Knurpht @ openSUSE wrote:

Another thing, more a personal view, is that I don't think members base their vote on a campaign, but rather on contributions to the Project.

Personally, I doubt if many voters have much idea of what the individual board candidates (or members) have contributed, whether recently or over the last 4-5 years. I expect voters/members will have an impression of how visible/active a candidate is and decided based on that. Ana is a new name, but she might just get my vote, partly because of her enthusiasm, partly because of her clear and concise communication. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (2.9°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - dedicated server rental in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

On 29 March 2018 at 21:00, Kostas Koudaras wrote:

2018-03-29 19:22 GMT+03:00 Ana Martínez :

...

Hi,

According to our Wiki[1], during the campaign-phase there should be:

1 - plenty of blog entries on the upcoming election by the candidates 2 - interviews with all candidates by the openSUSE news team 3 - a moderated Q&A session on IRC possibly during one of the regular Project meetings or a separate meeting

All the candidates have written a platform, so we could consider 1 as done. But 2 and 3 haven't been done. Taking into account that the elections starts on Monday and that tomorrow is public holiday in many part of the world, I think this is not acceptable and that we can not consider the campaign-phase as done. How is people going to decide who to vote if they don't know who we are? Because of that I would like to ask for delaying the elections.

You may wonder why 2 and 3 haven't been done. I think that their organisation have started too late and we didn't manage to do it on time. The openSUSE news team is already working on the interviews (2) and they will be published as soon as they received the answers from all the candidates. It could even be that it is published before the voting period starts. In the case of the moderated Q&A session on IRC (3) it was maybe not sure who should organised it. I have expected the elections team to do it, but there is actually no reason why we (the candidates) can not organise it alone. I have already send them a Doodle and I hope we can announce a date rather sooner than later.

I know that this is not optimal and I am really sorry if someone doesn't like my email. But I personally do not feel well if, after saying in my platform[2] that I want the board to work transparent, the first thing I do is skipping our own rules without any explanation. I really do not pretend to blame anybody with this email. I just want that we have some more time to make a good campaign, so that openSUSE members have the chance to choose the people who better represent what they think openSUSE should be.

Regards,

Ana

Dear Ana I admire your passion on doing things right(I really do), but there are a few things that you do not consider or know so here lies the explanation you asked on my behalf. 2nd for sure and I do not remember about the 3rd are there since the days both me and Chuck were at the (so called back then) marketing team that put them there, the reason why none of them ever happened is because of the different time zones and candidates schedules which were never so far got aligned. I read the mails you candidates sent the last couple days and you stepped on to those same issues. Now what really heart my feelings is that tomorrow is not a public holiday for many of us, actually for me as an Orthodox is the weekend the elections end and instead of spending Sunday with my family I will be spending time for the election results and I am not nagging as it is 100% my choice because that was the only way I could find to help the project. Also not all volunteers are volunteers only onworking hours(the opposite I would say as many are doing it on their free time, on weekends etc) so for me that is not an issue and it is unfair to put yourself in that position. As stated by Knurpht ,at the end of the day voters consider contributions not campaigns. The campaign is there to make clearer to the voters a bit more about your vision for where you want the project to go if you get elected, at least this is how I see it. Long story short my opinion on the matter you raise as an election committee member is that things stay as are because I think that this is the best for the elections. If Chuck or the board think otherwise then we should talk about it but I value that this should be done the next hours so that things have a change to go smooth. Just to be fair you are 100% right on theory and I really believe that if me and Chuck had more time available maybe we would have done a better job at it but we were the only who even volunteered for it and this is the best we can do under the circumstances. You can agree or not but all of the above are my personal opinion. Best regards Kostas

Hi all, I think we have quite a pickle here On one side I see Kostas' point of view and accept that in the past we've run elections while being very lax with the campaign side of things. On the other, I see Ana's point of view. This is something we should spend the time to do right. I feel Kostas' and Knurpht's points actually support Ana's point. Ana is a relatively new contributor to the project, but as we can clearly see a very passionate and driven one. I think we do her, and other similar candidates, a disservice if we do not give them adequate time to campaign, and if we do not give the opportunities we advertise we will during the campaign. It's important the Board is not only full of long time contributors who got their purely on their name recognition on account of their being around for so long. The reason the election process was written the way it was is precisely to give opportunity for new faces with new ideas, to join the Board, if the community elect them. I think it's important we stick to those principles and give ever candidate a fair chance at being elected. The election committee are volunteers, with other jobs, family lives. If it sounds like I'm being critical of them I want it clearly understood that I cast no blame on them. It's just a fact of life that this year the elections haven't managed to have everything organised in the time expected. In retrospect I also think the decision to transition from the campaign to the voting period of the election during the Easter weekend was a stupid one, and while the election committee are wholly responsible for the conduct of the election, I do think the Board could have done a better job of challenging that decision. So here we are, about to start voting on the elections and with candidates raising valid concerns that proper procedures haven't been followed. I believe a decision on this _has_ to be made by the election committee. I believe the Board should have no direct say in this matter - given half of the Board is up for re-election, the very subject of this topic, the risk of conflict of interest is rather high. As the campaign was meant to end this Easter weekend, and the voting meant to start this Easter weekend, I think it is unacceptable to expect the Election Committee to make a decision this weekend. Therefore, in my role as unelected Chairman, responsible for ensuring continuity in the Project's Board, I'm making an executive decision to _temporarily_ delay the start of voting period, in order to give the Election Committee time to consider their decision. Dear openSUSE admins, please make sure no actions are made to start the voting on Apr 2 unless you hear otherwise from the Election Commitee. This pause is expected to last _no longer_ than it takes for the Election Committee to decide what to do. This pause therefore may be meaningless if the Committee decide to before Apr 2. But as Kostas has pointed out, it's Easter, and the chance of that is pretty slim. The Election Committee should feel absolutely free to decide as they see fit. I will wholly and utterly support whatever decision they make in either direction. They've been entrusted to run these elections. This exceptional executive decision on my part should not be seen as anything other than an administrative necessity to give them a little more time to consider this matter. But I believe there is a valid dispute that needs to be considered, and due to the public holiday this exceptional decision needs to be made to give the committee the time they need to decide. Best Regards, Richard Brown -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Actually, late yesterday I was considering making a similar request, so here it is: I would like to see the Elections put off to the First of May. I would like the Membership Eligibility (not Candidacy, we have plenty of good Candidates running, but for Voting Eligibility) re-opened for 2 more weeks, and to have that Prominently Communicated in all the openSUSE channels: IRC, Forums, Mailing Lists, News. I would like the Elections and Campaigns also Prominently Communicated in all channels. Then, we could have more thorough Community input into this Board Election. As for who wins, even though I hope I make it and look forward to the opportunity to serve, I really am not that concerned. If I do not make it, the people who do will be very good choices for the Board, in my view. -- -Gerry Makaro openSUSE Member openSUSE Forum Moderator openSUSE Contributor aka Fraser_Bell on the Forums, OBS, IRC, and mail at openSUSE.org Fraser-Bell on Github -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

2018-03-29 21:00 GMT+02:00 Kostas Koudaras :

Dear Ana I admire your passion on doing things right(I really do), but there are a few things that you do not consider or know so here lies the explanation you asked on my behalf. 2nd for sure and I do not remember about the 3rd are there since the days both me and Chuck were at the (so called back then) marketing team that put them there, the reason why none of them ever happened is because of the different time zones and candidates schedules which were never so far got aligned. I read the mails you candidates sent the last couple days and you stepped on to those same issues. Now what really heart my feelings is that tomorrow is not a public holiday for many of us, actually for me as an Orthodox is the weekend the elections end and instead of spending Sunday with my family I will be spending time for the election results and I am not nagging as it is 100% my choice because that was the only way I could find to help the project. Also not all volunteers are volunteers only onworking hours(the opposite I would say as many are doing it on their free time, on weekends etc) so for me that is not an issue and it is unfair to put yourself in that position. As stated by Knurpht ,at the end of the day voters consider contributions not campaigns. The campaign is there to make clearer to the voters a bit more about your vision for where you want the project to go if you get elected, at least this is how I see it. Long story short my opinion on the matter you raise as an election committee member is that things stay as are because I think that this is the best for the elections. If Chuck or the board think otherwise then we should talk about it but I value that this should be done the next hours so that things have a change to go smooth. Just to be fair you are 100% right on theory and I really believe that if me and Chuck had more time available maybe we would have done a better job at it but we were the only who even volunteered for it and this is the best we can do under the circumstances. You can agree or not but all of the above are my personal opinion. Best regards Kostas

Hi Kostas, Although the elections have already been postponed, I think you have got offended by my email and I want to answer to apology and explain myself. I didn't pretend to offend you, neither to blame you or anybody else. I know that you are doing this voluntarily and it is really appreciated. I wouldn't like someone complaining about that I should invest more time or effort on something I do voluntarily, and because of that this was not my intention with you at all. I really apology if that it is what it seemed. Regarding the public holiday, I mentioned it only thinking that it is not maybe the best idea to organise the Q&A session on a date where many people won't join. My comment has really nothing to do with religion and I actually hadn't mind to do things on that day. I do many things in openSUSE in my free time, including the board stuff, and you are right that many times is easier to find time for it at the weekends or public holidays. It was anyway not a good idea to mention the public holiday as the problem was that we planned it with too less time and not the one day public holiday. You are also right that there are things that I don't know and that why I sent you an email one week ago asking about the Q&A session. Again, I am not trying to blame you, I understand you didn't have time to answer. The reason you give me now about the different time zones sounds reasonable to me, but we haven't even tried to find a slot that works for all of as. It may be that we find one ;). If it is imposible to find a slot, we could look for an alternative (such as allowing people to send question for the candidates somewhere) or just explain the reasons why it was not done. Sorry again for anything I wrote that you felt offended with and thanks for the extra campaign time. Regards, Ana -- Ana María Martínez Gómez http://anamaria.martinezgomez.name -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org