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List:       fedora-devel-list
Subject:    Re: Proposal: Revise FESCo voting policy
From:       Stephen Gallagher <sgallagh () redhat ! com>
Date:       2020-05-14 16:15:42
Message-ID: CAFoKQtw6x3KeiGX42brAb+haB3HiVdQ_9+6qETLv+8m5Ow4Tvg () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 11:47 AM Jared K. Smith
<jsmith@fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> 
> I'm going to disagree with you here, specifically with regards to the "I don't \
> care" piece.  From my time in FESCo, and as the FPL before that -- I can never \
> remember a time when someone abstained because they didn't care.  I remember people \
> abstaining because they didn't feel it was appropriate for them to vote on their \
> own ticket, or they felt uncomfortable for whatever reason, but never simply \
> because they didn't care. 
> Please remember that FESCo members can vote either "+1" or "0" or "-1" for a \
> particular change.  I would think voting "0" would be more appropriate for a "I \
> don't care" vote.  But I still don't see an "I don't care" vote as a reason to \
> abstain.

For the record, "0" is used much more often with the following meanings:
* I am the submitter of this Change Proposal and abstain from voting
due to bias.
* I do not have sufficient expertise in this area to have a considered
opinion on the matter, so I am deferring to other members of the
committee who do.
* I have reservations about the implementation that are not serious
enough for me to vote -1, but I don't want to go on record as being in
support.

The last one usually comes up when the vote is already decided (+5 or
more) and someone is reserving the right to say "I told you so" later.
An argument can be made that this should just result in a -1 vote
(particularly since it won't change the outcome). The first and second
ones are the cases that I was attempting to address with this
proposal. Note that I posted what I did as a conversation-starter; if
there is a better phrasing or tweaks (like for example how my math was
wrong and didn't match what I had intended...) they are most welcome.

One thing that I think this conversation thread *has* achieved is
identifying that most Fedorans don't consider a FESCo member voting in
favor of their own Change Proposal to be a conflict of interest. I
think we should probably recognize this and take that out of the
equation (which also has the side-effect of reducing the frequency we
might need to deal with such things).

I'll try suggesting another version of the policy for votes *in
meetings* (these do not impact votes resolved exclusively in-ticket):

* To pass any measure, a majority — defined as the greater of half the
eligible votes + 0.5 (rounded up) — must vote in favor of the measure.
The standard set of eligible votes is one vote per FESCo member.

* Abstaining from a vote (aka "voting 0") is considered to have
removed that FESCo member's vote from the set of eligible votes. This
must be done explicitly and is never to be assumed from lack of communication.

* If more than half of the FESCo members (rounded down) are
unavailable or have abstained from voting, the vote lacks a quorum and
may not be resolved.

* If two FESCo having a quorum in attendance pass that fail to meet
voting quorum for an issue, the ticket is considered rejected(*).

Practical effect: No meeting vote can pass with fewer than 3 positive
votes. The worst-case scenario for a measure to pass in a meeting vote
is therefore: (+3, 4, -2)



(*) At this point, if that many FESCo members haven't formed a strong
opinion on the matter, it's reasonable to assume that the proposed
Change is not good enough.
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