Re: Re-thinking Debian membership
Aurelien Jarno wrote: Ana Guerrero a écrit : [...] * Membership ends 24 months after they're given, or after the latest participation in a vote arranged by the project's Secretary. Members may retire themselves earlier, of course. No, please, voting should be voluntary. On one side I understand that you don't want make voting mandatory, but I really like the idea of: - activity = you keep your membership - inactivity = you lose your membership Maybe we could find another way to define activity, like (upload || vote || svn commit || ...), which retrigger some time of memberships. Voting is both a right and a responsibility of members in any kind of democracy. How can it be a responsibility if people can simply not bother to vote, with no penalty? Mandatory voting has some big advantages that many people probably aren't aware of, having not experienced it (I happen to live in one of the few countries where voting for governments is mandatory, so I am aware of the advantages). The first advantage is that people tend to consider voting as their responsibility. It means they engage with and take more responsibility for the entire government process. If something is wrong they are more likely to feel responsible for that and to want to fix it, rather than whinging about it without doing anything, because it's not my fault, I didn't vote. The second advantage is that when voter turnout is nearly 100% (always some people are sick or whatever), the result reflects the viewpoint of nearly the entire population. This means that you aren't always just voting on the issues that polarise the community, and the voters aren't only the people who feel so strongly about those issues that they turn out to vote. It results in more moderate, less extreme politics, in general, and less dramatic changes when governments change. One only has to compare politics in the US and in Australia to see this effect in action. Given the low turnout for most Debian elections, I believe that making voting mandatory could only be a healthy thing for Debian. In this case, the penalty would be very low, since there are usually several votes in a year, and skipping one wouldn't affect a person's membership in the democracy. However skipping several would. I think using this as a measure of involvement in and commitment to Debian would be a very sensible thing. Helen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
the relative scale of disasters
Don't the major world events this last week just put things like SSH insecurities into perspective as being just not that big of a deal... I hope that any DDs or other Debian contributers in Sichuan Province or Burma (I guess the former is more likely), and their families, are safe and well. I am sure that many Debian people would join me in offering condolences to those who have lost loved ones and sympathy to those who are worried about family and friends affected by these natural disasters. Helen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
Jorgen Schaefer wrote: Helen Faulkner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It seems to me that we are already in a situation where only the people who are really interested in, or informed about, a particular question are voting on it. And that's bad because ...? Oh, I wasn't suggesting it was bad. I think it's good. I think we'd see the same behaviour if non-DD contributors were allowed to vote. They would vote on the things they know something about and ignore the things they don't know about. The overal effect would be to increase the number of informed people voting and to get the viewpoints of people who are contributing to Debian in non-maintainer ways, which I think would be entirely positive. Helen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
Hi, Kevin Mark wrote: On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 02:55:37AM -0400, Kevin Mark wrote: snip It just dawned upon me that it would be great to have unofficial votes by non-debian-developers as a way to gage the broader debian communites reponse to things. If debian is committed to its end users, a vote which shows their views would be a way to gage it. I am aware that there are things that should not be designed by a community where techical or security decisions are concerned but it would be a great feedback tool to see if folks think that debian is moving in a good directions. Actually, I think that's a really interesting idea. I wonder what the difference would be in the voting choices of Debian developers compared with Debian contributers who aren't developers, compared with Debian users. I guess that if the first two categories of people were voting in the same ways, one could claim that the voting system is working, in that the vote is representing the views of those who work on Debian. (What level of importance we should place on the collective viewpoint of those who use Debian but don't contribute to it, for things like the DPL elections, is also an interesting question). Would it be technically feasible to set up a parallel voting process for non-developers, to get an idea of to what extent the DD vote matches the wider vote? How would we ensure, within reason, that people couldn't rig the system too badly? Helen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
Wouter Verhelst wrote: [...] Put differently, here are a number of questions you should answer for this to have merit: * What should a non-DD contributor be doing before we consider him/her eligible to vote? Well, presumably something that is equivalent (in effort? in some kind of measurable results?) to the minimal contribution made by someone who is a DD. Which, in some cases, is pretty minimal, as I understand it. * How should we link their key to their identity, so that we *know* a given key belongs to some non-DD contributor? For DDs, we know because we've seen their uploads. For contributors, we don't see their uploads, so we can only know through key signing, which is a weaker criterion (unless they sign their contributions with their GPG key). I don't have any particular opinions about this. Surely if someone in the project has signed their key (or maybe more than one person?), we know who they are (at least as well as we know who anyone else in the project is) * Should non-DD contributors be allowed to vote on just about anything? If not, what types of votes should they be allowed to vote on, and what types of votes should they not be allowed to vote on? Make this a clear rule, so that you can apply it to any possible and impossible thing we might have an idea about voting on. Maybe a better question is would non-DD contributors vote on things that they don't understand? It seems to me that we are already in a situation where only the people who are really interested in, or informed about, a particular question are voting on it. That's why we have such low voting rates. It seems likely to me that people who don't know about something and who can't be bothered informing themselves won't bother vote anyway. Maybe we should include in the voting process a statement, to be signed with the person's key, that goes something like I assert that I have read the relevant background on this issue and am able to make an informed decision for the good of the Debian Project? After all, everyone here is interested in the good of Debian. * Should non-DD contributors be allowed to propose General Resolutions? Why not? * Should non-DD contributors be allowed to nominate themselves as DPL? Why not? Would someone who isn't maintaining a package but who is contributing in other significant ways, enough to think they have a chance of being elected, be unsuitable for the essentially non-technical role of DPL anyway? What would be required, short of joining the web of trust? Hope that answers it, I think it raises more questions. But this is a good discussion to have, I think. Helen signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Debian Women Software Freedom Day activities
Simon Richter wrote: Hi, Helen Faulkner wrote: 1) [...] #debian-women-new on oftc [...] 3) [...] #debian-bugs channel on freenode [...] Is it really a good idea to have these on separate networks? I think that some one the new people might be interested in lurking at a BSP, and this would make it somehow difficult for them as even I as a regular IRC user have problems when connecting to multiple networks at once, so I'd expect more problems to arise for people who haven't been IRCing the last 10 years. Yes, I know it's a problem. The main #debian-women channel is on oftc, which makes oftc the best choice for #debian-women-new, and I believe that #debian-bugs on freenode is the usual bugsquashing channel. Hence the problem. I hope that anyone really interested in bugsquashing will be able to deal with the different networks, or switch to an IRC client that makes it easier, or ask somewhere to find out. Simon (who just forwarded that email) Thanks for forwarding it! (presumably to someone who is potentially interested) Helen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian Women Software Freedom Day activities
Steve Langasek wrote: Well, a formal announcement of the BSP is pending; and the rule on BSPs is that the organizer gets to pick where it happens, so it's not too late to move that to OFTC if it's agreed that's a better option. It seems this has been done. The Debian Women bugsquashing will be held in #debian-bugs on oftc [1]. Helen 1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/09/msg4.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Debian Women Software Freedom Day activities
(Apologies to those who receive this multiple times - I wanted it to reach a wide audience. Replies only to -project please, unless there is something specific to another list that is more appropriate to discuss there.) Hi everyone, The Debian Women project is celebrating Software Freedom Day [1] on Saturday 10th September (yes, that's soon!) by running some online activities to promote the involvement of women in Debian. Please tell female friends, relatives and colleagues about our activities and encourage them to join us if they are interested. In brief, we are going to be 1) Running an IRC channel for people who are new to Debian Women (and possibly new to IRC) to come and say hello and meet some of the Debian Women regulars. This will be friendly and non-technical in nature. The channel is #debian-women-new on oftc, and will be operating for 24 hours on 10th September GMT. For more details see the DW mailing list thread [2]. 2) Running a DW help day. This will be for people who may or may not be involved in Debian/DW and want help with things like packaging and submitting bugs or who have technical problems that they want to solve. 3) Running a DW bug-squashing party. This will also be technical in nature and its aim is to find bugs and squash them. This effort will be based in the #debian-bugs channel on freenode. See the DW mailing list [3] over the next couple of days for more details. Helen 1. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/ 2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-women/2005/09/msg3.html signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
IRC debate feedback
Hi All, Having just run the 2005 DPL IRC debate (and a stressful experience it was too), Martin Krafft and I would like to get feedback on what people thought of the debate and how it was run. Suggestions for future debates will be very welcome, not that I am planning to volunteer to do that again ;) I am sure that whoever does it in the future can learn from our successes and mistakes. Logs of the debate channels have already been posted by some people (thanks). The logs of all four channels will also be posted to the debian-vote pages [1] soon. An edited log of the #debian-dpl-debate channel will also be posted (this will preserve all questions and answers but will omit some of the disorganisation, to make it easier to read). Thanks again to everyone who helped make the debate work :) Helen (Posted to debian-vote to hopefully reach the IRC debate audience, but please follow up with feedback on the running of the debate to debian-project, because I think this is off-topic for the actual 2005 vote.) 1. http://www.debian.org/vote/ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: IRC debate feedback
Marc Haber wrote: On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 01:44:45PM +0100, Adrian von Bidder wrote: [...] I haven't looked at any earlier IRC DPL candidate debates, so I can't compare if this was better or worse. Earler debates may have been easier due to the lower number of participants. I strongly suspect that is true. If we hope to have a wide field of candidates in future elections (and I personally think that having a variety of candidates is a good thing), we need to work out how to run a debate with that many people involved in the most effective way possible. The earlier debates that I've read [1][2][3], used variations on the format of the first half of the 2005 debate. Helen. 1. http://www.debian.org/vote/2000/leadership_debate/ 2. http://raw.no/debian/debian-debate.html 3. http://www.debian.org/vote/2003/dpl-debate.log signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates
From: Craig Sanders meekness isn't about bullying. it's (partially) about perceiving bullying whether it's really there or not. it is a disability which varies in severity from being mildly shy to being socially crippled..it is not the fault, or responsibility, of non-meek people, any more than fully-abled people are at fault for the disabled. and just as you don't cure quadraplegia by breaking the arms and legs of healthy people, you don't cure meekness by making healthy people fearful timid. Nice analogy. It is indeed not the fault of able-bodied people that some people have quadraplegia. If, however, a group finds that they have a disproportionately low representation of quadraplegics involved, it's possible that enquiry will reveal a barrier to involvement that effects people with quadreplegia more than able-bodied people. Maybe there are stairs at the entry to the building. Are you really suggesting that the able-bodied community should not at least attempt to lower that access barrier by providing a wheelchair-ramp? I guess it depends on what kind of community you wish it to be, and how much you value the participation of those who are effectively denied entry by a barrier that is insignificant to you personally. Just because some people have difficulty understanding that there are barriers that make participation in things like the debian community more difficult (on average) for women than men, doesn't mean the barriers don't exist. Social and cultural barriers are more difficult to see than physical barriers - that much is clear from some of the comments on this thread alone. They are also more difficult to lower. It comes down to what the community as a whole wants to do. For the record, I'm not a particularly meek person :) But whether I am or not is beside the point. The point is that barriers exist to participation in debian by women, and that as a result *on average* a women is less likely to participate in debian than a man with the same level of skill. If the debian community wish to have greater partipation from women, maybe they need to work out how to reduce the overt barriers (eg sexist comments, harassment etc), and provide ramps to lower the effect of the more subtle barriers (eg lack of confidence). For the record, I make no particular assumptions about the way any specific debian person will behave towards me. However if I was inclined to do so, some of the postings on this thread would make me assume, more strongly than I would have before, that debian guys are likely to be either condescending or sexist. I have learned something through this experience! Isn't it lucky that I don't really go for making such assumptions ;) For the record all my more general statements apply to my understanding of the position of the *average* woman. There are of course people who don't fit that average. (Actually I'm one of them, but that doesn't mean I don't experience enough of the same feelings to understand the problems people have to deal with.) For the record, I am not trying to blame the debian community for the existence of barriers to women in this context. That would be like blaming able-bodied people because some people have disabilities, and anyway the causes of the problem go much wider than the debian community. However I do believe that if that community wishes to encourage greater particpation by women, making an effort to lower the subtle barriers would help. It's clear, from many of the posts to this thread, that lots of you are certainly willing to try that. How much harm can it do to make the effort?? Helen-the-unmeek :)
