091201_members_list.xml
>
> If you have any doubts about this referendum, please contact the
> election officials.
>
>
> For the election officials,
>
> - --
> Regards,
>
> Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
> Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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