XSF Discussion - 2021-11-26

Speaking for myself I'd appreciate any feedback, negative, positive, or neutral, via any means, public, private, or anonymous, at any time :)

Starting the job with such a low approval rating makes me feel like a real politician lol

Although I guess it could be an opportunity to improve more than others can 🤔

No matter who you are or what you do, you can be Nelson Mandela or Ghandi, there will always be some people who don't like you and don't approve of what you do or stand for. Feedback is good, but sounds like a tiny minority didn't vote yes. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Also, not voting yes is not the same as voting no

The point is - if you are so unhappy with the candidates - why not apply yourself?

I dont think the apply yourself is a fair point here. But I could definetily see how only the yes crowd matters now and that is an issue. I dont know what can be a good solution though.

But I follow a bit jcbrands points. You will always have people against you and in the end nothing will happen or no one will think about starting with their ideas if each time you can expected to be outvoted. I dont know. I see that also newcommers have been downvoted right? In that case I escpecially disagree about outvoting these appliers. I think thats a bad thing in general

Nobody was voted out. A handful of people did not vote for some of the newcomers, which is easily explained by people being lazy and just voting for names they know, or being more wary of people who don't have a track record yet. The majority of people still voted to bring these people on. I think that's good.

I think if anything it shows that first-timers need to put a bit more effort in to balance the fact people are unfamiliar with them

Like introduce themselves on members@

But "need to" is strong, they clearly do just fine without doing that

I've been on the Council for a few years now and I got a few "downvotes" as well, so... 🤷

As for "why the no votes", it can be frustrating, but I don't know if formalizing a process around encouraging negative feedback would be healthy

maybe some kind of retrospective for a Board / Council term, a few weeks before the election?

But given the community involvment, I would be surprised about any amount of feedback that warrants the efforts

> MattJ escribió: > I think if anything it shows that first-timers need to put a bit more effort in to balance the fact people are unfamiliar with them > Like introduce themselves on members@ I think that could be a new habit we should ask for

Anyway, good comment MattJ thanks

> MattJ escribió: > As for "why the no votes", it can be frustrating, but I don't know if formalizing a process around encouraging negative feedback would be healthy I tend to think the same ✏

I think that introducing oneself on the wiki is superior to a mail and also less ephemeral

I think writing to members is pro-active and some people may prefer to read there

I would be fine with this 🤔

Ge0rG: obligatory "why not both?"

Mail is more open to making it a two-way discussion

It's not a substitute for the application itself, just a way to give people the opportunity to ask any questions - otherwise they won't (and mostly don't) bother

MattJ: what would be the right time to send a mail? When you become a member? When you apply for Board/Council?

After you put up your application

Or whenever you want, if you want. I'm not making up rules, just suggestions

My point is mostly that if you want more votes, put some effort in, and be proactive. Don't just put up an application and sit around until voting day.

I'm not judging anyone who does that, everyone does (including me). But then don't complain about lower votes, for new people especially.

That's an excellent summary

I also wouldn't see lack of votes as lack of approval, especially for new candidates.

Popularity contest...

> MattJ escribió: > My point is mostly that if you want more votes, put some effort in, and be proactive. Don't just put up an application and sit around until voting day. Every voting time I write to people with suggestions to improve their applications. Some know me already 🙂 I think that could be a good practice in the furture. At least lets encourage appliers.

> Zash escribió: > Popularity contest... I think this is more about visibility

I'm sure there are some 'negative votes' based on visibility or whatever, but I'm not sure I'd assume that there aren't also active 'negative votes' too. Whether to do anything about it is another matter, but I wouldn't make decisions based on assuming "which is easily explained by people being lazy and just voting for names they know, or being more wary of people who don't have a track record yet" to be fact, rather than a possible explanation.

Well, do we need a way to provide anonymous feedback to members or candidates of a Body?

I do not know.

Because we already have ways for public and private non-anonymous feedback.

I think if you want an anonymous feedback mechanism, you also want that to be entirely mediated, à la NomCom. That is, we select a NomCom and *they* pick a Council (or Board). Allowing people to post anonymous feedback on people publicly just sounds like a recipe for abuse.

Someone who can take into account things like balance and composition could be good.

This is also a little bit academic when we don't have contended elections.

Unless someone's objections were severe enough that if they were known it would cause a short Council/Board to be chosen over that member.

I thing we should implement a gender equality policy.

Isnt this basically a Code of conduct which is already active as far as i know?