Potential FESCo election policy changes

Project Discussion
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@bookwar opened a fesco ticket about improving the chances for “newcomers” to get elected to a FESCo seat: https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/3507 following up from discussion we had at last year’s Flock.

We discussed this proposal during yesterday’s FESCo meeting (meeting log - this topic starting at 17:51:33).

Some of us don’t like the proposed idea of reserving a seat for a “newcomer” since this might be viewed as a “consolation prize” or non-full / “junior seat”, and would rather increase turnover (and give better chances of getting elected to new people) by introducing a limit on the number of consecutive terms that FESCo members are allowed to serve.

We didn’t reach any conclusions, other than that it would be good to involve the community in this discussion (hence this post). :)

To summarize, there are currently two ideas for improving representation of “new” people on FESCo:

  1. Limit the number of consecutive terms that FESCo members are allowed to serve:
    Limiting FESCo membership to two consecutive terms (2 years as FESCo member) was the starting point for this discussion. This would result in at least a 6 month pause after 2 years. We also discussed possibly only applying this limit to the two (?) currently longest-serving FESCo members to avoid replacing too many FESCo members at the same time.
    This should improve the chances for people who have never been members of FESCo to win elections, since members with the most “name recognition” would only be allowed to run in a limited number of elections.

  2. Reserve one seat in every election for somebody who has never been elected to FESCo before:
    If implemented, this would result in one (after the first election with this rule in place), then two (after the second election) members of FESCo being first-time members. This might improve representation of “new faces”, but might mark them as the “junior members” who only got the seat because they’re “new”, potentially with limited chances at getting reelected to FESCo without this bonus.

During the discussion in yesterday’s meeting, the FESCo members present agreed with the goal in principle, but most would favor something like Idea 1 (limiting consecutive terms) over something like Approach 2 (reserving seat(s) for first-time members).

I hope this is a good summary of the discussion. If not, please correct me below.

If anyone has a better idea than 1. or 2., speak up :wink:

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I agree that it’s become too difficult to get elected to FESCo if you’re not already on FESCo. I don’t think winning a seat on FESCo for the first time should necessarily be easy, but it’s too hard currently. New candidates have only a small chance of success, and we should make it easier.

I’m not fond of term limits. Term limiting out our most experienced FESCo members is effectively saying we don’t want FESCo members to ever become too good at being FESCo members. FESCo members who keep winning reelection (such as yourself) are winning repeatedly because the community has confidence in them and is not looking for change. There’s nothing wrong with that.

So I prefer proposal 2. It’s likely to result in 5 experienced members and 2 rotating newbies. That’s OK. Nothing wrong with that. And you never know: perhaps the newer members will actually succeed at winning against more experienced members come reelection time, after having a year on FESCo to gain experience and build community trust.

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I’ve considered running for FESCo in the last couple elections, but once it was clear that most or all the incumbents were running for re-election in addition to other established names, I figured there wasn’t much of a chance to win anyway and so didn’t bother.

Would I be elected in a wide-open field? Who knows. :man_shrugging: But against a full slate of incumbents? No chance.

As for implementation, maybe say that the one or two most senior members whose seats are up cannot run for reelection for a certain number of elections (e.g. two elections/one year)?

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This is why the “Idea 1” is about limiting consecutive terms, not an absolute term limit. Nothing would stop a FESCo member from running again after their well-earned pause :wink:

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I’ve run for FESCO 4 times and lost 2 (technically 3, but I was still given a spot once because someone resigned their term early). I am in favor of having more newcomers in FESCO, and I understand that it’s not fun to run and lose and it can be hard to put yourself out there and risk embarrassment.

However, I don’t think we should change the voting rules. To me it defeats the purpose of having an election if we are going to change the rules to get the outcome that we want rather than the outcome that the voters want. In this case, you might as well just have FESCO itself choose the new members and drop the voting altogether.

For me, the best way to get more newcomers is to speak directly to the voters. Either by advocating for specific newcomers on the list or by providing more detailed information about the current makeup of FESCO and how long each person has served.

Ultimately, if the voters continue voting the same people into FESCO, they must be happy with the results, so why try to subvert the will of the voters in this case?

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Maybe if we, because of lack of a better word, expose that a nominee is new to FESCo, both in the interview and in the voting system, maybe with a question in the questionnaire and with a ‘Served terms’ tag in the voting system.

This is the ultimate goal, if after knowing that are new people, everyone keep voting for the good old members, nothing more to say.

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Option 1 sounds more inclusive and without positive discrimination. But it may impact continuity. There is a higher chance that most/all new FESCo members will be newcomers. I.e., you can have 2 consecutive years of the same people and then a new voting where everyone will be a newcomer.

Option 2 reduces this risk as it guarantees that every period at least one member will be replaced.

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I’m not fond of term limits. Term limiting out our most experienced FESCo members is effectively saying we don’t want FESCo members to ever become too good at being FESCo members. FESCo members who keep winning reelection (such as yourself) are winning repeatedly because the community has confidence in them and is not looking for change. There’s nothing wrong with that.

IMHO this is significantly under-estimating the built-in election advantage of “name recognition” that the existing members have, over anyone new whom wants to step forward. Further with elections in Fedora every 6 months, IMHO, there is a element of voter fatigue, which likely encourages some people to just vote for re-electing existing members rather than having to think about new candidates.

This shouldn’t be seen as a suggestion that existing members are bad at their job, just a way of mitigating the advantage that existing members have, to ensure we have a more realistic chance of bringing in new people & thus new ideas. If the term limit only applies to consecutive terms that means anyone who is doing an excellent job still has a decent chance of re-joining in a subsequent term after a very short sabbatical.

We also discussed possibly only applying this limit to the two (?) currently longest-serving FESCo members to avoid replacing too many FESCo members at the same time.

Yes, that helps with continuity of experience & knowledge, but we have to be a little careful not to undermine what I presume is the underlying goal of bringing in fresh faces with fresh ideas.

The downside with the term limits in general is that with the way we re-elect 50% of FESCO every 6 months, rather than bringing in new candidates, the long term candidates might get into a pattern of merely taking a 6 month break. IOW instead of the same folks standing for re-election every 12 months, we just get the same folks standing for re-election every 18 months after their sabbatical. We might not get any completely new members at all, as only the first election after this policy were enacted is liable to be a slightly more open field due to the disruption of the process change.

How about doing both (1) and (2) ?

Term limit with two of the longest members ineligible to be elected for 1 election cycle, combined with a rule that 1 of the vacant seats must be filled by someone who has never served before ?

Even with both a term limit & 1 required “newbie”, we still have a huge level of continuity in FESCO. 50% of seats aren’t up for re-election to begin with. Of the 50% of seats being elected, half of the existing members would not be subject to term limits, and another could still be a previously served member after their sabbatical.

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To me this has the same theoretical downsides as the explicit (2), but now with added risk that it might not help, and the added self-doubt that it maybe did.

If we agree that we want to help first-timers to overcome the initial barrier, I would have preferred the explicit policy, so that I can actually know that it worked.

I will add that I don’t see being a newbie and winning a “junior seat” as a big problem, unlike some of the FESCo members. I think it is an honest acceptance of the fact that Fedora Project and FESCo need new people.

Yes, you are new, yes we want you here because of that. And yes we will be glad to work with you. - This is the message behind that proposal.

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My main worry would be that there is a high chance that there would be not enough participants :slight_smile:

In the end, being on FESCo is quite a lot of work, and that type of work and amount of effort it needs is not well understood in advance, before you try it for at least one round.

Those folks who have been on FESCo for a while found some way to balance it with their regular jobs and life and so on. Newcomers may try to do it, but I fully expect that many of them will reevaluate their decision seeing what kind of work it actually is.

I think for the Fedora Project having more people exposed for at least one round of FESCo experience is a net benefit, because you learn so much about the project and the community there.

But I am a bit worried that by pushing the “resilient” folks out, we may damage the existing (rather fragile) balance.

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Exactly. If we’re afraid that new members won’t be able to serve properly then the project has already failed, as that’s a rationalization that implies jobs for life. With 9 members on FESCO, we have enough depth & breadth of experience that we should easily afford to 1 or 2 first-timers at a time.

I don’t like to see use of the term “junior seat”, as that has the negative implications that existing members actions/opinions will be more important than those of first timers. It is more the case that first timers may need some assistance from existing FESCO members to get up to speed with processes and they should be helped with any relevant knowledge transfer in this respect.

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True. But you will never find out if you do not invite them to your side of the table.

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I also don’t think that lack of candidates would be a problem. For the past few election cycles, there have always been almost double the number of candidates than the number of open seats.

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I do like the idea of reserving a seat for first-timers, but there’s an inherent problem in this: with every election, you empty your pool of first-timers, who might not have that great chances against the well established folks in the next election. And a few years down the line, we’ll have the same FESCO core and no first timer left.

I actually like this a bit more, it ensures that there is at least some circulation. It will not prevent the same people from running again and again, but it gives you a better shot.

I also thought of a “conditional first timer” rule, how about we reserve one or two seats for first timers, but only if they manage to get at least 50% (I just guessed that number, don’t nail me down on it) of the votes of a former FESCO member from the current election, who got the least amount of votes. Thereby, you give first timers a very good chance to get in, but we don’t “force it” and don’t have to scramble for workarounds when no first timers volunteer.

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I like proposal 1. In the steady state, we’ll require 1/4th more people to fill the seats, so the pool of people who are in fesco (on and off) is increased. Personally, as a long-serving member, I think taking a “sabbatical” every two years will be good for the people involved. And by forcing the rotation, we’ll make the group more volatile, making allowing different ideas and bringing new energy into the project.

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I am not in favor of term limits, especially if you trust the electors to “term limit” those who are not doing a good job representing their interests (and if we don’t trust the electors, then term limits are not the answer).

I am strongly opposed to carve outs for (group (any group)). Again, we should be able to trust the electors to make good decisions, and if they (in this example) believe that first-timers are important, then they should vote for that (and I would encourage first timers to make their first-timer status clear in their statements to the electors).

A third way (and I have been participants of a different organization for which this has happened twice now), was that an existing (board) member decided, on their own, they would not run for (re)election to make sure that the electors would have to actually make a choice (based on whatever choices the electors choose to make: first timers, (group), whatever).

FD: I try to be an informed voter for every election I participate in. I do a quick evaluation (for candidates that already are members) as to how they participated in recent decisions (especially those decisions that had nuances and some discussion), and their backgrounds, and for new candidates, their backgrounds, and past participation with the community. Sometimes the candidates I vote for end up being elected, and sometimes they don’t. All acceptable to me.

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I am enthusiastically in favor of increasing turn-over in democratically elected bodies, generally, but I think that the focus should be mobility rather than representation, so I don’t really like either of the original proposals.

Instead, I would suggest that elected positions should be encouraged (but not necessarily required) to mentor at least one project member who could reasonably be expected to advance into the elected role with the assistance of mentorship.

I would hope to see elected members have periodic one-on-one meetings with their mentee(s), in which they discussed some or all of: the work that the mentor has done recently as a function of the elected position, work that the mentee might undertake that would be useful to the project and demonstrate technical and social leadership, questions about the project or the mentor’s role that the mentee would like to learn more about, and feedback about challenges that the mentee has in the project (or challenges they hear about in the communities they participate in) and other opportunities for improvement, and (where applicable) how to present the mentee’s contributions and ideas in future applications for election.

I believe that term limits are probably not necessary in systems where elected members have confidence that there are other members who could competently fulfill their duties, and that elected systems should develop that confidence.

Fedora does a lot of technical stuff very well, but I think that a volunteer project is inherently social in nature, and it would be beneficial to focus on some of the social aspects of the project. Mentoring as a solution fits well with the “Friends” foundation of the project, and with existing documented mentoring practice.

Mentoring serves the specific purpose of getting newcomers into elected positions, and serves the broader goals of making the project more sustainable, and more attractive to newcomers.

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While this sounds nice in theory, it would also significantly increase the amount of time that potential future FESCo members could be expected to spend on their FESCo related duties - further disincentivising (is that a word?) people from running for the elections in the first place, thereby making things worse instead of better.

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Mentoring requires the amount of time that you decide to give it, and no more.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that elected members find an inexperienced user and train them, I’m suggesting that elected members periodically discuss their work with a peer. (And, again, I’m not suggesting a requirement for elected members, merely encouraging them to do so.)

There are a couple of statements in this thread and the fesco ticket that stand out to me: @bookwar mentioned “being on FESCo is quite a lot of work, and that type of work and amount of effort it needs is not well understood in advance”, @ngompa wrote (twice) “the first thing we should do is ask the community why they don’t step up in the first place”

Engaging one of your peers addresses those concerns by actively presenting a description of the work to someone who might reasonably conclude that they could do it… it gives them the opportunity to help you with your elected duties, which can make the workload lighter. And critically, it helps remind elected members that they are not the only ones who can do the work. If elected members do not trust their peers to share the work, they will burn out.

I come from a work culture that emphasizes that heroes are bad ( Why heroism is bad, and what we can do to stop it ) because heroes do not scale. Heroism is not sustainable. The most valuable work that a senior engineer can do is not more work, it’s delegation and mentoring. That’s where scaling can happen.

Personally, I dislike the idea of term limits, because they create the requirement for new members periodically, without creating the conditions for their success. Term limits are an “unfunded mandate.”

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