Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

You may need to. I just noticed that a comment I CC'ed the list on has yet to make it there. A simple forward of the sent e-mail will be fine. :)

I would love to hear all about it. :) Currently the duty to fix this will fall on the next Council, as it will require both referendum to change existing rules. The wording in the current bylaws leaves those changes explicitly up to the Council as well, so there is no conflict, nor need to do duplicate work.

Thanks, in any case, for throwing you name in the hat. :)

Also, to everyone that hasn't yet, please do check out the bylaw discussions!

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Do we know if there's anyone left at Nokia managing the mailing lists?

I don't think there any current rules saying that. IIRC the last time the rules changed it was by Nemein fiat.

Personally, I'd say screw karma. I can't think of a single occasion where it was actually useful since it was introduced.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Please resend your message from a subscribed address. Even when Nokia was commited to Maemo, there was no list mom checking that moderation queue.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

IMHO, the biggest problem is the account split. If there was single account for Maemo & Talk & Wiki, karma was counted automatically without having to manually join the accounts and if it was actually shown where the most users would look for it - in the talk profile - everything would be OK. :)

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

afaik TMO wasn't always part of maemo but just internet forum, and that's why the databases are not shared.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Plus the software running the forum is proprietary so any changes would be difficult and expensive.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

I think it wouldn't be hard, as all you need to use same db :P but i think it still belongs to Reggie while maemo's to Nokia, so it's would be problematic in other way.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

That's ok; I can.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

That's ok; you don't have to mention any or anything. :-b

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Wow, you people reply a lot. :)

On the topic of the spit accounts, yes, TMO was once a separate thing, and for the most part still is. But even things that are all part of the "one thing" have separate logins and such (garage, bugs, etc). This is in part because most existing tool chains and such didn't (and still don't) use mechanisms to link into existing user databases, like LDAP.

Karma has served a number of purposes, not the least of which is preventing people from making a crap-ton of fake accounts and using those to vote with. Most people won't bother setting up a fake account (on TMO and Maemo.org) and then making 100 posts to get enough Karma to vote. It also sets up a balanced field for those that don't chatter much on TMO, but do help the community in other way, like wiki edits, development, blogging, bug tracking, testing, etc.

While both systems are imperfect, they've helped the community a lot. And finding replacement mechanism for either could be a rough task.

As for the next Council being tasked with that task, I should have been more clear. The next Council *may* be tasked with that, since the infrastructure for Maemo.org may be changing (including TMO), due to funding. Any changes to membership level stuff (by the current Board bylaws, and by existing Council rules) is all handled by Council, via referendum to the community.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

where can I see who is running and for what?

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

At this moment, Tim Samoff has presented his candidature for Board only.

Texrat has his nomination message pending of moderation in the ML (yet another infrastructure issue we need to solve).

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Sure, but that would be the most inefficient way of doing it. On the other hand, it would only take one thanked post to push someone above the voting threshold. If anyone wanted to create lots of sock puppet accounts for casting fake votes, the karma requirement wouldn't be an obstacle.

Well... does for instance http://maemo.org/profile/view/qgil/ look balanced to you?

Consider that this is the #1 bug commenter, #2 mailing list poster, #2 wiki editor, #4 bug reporter, #5 commenter and so on, while the account's karma shows someone who primarily blogs a lot and gets thanked in the forum a bit.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

SShhhhhhh!!! Stop telling people how to hack things. ;) But yes, I agree. It could stand tweaking. But you must admit, it has served it's purpose for the most part. (At least until you came on here, blabbing your "logic" all over on how to setup multiple cheating vote accounts.... :D )


Again, it's not for figuring out who's the best super-hero. Once you get over 100, frankly, there's not a point to it. It's not a contest. By "fair", I meant that someone doing just one of those tasks, if they did enough to contribute, would be able to still get to a point that they could vote or maybe even run for Council. It gives everyone a relatively fair shake to get to 10 or 100 or some arbitrary number up to about 300. Again, going beyond that, it's all cake.

Several have complained that Karma doesn't expire, allowing someone to one thing (like write a voting mechanism, or an autobuilder, for example) and then a decade later vote on something, even if they hadn't been involved in most of that time. That's another issue with it, maybe.

I never said it was perfect. In fact, it's got enough flaws that nobody has jumped up saying "No! You can't replace Karma!" Only that what replaces it must at least strive to do the same things it's been able to accomplish, if even in a round about way.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Don't take my precious karma away from me! It's higher than most* on the current committee!

*I exaggerate. But by most, I mean a lot of better folks have lesser karma than me.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Here's a thought: let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Okay?

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

sorry, but i'm not going to (re-)create candidate list by hand :mad:
does anyone have a way to generate the corresponding web page automatically?:o

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

know what? with 300, i'd be out of luck :p
on the other hand, honestly?
remember what silly mess vox-populi got us in last time? as Churchill put it so nicely...
plus you have all the work to do upfront :mad:

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Here's a text file in tsv, haven't got time to play with it now.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

I share the concern about fake sock puppet accounts.

At maemo.org, it didn't matter because Nokia was always in control and they weren't going to lose control no matter how dysfunctional or counterproductive the council and membership became. I think if we proceed with the current proposal to permanently build council and karma into the bylaws, we should be very careful. I'd like to hear Texrat's proposal to reform karma, but I'd also like to hear from others who are willing to discard the council/karma system in lieu of another form of governance.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Side note, not directed towards anybody.

I remember when karma meant something. It was a door opener to a lot of things. The moment - coincidental or not, I've been around here since 2007 - I got a decent amount of karma, karma was pushed aside as no longer important and it's granted me absolutely nothing.

Sad part, there's others with very high karma that are being overlooked and this new proposed system seems to further cement a possible situation where worthy people (read: I am not including myself in the worthy, but I am talking about people in the same range of karma as myself) and this proposal of a new karma system will invariably exclude some prime candidates for the sake of it being something new with a bunch of criteria that you all are not addressing at this very moment.

Karma is karma. Period. You can't fake it, it may be artificially pumped up (read: Now I am talking about myself) or it may be given to folks that are doing what a community needs the most; contribute in more than one way.

This doesn't mean that Texrat and the council doesn't have a good solution. I'm willing to bet it is a humdinger of a proposal. But I just hope that it doesn't bring forth a sense of being left out to those people that are truly deserving.

And yes... I'm quite proud of my karma rating despite how flawed or how long it took me to get it. I'd wish to not lose any of it unless the terms are made very clear publicly.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

I think the council will still be required, to interface between the board (who presumably will have more pressing matters to attend to) and the community at large.

Karma as a gatekeeper for voting is broken IMHO. Why not establish a more formal membership program (like for example GNOME, Debian or Fedora), and bestow voting rights to accepted members?

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

thanks, highly appreciated :o

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

I would never get behind implementing anything that did that.

Essentially, all I am talking about is normalizing results anyway, NOT any sort of major overhaul. Numbers per se would change, but it would be across the board and accounting of merit would not actually change.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

I resubmitted from my registered email address.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

to what end?
i'm not aware of any use of karma except for qualifying for voting (10) or for election (100).

or do you want to exacerbate the meritocracy BS?
e.g. only those who have contributed enough code bug reports or whatever will get points?
in which case i guess ppl like me (or Gerbick?) who posted a lot but didn't do much coding are in big trouble...

not sure whether this karma stuff is that important...
why weren't the N9(50) community rewards allocated according to it, then?

in the end, what matters is that there are members who are interested in Maemo / MeeGo devices.
why do you have to go thru this middle-age BS of having to be "aristocratic" / "have karma" to be able to participate?
or early modern times where one had to have a fortune to be able to have a say...

why are you even bothering with elections then?

candidates, apply!
5 / 10 highest karmas are "elected"
saves a lot of trouble, no?

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

I think the process ov voting is to hard. Too few people voting.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

those who vote show their interest
and yes, once the number of voters gets down to a handful, maybe the time will have come to call it a day...

if you are not interested in voting, what are you posting for?

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

What? Who said I'm not intressting in voting?

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Go check my karma stats.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Just as a small note: Nominations close soon, and to date, nobody has nominated themselves for Council. Not a single person...

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Considering the low number of candidates, I have decided to run for both Board and Council.

I only hope to find some more spare time to be able to attend the duties (in case of being elected) as these last weeks are being painful at work.

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Despite the fact that I dont feel that I achieved what I originally signed up for, I feel that important work that has been initiated needs attention.
I would be very happy to be part of this next step, and have submitted my self-nomination.

http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...er/005626.html

All the best
Nieldk

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

there are currently 2 candidates for Council and 6 for Board of Director; both 2 candidates applying for Council also apply for Board, thus 6 distinct candidates.

Council election Q4 2012 / Candidate declarations

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

The final tally looks to be 4 for Council, and 7 for Board (with one pending karma recalculation on both). This is enough to hold an election cycle, with 3 seats for Council and 5 for Board. Thanks again to Misterc for creating and updating the wiki page.

As such, the debate/Q&A portion of the election is now open. For now, we will proceed with matters as if Si Howard is in the running, pending his Karma recalculation. If the calculation is too low, the candidate will simply be removed from the ballot.

As a reminder, it takes 10 Karma to vote, which for some may require you to link your TMO account with Maemo.org. (They are not linked by default!) Please do so if you have not already, as updating will not be possible once voting has begun!

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

err, are we again following that unfortunate custom to send out ballots some 10h *after* voting has opened?
I tried since years to make council mail the ballots/tokens at least one week *before* voting starts. (or allow advance voting, like letter voting on any decent 'real' vote - I think US-Army members can send in their ballot 3 months before president voting period starts)


/j

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Updated the top post to reflect current election status:

The list of nominees is complete, with one nominee pending Karma recalculation. Please review the list, and feel free to ask questions either here, on the mailing list, or on the wiki page. All candidates will be encouraged to answer community questions, preferably in a format that can be easily wiki-fied.

Just as a reminder, those that want to vote should be sure they have 10 Karma. Note that in order for your TMO activity to count, you must link your TMO account to your Maemo.org account. Be sure to do that if you have not done so already!

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

Woody,

i thought you had decided not to take part in Community activites during the winter as it conflicted with your real life obligations...

i appreciate that under those circumstances doing the right thing takes over doing things right, but...
if that's the way things are going to be, is it worth the time and effort to go thru all that rehashing of by-laws & all?
actually, more worrying question... will you folks have time for all that Foundation + Council stuff?

again, i'm all in favour of doing the right thing, but i'm not sure if Foundation can... function without things being done right :confused:

Re: [Council] Maemo Elections (September 2012)
 

The problem right now with the voting system is that the sever it's run on (and the databases it pulls from) are not automated or easily accessible, requiring and admin for the machine to intervene on Council's behalf. That game of admin-tag tends to take some time.

I've been working on the voting machine to allow several "new" features. You can see my recent check-ins to see the changes, mainly minor ones so far. One of those features was fixing a script to allow using one voting token for multiple elections, as was the case for the recent CC elections and will be the case for this dual Board/Council election. Another change was the ability to get your token re-mailed to you in case your spam filter ate the first one, or you accidentally deleted it.

I'm hoping to later update the system to create new elections, automate the pulls needed to form the electorate table, generate tokens, and possibly even automate the outgoing e-mail. That would allow Council or the Board to setup and run elections without the need of an administrator doing anything. It would also limit the exposure of the user database, since it would all be handled locally on the server, purely by php scripts.

For now, the setup steps one can replicate elsewhere (tables, candidates, etc) have been done and sent off to be injected. If we're lucky, we may have vote tokens mailing out later today or tomorrow. But that's highly dependent on Niels, as he's the only admin on those servers right now.