Re: Disclosure and information proposal

On Thu, 05 Jun 2014 01:13:34 +0200, Brian Kardell <bkardell@gmail.com>  
wrote:

> Ok, spawning a new thread.  I am a pragmatist.  I think the best deal is
> the one you can actually reach

Indeed.

> For a candidate, it seems like they should have access to the AB list for
> the duration of the campaign.  It seems several people agreed to that.
>  Does anyone specifically oppose that idea?  Can we AB support or  
> rejection
> of that?

s/AC/AB/

This is not as straightforward as it seems.

The AC list is a place for the AC to transact its general business, most  
of which may not be about elections.

The people who nominate candidates are AC reps, and have the ability to  
give them access to the list, in several ways. They also have  
responsibility for respecting the purpose of the list, and its  
confidentiality (such as that is).

I'm not sure what needs to be changed, and I am not sure what should be  
changed. Note that this is in part because I (like Chris Wilson) don't see  
substantial amounts of campaigning for places on the AB/TAG as something  
that helps us in the long run.

(I stand by my statement that the single most important qualification I  
want to see is "will do work", followed by "will listen". I believe "has  
done lots of boring work" and "clearly listened" is a much better guide to  
that than any campaign message).

> It also seems that their own numbers should be available them privately
> upon request, several people voiced support for that.  Can we AB support  
> or rejection of that?

I would be happy to put that proposal, with the rider that the information  
is confidential - i.e. the candidate is not at liberty to further  
distribute it.

Does anyone object to that qualification?

> Note: I think that personally it would be nice if basic data (including
> this) could be available to them throughout the election as well... It
> might make things more competitive and stimulate participation.
>
> Can we send out a questionare and maybe even actively ask people a few
> questions about their participation?

It is certainly possible. As others have said, it is hard to get people  
who don't see the value of ticking a box to see the value of answering  
thoughtfully and carefully why not, although some will.

> I can create a google form and this could be completely anonymous data we
> could use to provide many of the answers we'd be scanning the data for or
> speculating on. Note that this can literally be done unofficially without
> the support of the AB by any 'reporter' - but it seems like something AB
> should support:
>    Do you vote never, sometimes, always?

W3C can extract this information relatively straightforwardly if someone  
on the Team has half a day spare. (That's likely to be 8pm-midnight,  
unless this is a formal request the Team accepts and assigns directly).

>  If you don't vote - why? Here's some possible
> answers and a space for you to provide your own.  Even a few questions
> submitted by a statistically significant number of members would be
> valuable information that could be used to help AB and the W3C improve.

Actually, I suspect even a statistically insignificant set of answers  
would be quite useful. As noted in the discussion on what data *not* to  
release, this is a fairly small community. Extrapolating from  
unrepresentative input is a lot of our work. Although having a reliable  
way to get significant data would be great, a self-selecting survey isn't  
statistically significant almost by definition.

If it turns out that there are voters and non-voters, bringing the next X%  
in exchange for whatever it is they are missing has some implications that  
we should consider carefully. If there are voters, sometimes voters, and  
non-voters, it is worth understanding whether there is value in working to  
make the sometimes voters into compulsive voters.

I'm not convinced either way, but I am convinced that while a reasonably  
high turnout is an indicator of good organisational health, working to  
boost that indicator, rather than have it emerge naturally, isn't a  
healthy practice.

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Thursday, 5 June 2014 16:53:43 UTC