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> On June 3, 2014, I participated in the tc meeting and presented a report
> of the current status of election participation[0]. One of the items for
> discussion was increasing the percentage of active technical
> contributors who participate in the tc election. Several suggestions
> arose, some of which were acted upon, including posting blog entries to
> the openstack.org namespace to inform the electorate of tc
> activities[1]. Thanks to Anne, Russell and Thierry for composing and
> posting their blog entries. Thierry also blogged his analysis of the
> April election[2].
> 
> I have a concern to which I would like to draw your attention and
> hopefully get your feedback and guidance. At the same June 3 meeting an
> agreement was reached, Action Item #4 in [0], "election officials to
> call for questions at the same time they call for  self-nominations, and
> curate a list of questions candidates will answer". I'm going to have to
> take liberties with the timing of that in order for Tristan and I to
> have time to curate and post questions for the candidates to have time
> to compose answers but the spirit is plain, to open a call for questions
> for tc candidates.
>
> Here is my concern, this potentially has the outcome of being divisive.
> Now at the time the idea was suggested and I did agree with the spirit
> of it (to better inform the electorate of the purpose of the tc as well
> as introduce them to candidates they may not know) I felt that the
> elements that bring us together were strong enough to weather a bit of
> divisiveness for the sake of trying a new direction to get our
> participation percentage up. Now I hesitate. Lately I have been more
> aware of those elements that separate us or try to draw us apart moreso
> than those qualities I have felt for so long in that they bring us
> together. My concern is that this well intended exercise may have
> negative consequences and I wanted to share my perspective with you
> prior to taking action.
> 
> If I am to open a call for questions I would have to do it tomorrow,
> Friday Sept. 5, in order to have the questions open for a week and then
> give Tristan and myself a week to curate a list and have them posted
> with 2 weeks prior to the tc nomination period. A draft timetable
> (without specific timestamps, just days) follows:
> Sept. 5 - 11 - call for questions
> Sept. 12 - 18 - election officials curate submitted questions
> Sept. 19 - 25 (Friday-Thursday) PTL Nominations Open - questions for TC
> candidates posted Sept. 19
> Sept. 26 - Oct. 2 (Friday - Thursday) PTL Election
> Oct. 3 - 9 (Friday - Thursday) TC Nominations Open - TC candidate
> questions due end of day Oct. 9
> Oct. 10 - 16 (Friday - Thursday) TC Election - TC candidate question
> responses posted Oct. 10
> This doesn't leave a lot of time for discussion and direction and I am
> sorry for that, I had hoped I would feel a clear direction on this
> without having to bother everyone during feature freeze week and I just
> don't.
> 
> There is something else to consider.
> 
> Joe has recently posted a thread[3] to solicit ideas (tc members are
> identified, but candidates I think would be welcome too) to identify
> areas where we agree. Personally I think this is a direction which has a
> greater chance of being a collaborative discussion and display of
> co-operation which I think the community needs, as opposed to something
> that could feel divisive. The email identifies September 10 as the
> cutoff for ideas, followed by discussion, which I really think is an
> exercise that deserves focus. It is possible that the objective for
> which the tc candidate questions were designed to achieve, greater
> awareness of the role of the tc and participation in the tc election,
> could be achieved by Joe's initiative.
> 
> I welcome your thoughts.

Thanks for raising this Anita, my initial thought would be ...

<note>
Not intending to cast aspersions in any way at any existing or
future officials (all of whom I'm sure have the utmost integrity).
</note>

IMO the role of election official is best served if it's seen
as being completely "above the fray" in terms of the campaign
issues of the day.

In that sense, I'd be wary of too direct an involvement by the
officials in the selection/curation of questions to put to the
candidates, lest this is seen to stray a bit too much into the
"cut & thrust" of debate during the campaign.

Just my $0.02 ...

OTOH that recent ML thread from Joe doesn't explicitly seek to
frame debate around the TC election either. Personally I'm not
really sure an election debate needs such explicit framing with
a thread weeks in advance of voting, but if it does, then that
should be clearly signaled.

Cheers,
Eoghan

> Thank you,
> Anita.
> 
> References:
> [0] http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/tc/2014/tc.2014-06-03-20.03.html
> [1] http://www.openstack.org/blog/category/governance/
> [2]
> http://fnords.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/analysis-of-april-2014-tc-election/
> [3]
> http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-September/044766.html
> 
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