I agree with a lot of the points made, but I think it's important to
look at this in perspective:
The main reason for having elections is to pick managers & leaders
(the two are not the same).
The Fedora Extras project is much smaller than, say, a country :) So
the elections should be much less of a deal.
In a perfect world we would only have elections when the current
FESCO was not doing a good job.
In this real world, there is still no need to have an election if
there are not more non-contingent candidates than there are positions
to fill.
When you have a project as full of smart people as Fedora is, the
differences between candidates will be
very minor, so the incentive for people to vote and take part will
be very small. There's also probably the perception
(correct or not) that not much is at stake in the FESCO election,
which also minimizes the incentive to participate.
In particular, we should make it clearer why people would choose to
vote for one candidate versus another. If it
doesn't matter which one you vote for, there's no point in having an
election, and we are just all running around
trying to play model UN. :)
Here are the things that could be done:
. Do better messaging around the election. Tell voters and potential
candidates why participating matters - what's at stake?
. Don't hold elections too often - it sucks time away from more
important stuff
. Maybe only hold elections when
. Focus on recruiting & retaining people as Fedora Extras
contributors, because poor election turnout may be a sign of
generally bad project health. (Or a healthy project that is too
dependant on a few key contributors...)
Best,
-- Elliot
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