----- Original Message ----- > From: "Stephen Gallagher" <sgallagh@xxxxxxxxxx> > To: "Development discussions related to Fedora" <devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 11:52:24 AM > Subject: Proposal: Revise FESCo voting policy > > During today's FESCo meeting, we encountered an unusual voting > situation for the first time: Four FESCo members voted in favor (+1) > of a measure and five FESCo members opted to abstain (0) for various > reasons. However, the FESCo voting policy currently reads: "A majority > of the committee (that is, five out of nine) is required to pass a > proposal in a meeting." As a result, we were actually at an impasse > until two of the FESCo members opted to change their votes to +1 to > resolve the confusion. Obviously FESCo members changing their votes is within their prerogative, but what if nobody wanted to change their votes? I think the original policy is correct: if you don't have a majority explicitly voting yes, you don't have enough support and the resolution shouldn't pass. Abstaining is in two categories: - I abstain because I don't care about this topic, - I abstain because I object to this line item, but not strongly enough to explicitly vote no, e.g., when the idea is generally correct but I don't explicitly back it or disagree with minor items in it. I don't think a revision should be made, and counting the latter bucket of votes into the former category isn't correct in the general case. > It was subsequently suggested that we revise the policy to avoid this > pitfall in the future. I volunteered to put together a proposal for > how this could work and send it to the Fedora Development list for > discussion. I propose the following changes to the FESCo voting > policy: > > * To pass any measure, a majority — defined as the greater of half the > eligible votes (rounded up) — must vote in favor of the measure. The > standard set of eligible votes is one vote per FESCo member. No > measure may pass without at least one vote in favor. > > * Abstaining from a vote (aka "voting 0") is considered to have > removed that FESCo member's vote from the set of eligible votes. This > must be done explicitly and is never to be assumed from lack of > communication. > > A practical effect of the new abstention rule is that if two FESCo > members abstain, the measure would then require only a +4 vote to > pass. (A single abstention would still require a +5 vote). I'm confused how this holds. There are 9 seats on the council. If one abstains, there's now an effective seat count of 8. Half of 8 is exactly 4, so wouldn't this mean a +4 vote is sufficient? What happens if the vote is (+4, 1, -4)? Shouldn't this fail / end in a tie? One way to implement your examples is to always add 0.5 before rounding: 9 -> ceil(4.5 + 0.5) -> 5 8 -> ceil(4 + 0.5) -> 5 7 -> ceil(3.5 + 0.5) -> 4 6 -> ceil(3 + 0.5) -> 4 ... 2 -> ceil(1 + 0.5) -> 2 1 -> ceil(0.5 + 0.5) -> 1 > > > I'd also like to propose an additional policy modification that > occurred to me while writing this message: > > * A FESCo member may grant their proxy vote to another member of the > Fedora community if they cannot be in attendance for a vote. If they > do so, that vote is counted equivalently to any other. Proxy votes > MUST be limited to predetermined topics and time period. (e.g. I can > say "bookwar has my proxy vote on any topic directly related to ELN" > while I am on vacation from MMDD until MMDD, but I cannot give my > FESCo seat to a person of my choosing.) > _______________________________________________ > devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Fedora Code of Conduct: > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > List Archives: > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
