Excerpts from Clay Gerrard's message of 2016-10-03 10:18:43 -0700: > On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 9:46 AM, Edward Leafe <e...@leafe.com> wrote: > > > After the nominations close, the election officials will assign each > > candidate a non-identifying label, such as a random number, and those > > officials will be the only ones who know which candidate is associated with > > which number. > > > I'm really uneasy about this suggestion. Especially when it comes to > re-election, for the purposes of accountability I think it's really > important that voters be able to identify the candidates. For some people > there's a difference in what they say and what they end up doing when left > calling shots from the bubble for too long. > > As far as the other stuff... idk if familiarity == bias. I'm sure lots of > occasions people vote for people they know because they *trust* them; but I > don't think that's bias? I think a more common problem is when people vote > for a *name* they recognize without really knowing that person or what > they're about. Or perhaps just as bad - *not* voting because they realize > they have on context to consider these candidates beyond name familiarity > and an (optional) email. > > I think a campaign period, and especially some effort [1] to have > candidates verbalize their viewpoints on topics that matter to the > constituency could go a long way towards giving people some more context > beyond "i think this name looks familiar; I don't really recognize this > name"
I agree, on both counts. When I vote, I consider the positions a candidate takes, the ideas they propose, and -- equally importantly -- their track record of actually getting things done. Hiding the candidate's identity makes it impossible to evaluate that track record and have a sense of whether they're likely to make any real progress on their ideas. In the past we experimented with a few formal questions being posed to all candidates. I appreciate the fact that Gordon took the initiative and started a less formal thread on his own this time. I hope that everyone feels able to do the same, whether they have questions for specific candidates or for the entire slate. I don't want to speak for everyone else, but my self-nomination email is only intended as a snapshot or summary of my thoughts on a few issues that I see as important. If I didn't mention a topic, it's not necessarily due to lack of interest. I'll be happy to respond to questions here on the list. Doug __________________________________________________________________________ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev