Re: "elections" without voting

On 2014-05-06 11:01, Larry Masinter wrote:
> I fundamentally disagree with Brian Kardell; I don't think that voting and electioneering are healthy and positive ways of filling positions for AB and TAG.
>
> These are voluntary, unpaid, advisory positions with no actual authority other than the validity of the advice they provide.
> Electioneering is counter-productive, reducing people to trading slogans, and discouraging otherwise qualified individuals from subjecting themselves to the process.

good description of the role - that's good context for what these 
elections are about.

>
> I think the solution is to employ some other process than voting for selection.
>
> The IETF chooses its volunteer officials (Area Directors, IAB)  using a Nominating Committee https://www.ietf.org/nomcom/index.html
> who evaluate candidates confidentially against well-published criteria, with personal interviews, (confidential) comments, review of candidates answers to a questionnaire...
>
> "Details of the selection and operation of the Nomcom can be found in RFCs 3777, 3797, 5078, 5633, 5680, and 6859. Four of those RFCs (3777, 5633, 5680 and 6859) comprise BCP 10."
>
> NomCom voting members are chosen at random among volunteers (subject to some attendance/participation qualifications).
> The NomCom's selections are confirmed (Or not) by a confirming body.
>
> W3C should consider adopting something like this for TAG and AB selection, e.g., select NomCom voting members through random selection of volunteers from AC members or their designees and active working group participants. The AC can then act as 'confirming body'.

A way to do something similar is have an election where half of the 
seats are filled by whatever election process and the rest are chosen 
randomly from the candidates who get a majority of yes votes for 
including in the random part of the election.  (e.g. rank candidates you 
like and vote no on those you don't want in the random part).

The reason for an election part is so the AC can choose some people who 
they want to be in the group providing advice.  The random part is to 
ensure other voices are heard.




>
> You might wind up with more candidates qualified to manage the responsibilities of TAG and AB, and reduce the politicking.
>
> Where you might actually want politics and so forth is in choosing organizational priorities for resources, but neither TAG nor AB manage W3C's resource allocation.
>
> Larry
> --
> http://larry.masinter.net

Received on Tuesday, 6 May 2014 19:10:55 UTC