Squeak Foundation Board 2007 Election Results

Il giorno gio, 08/03/2007 alle 16.01 +0100, Cees de Groot ha scritto:
Didn't the Elections team decide on that?

        Giovanni

> Didn't the Elections team decide on that?

     No, the board did; please see http://tinyurl.com/2vcwxb
(lists.squeakfoundation.org).


     thanks,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

Hi daniel

> Hi Stef,
>
> As a voter, if you leave a board because you've found out that you  
> cannot contribute to it, I respect it. If you waste my vote by  
> leaving a board before doing so, that's something else.

Indeed and I will not leave before the first meeting :)


> Questions like "what happens if one board member quits", and  
> variations like "can/should the whole board quit if completely  
> deadlocked?" and "who gets to decide these things?" make me think  
> that during incorporation of SqF, some thought should be given to  
> the bylaws defining the governance of the board.

Exact

> On behalf of the elections team, I want to thank to all the  
> candidates, everyone that asked them questions and similarly helped  
> make the vote an informed one, and to everyone that voted. A  
> particular mention goes to Cees that helped us out technically with  
> the voters list.
>
> My personal thanks go to Ron, my partner in running these elections.

Thanks for running them.

I would really like to see if we can get more people voting in the  
future.
If you have ideas or suggestions I would be interested.

Stef

> On 3/8/07, Edgar J. De Cleene <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> 1) Steff said what he wants new blood. People seldom vote for unknown
>> squeakers. No idea how this could change , but is some to think  
>> about.
>>
> The obvious thing there is to limit the number of (consequitive) terms
> anyone can serve...

For example, but this can be also based on personal thoughts (I mean  
that if I think that another guy could
do a better job then may be I can have fun doing something else). But  
this is why I raised the point.
I think that this is heathly for a free-time based organization to be  
able to have such a kind of discussion.

I know by experience with esug than doing is taking a lot of energy.
For ESUG I have decided that if I do not do enough I will leave.  
After you have moment
where you can do more than others and moment were they do more than you.
The point is to trust the others and to get fun and a good balance.  
This is why ESUG improved
regularly over the year.

On 8 mars 07, at 16:01, Cees de Groot wrote:

I agree.

I will not resign now since it would make no sense. I have nothing  
personal against the
other board members. Now we will have to set objectives and on them I  
can disagree.

> For anything in between...it's probably up to the board to decide
> based on the specific circumstances. As we did last year...
>
>

On 8 mars 07, at 17:00, Wolfgang Eder wrote:

no problem mine is cool too.
Now a point, the participation to the board has not too much to do  
with technical skills - at least to me.
I do not see me as an expert (at least I have place to improve).  It  
has to do with energy to promote squeak.
You know having a decent web site, paying attention that supporters  
get ack, pins, marketing......
For this you do not need to be an expert but excellent organizers/
press release maker/designers.... and have a lot of ideas to
promote Squeak could make it too.


> Thanks,
> Wolfgang
>
>

Hi Craig

> Hi Stef--
>
>> ...what is the process if... I decide that the board did not change
>> enough and I want to [withdraw] and let [in] some new blood?
>
>      My own preference would be for the next-ranked person to take  
> your
> place, particularly since that person (Todd Blanchard) would be new to
> the board.

I appreciate Todd and I think that he could be a good guy to have in  
if I leave.

>      Please let us know your decision.

As I said, it seems that the board was taking some actions since I  
left. Now as I said I have nothing against board
members, so I want to know what **we** will do and what objectives we  
take. Now if these objectives are not
satisfactory for me, I will quit.
Note that the fact that I accept means that I'm allocating time not  
only for the board meetings but for the actions
we could put in place. If I see that I do not have the time for the  
actions I want to do, i will resign. In such a case,
I would suggest (of course as Cees mentioned it depends) that the  
next on the list gets in.

Stef

This was discussed in the elections team when Tim asked that we elect a new
board member.
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/elections/2006-August/000154.htm
l

The elections team asked the board at that time (see posts) to come up with
a policy about what to do when a member resigns.  Can I suggest that we
officially decide what to do?

Ron Teitelbaum
Squeak Elections Team Member

I think this mail, while perfectly reasonable, shows why this should not
be a decision each board can make.

Any board can make life difficult for a particular member, this is a
fact of life, but they should not then get to decide whether to accept a
replacement based on whether they like the next guy or not. This makes
the temptation for abuse too great, and the abuse is that of the voters
will. Therefore such decisions should be made either by a third party
(like elections or squeak-dev) or preferably by following a fixed policy
(such as "quits not replaced, majority quits means new elections").

BTW, I am not suggesting such abuse is occurring now, or occurred last
time.

Daniel

Craig Latta wrote:

> The elections team asked the board at that time (see posts) to come up
> with a policy about what to do when a member resigns.  Can I suggest
> that we officially decide what to do?

     My preference is for the rest of the newly-elected board to decide.
I think that, once a ranking of candidates is completed, the election
team's job is done. I'll bring it up at the next board meeting.


     thanks again,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

> Any board can make life difficult for a particular member, this is a
> fact of life, but they should not then get to decide whether to accept
> a replacement based on whether they like the next guy or not.

     I prefer to use the next-ranked candidate because (s)he is
next-ranked; it has nothing to do with any other figure of merit, only
with the will of the voters. I do think that such a policy would tend to
get more newcomers into the board (since incumbents seem to get higher
rankings), the fact that the next-ranked person in this election would
be new is not what motivated my suggestion.

> ...such decisions should be made either by a third party (like
> elections or squeak-dev) or preferably by following a fixed policy
> (such as "quits not replaced, majority quits means new elections").

     Right; I'm proposing a fixed policy: replace with the next-ranked
people willing to serve until you fill the board. I prefer this over not
 filling the vacancy (like last year) because it could help to get new
people into the board.


     thanks again,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

On Mar 8, 2007, at 22:16 , Craig Latta wrote:

This is all theoretical, but - say there are 8 candidates one of  
which gets no vote at all - so everybody dislikes him. But if one of  
the board members resigns, he would get in?

- Bert -

If the unpopular candidate lost to the "Nobody" candidate, then  
"Nobody" would be the next in line for the board.  The board would  
then consist of 6 people, just as if "Nobody" had been one of the top  
7 vote-getters in the initial election.

Josh

On Mar 8, 2007, at 1:54 PM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
> This is all theoretical, but - say there are 8 candidates one of  
> which gets no vote at all - so everybody dislikes him. But if one  
> of the board members resigns, he would get in?
>
> - Bert -
>
>
>

On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 22:54 +0100, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> This is all theoretical, but - say there are 8 candidates one of  
> which gets no vote at all - so everybody dislikes him. But if one of  
> the board members resigns, he would get in?
>
> - Bert -

Josh points out a valid point regarding the Nobody point but I can't
help but note that (tongue mostly in cheek) we could probably do with
some sort of impeachment process (Gathering of signatures/agreement of
10% of voters in the original election followed by voting on articles of
impeachment by voters chosen by same mechansim as general election
perhaps.)

Ken

On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 2:01 pm, Joshua Gargus wrote:
> If the unpopular candidate lost to the "Nobody" candidate, then  
> "Nobody" would be the next in line for the board.  The board would  
> then consist of 6 people, just as if "Nobody" had been one of the top  
> 7 vote-getters in the initial election.

Yes, but what if Nobody then resigns?

;)

All,

I agree with Ken, we should be concerned with seating someone on the board
by some circumstance post election without having any form of redress.  

Another concern is that the election could be months past, so would someone
that ran for a seat really be available when the call comes?  I think I like
Cees original idea of having elections if there is still enough time for the
new board member to make a difference (the amount of time TBD), and I like
Daniels idea of having a new election if a majority of the board resigns.

The issue raised last time is how much the community wants to be bothered
with having elections.  So is having an election every time a board member
resigns is too much for this community?

Ron Teitelbaum
Squeak Elections Team Member

El 3/8/07 6:54 PM, "Bert Freudenberg" <[hidden email]> escribió:

> This is all theoretical, but - say there are 8 candidates one of
> which gets no vote at all - so everybody dislikes him. But if one of
> the board members resigns, he would get in?
>
> - Bert -


Perhaps this was yet answered, but ..

What was the number of votes of each of board runners ?

Edgar



       

       
               
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I think that while the elections did not advertise to voters that their
votes would be used this way, this fixed policy is still pretty
consistent with the elections as we've run them. I mean this in the
general sense that Condorcet is about ranking the candidates, so using
the next ranked candidate makes good sense.

Craig Latta wrote:
>      Right; I'm proposing a fixed policy: replace with the next-ranked
> people willing to serve until you fill the board.
Or run out of candidates?

Daniel

stephane ducasse wrote:
> I would really like to see if we can get more people voting in the
> future.
> If you have ideas or suggestions I would be interested.
First we need to engage our sibling communities. My call for
representatives went unanswered, and probably for good cause. To gain
access to them, we need to create and use some common communication
channels (blogs?). To gain their interest, the Board should be doing
things that matter to those communities, then they will want to vote to
affect how things go. Getting an SqP account is not so great a barrier,
if they are interested enough.

The other thing I think would help (the quality of votes, certainly, and
maybe their number) is a livelier debate on the issues between the
candidates. While the voters have an interest in asking questions, and
the elections team wants to see a nice discussion, the people that have
the most to gain from it are the candidates. This is an opportunity for
a candidate to:
- Convince voters your opinions make sense, therefore they should vote
for you.
- Get to know your future board members, and their stance on the
subjects you'll be trying to work on.
- Clarify to yourself your own goals for this term, and commit publicly
to some of them.

Nevertheless, there was not much back and forth. Some people think the
Board is not a technical forum, while at least Bert thinks it should be,
or at least one should exist. Discussion? none. Funding projects seems
to be more more popular this year, to Stef's joy. But at the end of the
elections, he still doesn't know whether it will happen. Why not?

Daniel

The answer to that question can be found in the URL that Ron provided in
his original notice:

http://tinyurl.com/ypm95q

with the caveat that since we vote by ordering the candidates, it is a
bit more complex to answer than that.  Hit the Show Details button at
the bottom of the page to get the closest answer possible.

Ken

On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 19:24 -0300, Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:
> Perhaps this was yet answered, but ..
>
> What was the number of votes of each of board runners ?
>
> Edgar