On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 9:08 AM, Sean Dague <s...@dague.net> wrote:
> On 10/03/2016 12:46 PM, Edward Leafe wrote: > <snip> > > We are fortunate in that all of the candidates are exceptionally > well-qualified, and those elected have put in excellent service while on > the TC. But one thing I'm afraid of is that we tend to get into a situation > where groupthink [0] is very likely. There are many excellent candidates > running in every election, but it is rare for someone who hasn't been a PTL > of a large project, and thus very visible, has been selected. Is this > really the best approach? > > > > I wrote a blog post about implicit bias [1], and in that post used the > example of blind auditions for musical orchestras radically changing the > selection results. Before the introduction of blind auditions, men > overwhelmingly comprised orchestras, but once the people judging the > auditions had no clue as to whether the musician was male or female, women > began to be selected much more in proportion to their numbers in the > audition pools. So I'd like to propose something for the next election: > have candidates self-nominate as in the past, but instead of writing a big > candidacy letter, just state their interest in serving. 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. The > nomination period can be much, much shorter, and then followed by a week of > campaigning (the part that's really missing in the current process). > Candidates will post their thoughts and positions, and respond to questions > from people, and this is how the voters will know who best represents what > they want to see in their TC. > > The comparison to orchestra auditions was brought up a couple of cycles > ago as well. But I think it's a bad comparison. > > In the listed example the job being asked of people was performing their > instrument, and it turns out that lots of things not having to do with > performing their instrument were biasing the results. It was possible to > remove the irrelevant parts. > > What is the job being asked of a TC member? To put the best interests of > OpenStack at heart. To be effective in working with a diverse set of > folks in our community to get things done. To find areas of friction and > remove them. To help set an overall direction for the project that the > community accepts and moves forward with. > > Writing a good candidacy email isn't really a good representation of > those abilities. It's the measure of writing a good candidacy email, in > english. > > I hope that when voters vote in the election they are taking the > reputations of the individuals into account. That they look at the work > they did across all of OpenStack, the hundreds / thousands of individual > actions in the community that the person made. How they got to consensus > on items. What efforts they were able to get folks to rally around and > move forward. Where they get stuck, and how they dig out of being stuck. > When they ask for help. When they admit they are out of their element. > How they help new folks in our community. How they work with long timers. > > That aggregate reputation is much more indicative of their > successfulness as a member of the TC to help OpenStack than the > candidate email. It's easy to dismiss it as a popularity contest, but I > don't think it is. This is about evaluating the plausible promise that > individuals put forward. Not just the ideas they have, but how likely > they are to be able to bring them to fruition. > > -Sean > > -- > Sean Dague > http://dague.net > __________________________________________________________________________ > 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 > Well said Sean!
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