[Ubuntu-US-CA] Asking For Opinion: Leadership Appointment Process

[David Wondelry ~DarkwingDuck~]

On 03/09/2010 02:31 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> -1. While I'm glad that we've gotten to the point that we can sanely
> have this discussion, I disagree with Jono's proposal for similar
> reasons to David and Jack:
> 
> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:24 AM, David Wondelry ~DarkwingDuck~
> <ubuntu at darkwingduck.org> wrote:
>> This is why I feel this course of action is like a very small band-aid
>> to a larger problem. What should be done is a set of bylaws on how to
>> deal with issues, leadership and how to conduct business. Changing
>> leaders will not solve this issue.
> 
> This proposal does little to address the root issues this team has,
> and opens us up to some huge possible pitfalls:
> 
> A) It does not define what the responsibilities of the team leader
> are, how decisions are made within the team, or what should happen if
> the team leader has a conflict of interest and thus can't participate
> in a decision.
> 
> B) It does not describe desperately-needed processes for dispute
> resolution. This team has issues that have been unresolved for...
> what, a year now?... because we do not have anything in place to look
> at them and make a final decision. Disputes are going to happen.
> Sometimes, they'll involve the team's leader. Even if you rotate the
> team's leader, there are very few people on this team that I've never
> heard disagree with someone, and they probably would once given the
> stress of power ;)
> 
> C) This team does not have a defined membership population. In
> Ubuntu-in-general, the people who get to vote for stuff are Ubuntu
> Members. They have to go through a process to get to be one. It's thus
> difficult for someone to manipulate Ubuntu elections by ballot
> stuffing or getting their friends (who don't do anything LoCo-related)
> to sign up and vote the way they want, or create multiple accounts,
> or... yeah, you get the idea.
> 
> In the LoCo, the only barrier to participation that I can think of is
> that the Launchpad group requires approval to get into, which
> currently (as I understand it; this isn't written down formally afaik)
> consists of me, Neal, or Nathan asking 1) Does your account profile
> consist of spam links to foreign drug sites?, 2) Does it look like
> you're just joining teams to collect shiny group icons? Not exactly a
> high barrier to entry. There is nothing saying who does and does not
> have enough team contribution or team association to be able to vote.
> Saying "everyone" is not an acceptable solution, because as I've said,
> it leaves us wide open to abuse.
> 
> This is an issue in other elections, like the Ubuntu IRC Council
> election that happened recently. In that case, leaders were picked by
> the Community Council, not voted on by the general IRC population.
> That is, as far as I'm aware, the regular way to deal with this
> situation in Ubuntu. I'm not necessarily saying it's a good idea in
> this case, but it (and the issues I raised above) deserve
> consideration.
> 
> D) Voting once a year would likely *increase*, rather than decrease,
> the politics and other stupidity that happens on a regular basis on
> this team. There's enough bickering already without adding the
> additional motive of "If I win this small victory, I'll look better
> next year when I try for leadership!".
> 
> I was going to spend longer thinking about this, but the large number
> of +1 convinced me that I should probably not postpone it so the
> people who don't spend absurd amounts of time thinking about things
> like this wouldn't get swept up in the positiveness. Now that I check
> my email this morning, I see others have already broken the trend for
> me, but anyway :)
> 
> As for what others have said already:
> 
> Akkana:
> I have problems figuring that mapping out too, actually. I generally
> look for their Launchpad page (which often has IRC nick and realname),
> or ask in PM, apologizing for my bad memory. If that's too direct,
> feel free to PM me (rww) if I'm around and we can try to figure it out
> together.
> 
> In general, it might be a good idea if people replying to this thread
> put their IRC nicks (if they have one) by their names at the bottom of
> the email.
> 
> I agree that this process is confusing, but feel it reflects the
> confusing nature of the problems in the team. I think you hit upon one
> of the reasons we urgently need to resolve these problems: the
> complexity of working within the existing team is likely turning away
> newcomers to the team.
> 
> David:
> I disagree with your characterization of the issues; I don't think
> it's a NorCal-SoCal split so much as a difference in individual
> opinions. I do, however, agree with your assertion that we need bylaws
> to deal with issues, and that simply changing leaders will not solve
> our problems.
> 
> Jack:
> I agree with you that a set of bylaws would go a long way towards
> fixing the problems I outlined above. I agree with most of your
> proposal, though as I mentioned above, I have reservations about using
> Launchpad membership as a definition of who is eligible to vote. I
> also dislike the focus on peoples' regions, as it would tend to
> further the image that we have North California vs. South California
> battles.
> 
> </replies>
> 
> Thanks for the replies thusfar, and for the time people are spending
> reading, thinking, and writing about these issues. I hope this thread
> continues to be a reasoned discussion of the issues involved.
> 
> ~ Robert Wall (rww)
> 

Okay, my references to nor-cal so-cal was an example of what I ment when
I said differences of philosophy. No matter who the leader is the root
problems will remain. I am a product of both Nor-Cal and So-Cal so, the
geography has nothing to do with it. I know that it feels that way at times.

The main point is Neal isn't doing anything wrong. His leadership style
is just that. His. Without guidance his word goes. That could be one of
the root causes of our problems. It goes deeper then just who the leader
is. That is what our focus should be not, change the leader every year.
As Robert said above it would bring MORE politics into the situation.

Hope this clears the Nor-Cal vs So-Cal comment up a bit.

DW