Fedora Board election results

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 11:21 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 11:12 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 08:40 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>> >> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 8:23 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > What purpose would getting the answers to those questions serve?
>> >>
>> >> If we are unhappy with the total voter turnout and want to do
>> >> something about it for the next election... then making an effort to
>> >> identify if there is an imbalance in the voting would be worthwhile.
>> >> Did our European contributors vote in proportion to their cla numbers
>> >> compared to the North American contributors? If not.. then we know to
>> >> lean on Max and try to get those numbers up for the next election.  He
>> >> should be fluent in European by now, so he shouldn't need any help
>> >> traveling the countryside gathering voters in his wake.
>> >
>> > That answers the geographic question you had.  Sounds like a very sane
>> > reason and I'm also curious as to what the results of that would be.
>> >
>> > Why do you want to know about the percentage of Red Hat voters vs.
>> > community?
>> >
>>
>> If the majority of people who voted are inside of RH and not out...
>> then you have a potential bias you need to focus on the next election.
>> Why didn't people outside of RH vote? Is the process working? Do
>> people not feel franchised?
>
> You aren't going to be able to answer those questions without asking
> people directly.  And for those outside of Red Hat that _did_ vote, it's
> a pointless question.
>
> You can get the answers to those specific questions without finding out
> a percentage of Red Hat vs. non-Red Hat voters.  Just ask people on
> blogs, f-a-b, fedora-devel, <other communication channel> to explain why
> they didn't vote.
>
>> > Or, put another way, what difference does that distinction make?  Should
>> > we get the same data for Dell and IBM (as they have separate CLAs like
>> > Red Hat)?
>> >
>> > IMHO, a voter's employer just doesn't matter.
>> >
>>
>> It does if people outside of RH feel they are not going to be
>> recognized or represented and thus give up on the system.
>
> Voting is one of the ways to have them feel recognized and represented.
> If they didn't bother to vote, they gave up that mechanism for
> representation voluntarily.


That argument is logically valid but humans are not logical. If people
feel that voting is not going to make a difference they will have no
incentive to continue with the process. Our brain's logical centers
are easily over-ridden by our emotional and other centers.. a lot
easier than we like to believe. It is the purposeful or non-purposeful
manipulation of those over-rides that doing this check is to help keep
in check. [Of course it could also lead to the fact that if you see
that 90% of Dell employees voted but 10% of RH employees voted.. you
should target those people more]

Or go for mandatory voting with a 'Non-of-the-above' category if
people aren't happy with any of the candidates.


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"