Re: [gentoo-project] Why should you *not* vote on existing Council members

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 1:57 PM Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
>
> The usual deal with summaries

Yes, summaries aren't fun, but they're not exactly hard either.  The
chair should just take notes during the meeting if at all possible.
Just copy/paste the agenda into a text editor, copy/paste decisions as
they are made, and copy/paste the votes.  It takes all of about 15
minutes of editing after the fact to get it cleaned up.  Usually the
pace of IRC decisions is such that you can get 90% of it done during
the meeting...

> Abusing Council position to change own team's policy
> ====================================================
> How would you feel about a person that's both in QA and Council using
> his Council position to change a policy that's been proposed with QA
> lead's blessing?

As I've said before, I have no issues with this and if anything
consider it a feature, and not a bug.

If the entire project could be run in its entirety by 7 people without
sacrifice, we'd be that much better off for the streamlined
decision-making.  In reality as you've pointed out the Council members
often don't have enough time to even run the Council, so others need
to be involved in other rules, which leads to conflicts.  It makes far
more sense to make sure that QA/Council are aligned before QA creates
policy than to have the one body set policy and the other body reverse
it (whether directly, or via appeals of individual decisions).

This is just speaking generally, and not about any particular decision
or whether it was correct...

Devs can of course decide to vote for who they wish for council.

> The way I see it, proposals should be discussed on mailing lists,
> and Council approval should be merely a formality based on earlier
> discussion.  However, with the current Council you are required to
> attend meetings and personally convince Council members to whatever
> seemed like wholly agreed thing beforehand, or promptly answer feedback
> that should have been made to the mailing lists beforehand.

So, I don't think Council should consider itself bound to any kind of
general consensus.  If every developer except the 7 council members
felt one way, and the council members felt the other, and they felt
the matter was important enough, I wouldn't have a problem with them
unilaterally making a contrary decision.  This is why you should
exercise care when voting for Council members.  Of course, most
Council members tend to be at least fairly reasonable (which is why
they get elected), so this sort of outcome is pretty unlikely.

That said, I also believe that all Council members ought to share
their opinions on a proposal BEFORE the meeting to invite commentary.
By all means feel free to disagree with those comments, but at least
do people the courtesy of giving them a chance to express them.  Doing
so before the meeting is both more convenient and gives everybody a
chance to think about their arguments vs walking into a meeting and
firing from the hip.  This encourages people to back up their opinions
with data where possible, or at least the best arguments they can put
forth, and is likely to benefit the final decisions made.

> I think
> it's really time to make a change, and show that Council elections are
> not a popularity contest.
>

Make no mistake - all elections are popularity contests.  :)

Other than the one point above I certainly agree with everything you
brought up.  I'm not sure if I'd go so far to say that incumbents are
a bad thing, but I'd urge them to take these concerns seriously.
While I don't have the volume of GLEP proposals that mgorny has, I
also found it very frustrating to have no idea what most of the
Council thought about my proposed GLEP change.  I know a few devs were
frustrated that I kept promoting it despite what they considered
near-universal opposition, but the fact is that the majority of those
who would actually vote on it voiced no concerns until the meeting.
If I knew a majority were unlikely to accept it in any form I'd have
just dropped it early and not wasted everybody's time.

Even after my proposal was defeated a few suggested that it might be
accepted with alterations, but could offer no specifics about what
alterations might or might not be acceptable.  It is silly to just
throw one draft at another to see if they get voted up and down and
try to guess what everybody is thinking, so I dropped it and somewhat
regret wasting everybody's time (even if I still think my proposal
would have been an improvement).

I think this sort of thing does discourage people from trying to
propose improvements or changes.  By all means disagree with a
proposal or change - I can completely respect that.  But, at least be
up-front about it so everybody isn't guessing, and we don't waste
month after month iterating.  We slow decisions down enough already
waiting until meetings to make them, so it is pretty discouraging to
see these decisions get deferred even further.  If somebody fails to
react to comments on their proposal before the meeting that is on
them, but failing to make the comments at all is on the one witholding
their approval...

-- 
Rich