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Designing an election mechanism #186

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opened by fr33domlover · 4 comments

fr33domlover commented

Owner

Situation

We don't yet have an explicit process for assigning roles to people in the project. The general decision-making process is a good basis, but it doesn't tackle all the questions and challenges related to election (e.g. who facilitates the election process; how to determine (and who determines) who's a relevant candidate for a given role, etc.)

An election process is a significant component of the project's governance, and it can be challenging (and has been challenging) to maintain trust in a globally-distributed-community all-volunteer project, especially with the high pace of governance issues and proposals being made (ironically this issue is another one).

The current roles and teams are in TEAMS.md.

Question

Who will facilitate the decision-making process, in which an initial election process will be designed?

And who will be the people to the design the election mechanism? And how many parallel proposals shall we create as a community?

Proposal

I (fr33domlover) will facilitate the decision-making process in which we'll create an election mechanism
The decision-making process will happen in an issue so everyone, the whole community, can participate in shaping the election mechanism (but proposal co-authoring can be coordinated using Matrix/Jitsi/HedgeDoc/etc.)
We can have as many mechanism proposals as people in the community wish, however:
- Each proposal must be co-authored by at least 2 people (preferably at least 3 people)
- I (fr33domlover) will work on (at least) one of these proposals:
  - Probably based on an integration of our current decision-making process and the Sociocracy election process
  - And feedback and learnings from our current situation
  - Together with anyone who wishes to work together on such a proposal (same as above applies here too: Must be at least 2 people, preferably at least 3)
  - Using a Jitsi meeting to talk while working, either during a governance meeting or a separate Jitsi meeting

So if you'll want to participate in the proposal-writing step (when we get to that step), you can:

Either find 1-2 more people and write a proposal together
And/or join an existing proposal team (either the one I'll be in, or any other team that forms)

The process of deciding on the election mechanism will be our general decision-making process :-) (I hope that's not too confusing)

tl;dr I'm proposing to: (1) facilitate (i.e. guide/lead) the community process of designing an election mechanism (2) to co-author one of the mechanism proposals, via a Jitsi meeting anyone can join

Request

Is the above clear? If you have any clarification question to ask, comment and ask.

If it's clear, does it make sense? Are you comfortable with what I'm proposing?

If comfortable and approving, react with thumb-up
If uncomfortable, if having any concern, if what I'm proposing doesn't seem safe enough or not serving the project and community, please comment about the concern

# Situation We don't yet have an explicit process for assigning roles to people in the project. The general decision-making process is a good basis, but it doesn't tackle all the questions and challenges related to election (e.g. who facilitates the election process; how to determine (and who determines) who's a relevant candidate for a given role, etc.) An election process is a significant component of the project's governance, and it can be challenging (and has been challenging) to maintain trust in a globally-distributed-community all-volunteer project, especially with the high pace of governance issues and proposals being made (ironically this issue is another one). The current roles and teams are in [TEAMS.md](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/src/branch/readme/TEAMS.md). # Question Who will facilitate the decision-making process, in which an initial election process will be designed? And who will be the people to the design the election mechanism? And how many parallel proposals shall we create as a community? # Proposal - I (fr33domlover) will facilitate the decision-making process in which we'll create an election mechanism - The decision-making process will happen in an **issue** so everyone, the whole community, can participate in shaping the election mechanism (but proposal co-authoring can be coordinated using Matrix/Jitsi/HedgeDoc/etc.) - We can have as many mechanism proposals as people in the community wish, however: - Each proposal must be co-authored by at least 2 people (preferably at least 3 people) - I (fr33domlover) will work on (at least) one of these proposals: - Probably based on an integration of our current decision-making process and the Sociocracy election process - And feedback and learnings from our current situation - **Together with anyone who wishes** to work together on such a proposal (same as above applies here too: Must be at least 2 people, preferably at least 3) - Using a Jitsi meeting to talk while working, either during a governance meeting or a separate Jitsi meeting So if you'll want to participate in the proposal-writing step (when we get to that step), you can: - Either find 1-2 more people and write a proposal together - And/or join an existing proposal team (either the one I'll be in, or any other team that forms) The process of deciding on the election mechanism will be our general decision-making process :-) (I hope that's not too confusing) **tl;dr I'm proposing to: (1) facilitate (i.e. guide/lead) the community process of designing an election mechanism (2) to co-author one of the mechanism proposals, via a Jitsi meeting anyone can join** # Request Is the above clear? If you have any clarification question to ask, comment and ask. If it's clear, does it make sense? Are you comfortable with what I'm proposing? - If comfortable and approving, **react with thumb-up** - If uncomfortable, if having any concern, if what I'm proposing doesn't seem safe enough or not serving the project and community, **please comment** about the concern

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fr33domlover added the

Governance

[Decision] Integrating concerns

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fr33domlover self-assigned this

fr33domlover changed title from ~~Who will design an election process~~ to Designing an election mechanism

KaKi87 commented

Collaborator

Why would we need that in a do-ocracy ?

fr33domlover commented

Poster

Owner

@KaKi87, look at TEAMS.md. Can you see the value of having the teams listed there? e.g.:

Do we give anyone who asks the access to passwords, cryptographic keys for signing release, etc.? If not, who are the people we entrust to hold these sensitive resources? How do we select these people?
While we have fun coding stuff, who does the task making a monthly release? It doesn't make sense for 50 people to gather on Matrix and do it somehow together, but 3 is enough and effective, and allows us to trust that releases happen because those 3 people are on it - how do we choose them? How often do we re-elect this release team?
When we have a conflict between team members and we need help with mediation, who do we ask for help? Who in the team can mediate a conflict, who do we trust to do so without taking one side and neglecting the other? How do we choose these people together?

And so on.

Also, without roles,

People do what's fun and interesting, and important-but-not-fun tasks can be forgotten
Everyone has to do everything (that has impacts on others) together which is ineffective and impractical
It's not clear who's an expert in what, and how to distribute tasks and ask for support based on that

@KaKi87, is this helpful in clarifying the need for roles and teams?

@KaKi87, look at [TEAMS.md](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/src/branch/readme/TEAMS.md). Can you see the value of having the teams listed there? e.g.: - Do we give *anyone who asks* the access to passwords, cryptographic keys for signing release, etc.? If not, who are the people we entrust to hold these sensitive resources? How do we select these people? - While we have fun coding stuff, who does the task making a monthly release? It doesn't make sense for 50 people to gather on Matrix and do it somehow together, but 3 is enough and effective, and allows us to trust that releases happen because those 3 people are on it - how do we choose them? How often do we re-elect this release team? - When we have a conflict between team members and we need help with mediation, who do we ask for help? Who in the team can mediate a conflict, who do we trust to do so without taking one side and neglecting the other? How do we choose these people together? And so on. Also, without roles, - People do what's fun and interesting, and important-but-not-fun tasks can be forgotten - Everyone has to do everything (that has impacts on others) together which is ineffective and impractical - It's not clear who's an expert in what, and how to distribute tasks and ask for support based on that @KaKi87, is this helpful in clarifying the need for roles and teams?

KaKi87 commented

Collaborator

Yes.

👍 1

fr33domlover added the

Entrustment

label

fsologureng commented

Is very ironic and sad that the single thumb up to your proposal in this community have been mine @fr33domlover. I really appreciate your effort to give it to Forgejo.