Upcoming Fedora elections

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 03:45:25PM -0600, Matt Domsch wrote:
> Yes, it's that time of year again.  Rain is falling, another Fedora
> release is about to conquer the known world, and volunteers everywhere
> are busy preparing their ideal Fedora Mission Statements to captivate
> the electorate.  Fedora's Winter Election is upon us.
> 
> The first order of business is to find an Election Coordinator.  For
> the last 2 election cycles I have volunteered for this role, with the
> able assistance of John Rose (inode0), and Thorsten Leemhuis (thl) and
> others.  This cycle, I would like someone besides myself from the Fedora
> community to volunteer as Election Coordinator.  Raise your hand,
> don't be shy!  If you have been harboring a secret (or public) list of
> all my mistakes, here's your chance to set things right!

I think you did a great job, but I also appreciate that we should try
passing the baton.  I'd love someone to volunteer to take up the
banner.

> As Election Coordinator, you will have the opportunity to:
> * propose, get buy-in, and finalize the schedule
> * schedule forums (traditionally IRC and with FUDCon Toronto, Live)
> * seek forum moderators
> * if desired, gather questions from the electorate, distribute to the
>   candidates, gather and post their answers.
> * coordinate with Infrastructure to be sure the elections app is
>   ready.

We can arrange for the forum responsibilities to be shared, as in the
last cycle, so that no one has to conduct all of them.  That worked
out quite well as I recall.

> Second, a schedule will need to be set.  At the Board meeting this
> week, we agreed that it would be nice to hold in-person forums at
> FUDCon Toronto, December 5-7, for those who can attend.  Our election
> rules require us to complete the election within 30 days of the Fedora
> 12 release, so must end by December 17.  Per Nigel Jones, author of
> our voting system, most of the votes cast were within the first 2-3
> days, so running it Dec 8-17 would be sufficient.

My recollection from the last general election is that I asked Nigel
about the voting rates and it was clustered pretty heavily at the
beginning.  I'm sure if I recalled that wrong, he'll pitch in a
correction here.

> Before these, we typically hold nominations for 2 weeks, and a week
> for IRC Town Halls to be scheduled.  Thorsten also requested after the
> last election that we have a few days between end of nominations and
> beginning of the town halls, to allow time for candidates to be given
> a set of questions, and sufficent time to answer.
> 
> Third, we need to be sure of all the committees who are holding an
> election.  The committee chairs can assist here.  I believe that the
> Board, FESCo, and Ambassadors are electing members, and that the
> Fedora 13 naming election will happen too.  Are there any I missed?

I believe the Fedora 13 naming election will be happening
significantly before FUDCon, so that we can announce the new name at
the event.  Although that's not technically a requirement, and can be
dropped if desired, it's a little bit of extra fun.  Names would be
collected around the second week in November and a vote around the end
of the month.

> Feedback on prior elections, ideas for how to improve this cycle, and
> volunteers for Election Coordinator all welcome.

Matt, thanks for your previous good work in running elections, and for
helping to kick this off.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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