Archive:Docs Project Steering Committee elections process

= FDSCo Elections = Updated 02-Dec-2007

Elections for the Fedora Documentation Project Steering Committee (FDSCo) help to keep the leadership of the project in touch with the writers, editors, and translators who make up the project. By drawing from and returning to the larger pool of contributors, leadership is always fresh.

Summary

 * Voting is open to all contributors in the Documentation Project who have joined the 'cvsdocs' group in the Fedora Account System.
 * Contributors have up to three votes they can cast for the slate of nominees, with one vote per nominee.
 * The four top vote receivers serve on FDSCo for 12 months, the next three vote receivers serve for 6 months.
 * Following this initial election, regular elections are every six months. Half of the seats are up for voting each election, first three seats, then four seats, and so on.
 * We are using the Fedora standard voting software

If you have not done this, there is still time to get your account so you can vote:


 * 1) Go to the account edit page
 * 2) Under Add new membership at the bottom of the page, put yourself in the cvsdocs group

Learn about getting your account on Infrastructure/AccountSystem.

Of course, you must have completed the other requirements to DocsProject/Join  this project.

Schedule
FDSCo elections are held approximately twice a year, in the beginning of the development cycle between Fedora releases. Current schedule is the last two weeks in November and May, and elections are only stalled by a lack of candidates (See Candidates  below).

Elections run for a period between one and two weeks. An attempt is made to include two weekends in the open voting period so people can vote when they have free time. For example, the first election voting period opens on Friday 14 December and closes on Monday 24 December.

The elections are announced in public lists. A reminder mail to those who are eligible to vote but haven't done so is sent three days before the close of the election.

Seats on FDSCo
There are seven (7) seats on FDSCo, with one seat serving as the chair and project leader.

There are currently no specified term limits.

Candidates
Candidates may be any member of the  group in the Fedora Accounts System. This helps ensure FDSCo members have some experience with the processes of the FDP but still allows relatively new contributors to sit on FDSCo and bring fresh ideas to the table. Candidates must self nominate at least three days before the election opens by writing their information onto the Wiki nominations page  (Fedora account, email, and IRC nick, as well as a  statement of past contributions and what they hope to accomplish while a member of FDSCo.)

In order to hold an election a minimum number of candidates is necessary, equal to the number of open seats + 25%. If there are 7 seats available, there must be at least 9 candidates. If not enough candidates have signed up by the deadline, the election is held back by one week for more candidates to appear. If there are still not enough candidates, the candidates who are present are voted upon (or merely confirmed if there are fewer candidates than open seats.) If FDSCo does not have the full number of seats filled at this point, refer to [#Filling-Vacant-Seats Filling Vacant Seats]. An exception was made for the first, all-seven-seats election.

Contributors who want to nominate themselves only if there are not enough people to fill the seats may put the same information in a separate section of the wiki page. If there are not enough candidates to complete the ballot, all the contributors listed in this section are added to the ballot. No special considerations are made for candidates elected through this process to resign their seats after the election. If you really do not want to be on FDSCo, please withdraw your name from this list at least three days before the election so your name does not appear on the ballot.

Voters
Voters may be any member of the  group in the Fedora Accounts System. This means everyone who has permission to maintain documentation takes part in voting.

Filling Vacant Seats
If FDSCo does not have all its seats filled due to members leaving or other lack, the vacant seats are filled by the following methods:


 * 1) If there are runner-up candidates from the previous election that did not have the opportunity to be on FDSCo, they are offered a seat according to their rank in the voting.
 * 2) If those candidates have been exhausted, FDSCo asks the Documentation community members who they think would do a good job and be willing to fill the open seat(s).
 * 3) If the open seats are still not filled, FDSCo operates with fewer members until the next election cycle.
 * 4) In extreme situations, a special election can be held.  Members elected during a special election serve a truncated term that is the sum of the remainder of time until the normal election plus the six months until the next election when the seat is made available.  FDSCo is empowered to change or temporarily modify rules in order to recreate balance in elections and keep FDSCo seats filled and active.

Voting System
The voting model for the election aims to be simple, easy to audit, and fair in case someone resigns and their runner-up is selected.

The current voting system gives each voter as many votes as there are open seats. They may vote for each candidate only one time, and can use as many or few of their votes as they wish.

Since FDSCo is using the new, general voting system in place for Fedora steering committees, we benefit from the changes that are coming to that system.

In the future we are shifting to range voting to address these criteria.

In range voting, a voter receives a ballot listing all the candidates. For each candidate the voter assigns from   to   points. At the close of the election, the points for each candidate are tallied and the ones with the most points win a seat. For example, if there are 20 candidates running for 13 seats, the voter is presented with a ballot where they can assign 0-20 points to each candidate. After voting, the 13 candidates with the most points win the election.