On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 10:13:45AM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote: > (Elaborating on the context a bit given the discussion spread over some > time -- two options have been proposed: > - expire the 2 most senior members > - expire the 2-R most senior members, with R the number of resignations > over the last 12 months)
ACK. For reference this was discussed mostly in [1,2], unfortunately with not too many people participating. My draft is based on the apparent potential consensus (between me and AJ, as the main participants in the discussion). It is indeed an important point, so thanks for re-raising it. [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2014/11/msg00041.html [2]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2014/11/msg00098.html That said, I now am convinced that "2" (without "salvaging" by expiries of non-senior members) is a better model than "2-R". I've pondered your arguments below, but I don't find them convincing. Specifically, > What we want to encourage is, I think, a sane and healthy turnover in > the TC. Ideally, this would happen automatically: members would just > resign when they feel that bringing fresh manpower is profitable to > the TC overall. However, there's a number of social reasons why this > doesn't work so well. Agreed. > Now, let's assume that I'm a member of the TC, not among the two most > senior members, and that I feel a bit exhausted about that, not really > motivated, and not really up to the task anymore. Ideally, I should be > encouraged to resign. > With the 'strictly 2' schema, I have an additional incentive NOT to > resign: if I resign, I cause 3 renewals instead of 2, which might weaken > the TC a bit too much. This is true only insofar a temporary reduction in CTTE membership actually weakens the CTTE. I don't think that's the case. Formally, the Constitution suggests ranges in which the CTTE is somehow considered to be properly functional; outside those ranges, there is no quality judgement associate to CTTE size. More generally in management terms, larger boards are not necessarily "better" than smaller ones (in fact, in the specific case of efficiency, size is usually considered to be _negatively_ correlated with it, due to the communication overhead). But more importantly, we are talking here about *temporary* reductions in CTTE size, with a time window that might be as small as 0. The CTTE and the DPL will know in advance that expiries are upcoming, and can plan new appointments accordingly, potentially doing appointments as early as January 2nd. If it is known that someone will step in (no matter whether you know who that person will be or not), then the negative incentive you mention disappears. > With the '2-R' schema, I have an additional incentive to resign: if I > resign, I 'save' someone else more senior than me from getting expired. > (And given I'm not so active anymore, instead of weakening the TC further, > my resignation might even reinforce the TC). It seems to me that you've an underlying assumption here that resignation of inactive members are more important than resignation of senior members. For me they are exactly on the same level, so I don't see why one should be technically favored over the other. Also if there are no incentives against resigning (which I maintain as per my answer to your other argument) I do expect inactive members to resign no matter whether they are senior or not. And if they do not want to, then it is much better to have a strict term limit rule, rather than one allowing for exceptions. (It is worth noting here that I'm thinking about this master in fully abstract terms, I do not have any specific present, past, or future members of the CTTE in mind. Nor I know offhand the current seniority ranking.) > The '2-R' schema could even result in an internal TC discussion: "OK, > the Project wants us to change two members. Are there people that feel > like resigning now? Or should we just fallback to the default of expiring > the two most senior members?" > I think that if this happened, it would be very healthy for the TC. I agree that this would most certainly happen. But my judgement on it is that it would be a *bad* thing, not a good one. In fact, I would see that as a tactical behavior on the part of the CTTE to work around an agreed upon judgement on the fact that turn-over is good, and that remaining in charge too long is bad. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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