Proposal

First off, let me say that I absolutely applaud any attempt to help enable new people (and new ideas!) get involved with FESCo.

However, I'm not sure this proposal is the best way to go about it. I have several thoughts, in no particular order:

• I worry that it inherently introduces a class of FESCo member that is implicitly "less" than the other members; a "Junior FESCo Member", in essence. I worry their contributions would be treated with less authority (for lack of a better word) than someone occupying a non-Junior chair. I'm not particularly worried, since we've generally been welcoming to newcomers in the past, though they have tended to always be people who have made themselves recognizable prior to running.

• As a clarification: I assume this would be a reservation of one chair for each election, so by January 2027 there would perpetually be two Juniors on the committee and seven unrestricted seats?

• How do we turn this into something that sustains itself after their one-year term is up? After that year, they're only eligible to run for the non-first-time seats, which would run the risk of the same problem as today: the best-known names would still tend to pick up all the votes. Should we look at instituting something akin to term limits where there's a required stepping-down of at least one member each election cycle to potentially make room for the no-longer-Junior member? If so, when are they eligible to run again?

That last point sounds like I'd be against it, but honestly the more I think about it, the more I feel like that might be the best option not just for encouraging new members, but also for the FESCo members themselves. What about this as a counter-proposal:

"""
During each election cycle, at least one FESCo member must withdraw from running in either the current election or the one immediately following that. If no FESCo member is willing to voluntarily forgo running for re-election, the FESCo member who has served the longest span of time will be selected by default.

Any vacated[*] seat may only be filled by a FESCo candidate that has not served on the committee within the last three years or six Fedora releases, whichever is shorter.

[*] Vacated in this context means that the person who held the seat prior to the election did not run as a candidate for the election. It expressly does not include seats that were lost due to insufficient votes.
"""

It's insufficiently wordsmithed, but the effect would be that the person or people stepping down must take some time off before running again. It requires someone to take a break every cycle, which is good for both the health of the Fedora Project (new perspectives on FESCo) and the mental health of the committee member on break.

This way, at least one person in each election cycle will be someone who hasn't served on FESCo in the recent past, but it doesn't artificially restrict it to a total newcomer. The people who vacated can be eligible to run again in a year for one of the non-restrictive seats.

Note that the phrasing was intentional: it requires at least one member to step down each cycle, but it can be more. So if two, three or even all of the FESCo members whose terms are up elected not to run again, all of their seats would need to be filled by candidates that have not held the office for the last three years.

Could we please discuss this on the mailing list first before it goes to a FESCo tracker?

@churchyard

Nothing in FESCo docs gives me any hints that a mailing list discussion is a must have prerequisite for the FESCo request https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/

I also don't think it should be.

If the mailing list discussion is preferred (and I will let other FESCo members to chime in on that), can open it there, but I would rather have a link to this tracker in the opening e-mail, than the other way around.

Nothing in FESCo docs gives me any hints that a mailing list discussion is a must have prerequisite for the FESCo request https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/

You are right, it isn't. Generally, though, I assumed the consensus is that this tracker does not have enough audience and is the wrong place to reach community consensus. However, happy to let actual FESCo members chime in on that.

This whole thing came out of left field for me. I would have preferred to have some discussion before we firmed up something to bring to the community. But I think the first thing we should do is ask the community why they don't step up in the first place. We're making a lot of assumptions here.

I like the idea, but on the other hand, I can't quite get used to it.

In my experience in various committees, both political and at our university, such “quota positions” are formally full members, but almost always have a lower standing in day-to-day work in cases of disagreement. This is particularly difficult when, by chance, there is only one application per such a “special position.”

And in fact, this construct has always resulted in group-specific particular interests becoming stronger.

And I wonder if we are trying to solve a problem that we don't even have. At least in my memory, we have had repeated changes in the membership of FESCo. Not frequently, but every 4-5 elections or so. And what is wrong with the effect that the better-known people have a better chance? Those who contribute a lot and regularly gain a higher level of recognition.

And we have so much change in Fedora that a more moderate pace in one area is not necessarily a bad thing.

If we want to introduce new perspectives more strongly, one option might be to introduce the position of 3-4 “associate members” for one year without repetition each. And a decision would require an overall majority and a majority of the “core” members. That's probably an overkill. On the other hand, it's the least offensive and least potentially damaging way to onboard new members. I can think of several FESCo members whose dropping out would cause considerable damage. At some point, such a case will occur anyway. But do we want to speed it up? Don't we have already enough other problems to resolve?

The other thing to consider is that we do have many places of technical and non-technical leadership, not just in FESCo. We don't do enough to promote those venues.

I myself only ran for FESCo after I had spent time working in SIGs and WGs, helped found a few, and drove several efforts that showed my capability. This in itself is what I believe made my profile attractive for FESCo in the first place.

@churchyard I definitely do not expect this topic to be discussed and voted upon in one week by FESCo alone without rounds of discussions, announcements and communications to make sure that we have enough reach. But I think we need to start from somewhere, and since I have a specific proposal, I wanted to have a tracker which would coordinate the relevant work and decisions needed.

Saying: "hm, interesting, but we need to think about it, let's bring that topic for discussion at the (1) mailing list, (2) discourse, (3) Fedora release party.. as the next step, and come back to it in a month.." , or saying - "we don't like it at all, so please come bring the evidence why it is important", or "for us to consider it you need to do this and that" - is totally fine.

What is not fine, imho, is being greeted with "you should not have tried to reach FESCo in a FESCo issue tracker".

@ngompa

This whole thing came out of left field for me. I would have preferred to have some discussion before we firmed up something to bring to the community.

This is what I am trying to do right now.

And btw, these conflicting requests on where and how the conversation should be even started highlight the other issue with "how a newcomer can propose a change in Fedora the "right way" without people shouting at them" which we discussed at Flock. But this is a different discussion which we should probably have in some place which we somehow can not clearly identify.

What is not fine, imho, is being greeted with "you should not have tried to reach FESCo in a FESCo issue tracker".

Apologies, I had no intention to greet you with that. I sometimes write my comments very briefly. And in retrospect, I realize that they may appear harsh. What I intended to say was that by stating a formal proposal in a FESCo tracker, it might appear as if the author expects that FESCo proceeds with a vote, and I would prefer that we move this proposal to a more public forum before this happens. This was more of an appeal to the FESCo members than to you.

@sgallagh

I actually used the term first-timers and not juniors on purpose.

I would expect the policy to apply to a rather senior and experienced Fedora contributors who are first-timers for FESCo just as well. And in my perspective it should be considered a fair and correct use of the policy. I would actually try to encourage the experienced folks to apply and use that clause, in part to overcome that other concern on thinking that first-timer means an impostor.

First off, let me say that I absolutely applaud any attempt to help enable new people (and new ideas!) get involved with FESCo.

However, I'm not sure this proposal is the best way to go about it. I have several thoughts, in no particular order:

• I worry that it inherently introduces a class of FESCo member that is implicitly "less" than the other members; a "Junior FESCo Member", in essence. I worry their contributions would be treated with less authority (for lack of a better word) than someone occupying a non-Junior chair. I'm not particularly worried, since we've generally been welcoming to newcomers in the past, though they have tended to always be people who have made themselves recognizable prior to running.

The main contribution of a FESCo member is a vote. Then of course there are comments and opinions, but let's face it, everyone struggles with being convincing there. So I don't think it makes a lot of practical difference. Fedora is indeed a rather mature community from that point of view, as long as you participate in the discussion and articulate your position - you will be part of it. It is the initial encouragement which may need additional help.

On a slightly more personal note:

The question "Did I get the seat because I am new?" - is not as damaging as "did they vote for me in FESCo just because I am a woman". And openly answering it as "Yes" is not really that offensive from my opinion. And maybe it helps for people to be more widely exposed to the topic of diversity not being explicitly tied to the topic of gender.

• As a clarification: I assume this would be a reservation of one chair for each election, so by January 2027 there would perpetually be two Juniors on the committee and seven unrestricted seats?

At most two, yes.

• How do we turn this into something that sustains itself after their one-year term is up? After that year, they're only eligible to run for the non-first-time seats, which would run the risk of the same problem as today: the best-known names would still tend to pick up all the votes. Should we look at instituting something akin to term limits where there's a required stepping-down of at least one member each election cycle to potentially make room for the no-longer-Junior member? If so, when are they eligible to run again?

In my proposal there is no expectation for first-timers to participate all the time. If we "exhaust" the current pool of the first-timers and there will be none, we assigns seats as usual, but keep the door open for the next time.

That last point sounds like I'd be against it, but honestly the more I think about it, the more I feel like that might be the best option not just for encouraging new members, but also for the FESCo members themselves. What about this as a counter-proposal:

"""
During each election cycle, at least one FESCo member must withdraw from running in either the current election or the one immediately following that. If no FESCo member is willing to voluntarily forgo running for re-election, the FESCo member who has served the longest span of time will be selected by default.

I think the main feature of what I want to achieve with my proposal as opposed to "term limits"is that I don't want the non-first-timer people to feel guilty about participating in the election, or feeling like they have to make a personal decision to "retire" to give way to new folks. I don't want to make it somehow a moral obligation to forego their position, as long as they want to and able contribute, and community supports them, they should continue doing so.

I think we should try to add encouragement for new folks, without discouraging existing members.

Standard election process but with one seat with additional criteria removes that personal aspect for me.

Any vacated[*] seat may only be filled by a FESCo candidate that has not served on the committee within the last three years or six Fedora releases, whichever is shorter.

[*] Vacated in this context means that the person who held the seat prior to the election did not run as a candidate for the election. It expressly does not include seats that were lost due to insufficient votes.
"""

It's insufficiently wordsmithed, but the effect would be that the person or people stepping down must take some time off before running again. It requires someone to take a break every cycle, which is good for both the health of the Fedora Project (new perspectives on FESCo) and the mental health of the committee member on break.

This way, at least one person in each election cycle will be someone who hasn't served on FESCo in the recent past, but it doesn't artificially restrict it to a total newcomer. The people who vacated can be eligible to run again in a year for one of the non-restrictive seats.

Note that the phrasing was intentional: it requires at least one member to step down each cycle, but it can be more. So if two, three or even all of the FESCo members whose terms are up elected not to run again, all of their seats would need to be filled by candidates that have not held the office for the last three years.

We could add new seats to FESCo for this purpose? As long as we maintain an odd number of seats, it should be good. So two new seats, one of which could also be a second Council delegate.

I think another alternative is a limit of something two consecutive terms on FESCo and then you have to sit at least one term out before running again. We avoid having the distinction between a special elected position and not and we also allow people who want to continue serving to do so after a period of sitting out to let other community members cycle through.

Additionally, I think we could consider video introductions or interviews of candidates so that community members can hear and see candidates rather than just reading their responses.

I think another alternative is a limit of something two consecutive terms on FESCo and then you have to sit at least one term out before running again.

This is something I wanted to suggest before reading the previous comment. :) Limiting the number of consecutive terms FESCo members are allowed to serve (probably two?) would give new people a chance to win at the elections (without it being a "pity prize") and it would also give many FESCo members a well earled 6+-month reprieve every now and then.

I could back limiting consecutive terms but then allowing people to come back at later elections, that seems better than making people ineligible to serve permanently.

As for the original suggestion - my worry is that if there is only one first-time candidate, and they get elected by default, their election process is less competitive than that for the rest of the candidates and so quality might suffer.

I have a few technical tweaks in mind but the more I think about those the more I think they make things over-complicated and might be seen to be arbitrary, so yeah, limiting consecutive terms is probably best.

Note that for the transition period, because we have a lot of long-timers on the committee and we should try and preserve continuity, maybe we can reuse @sgallagh 's suggestion: let's say the top 1 or 2 most long-tenured members who have served beyond any consecutive term limit must withdraw.

Eventually everyone will be under the term limit, but we don't suddenly turf out most of FESCo.

Let's discuss this during the meeting today.

Maybe to add:

I expect it is too late to discuss this in the context of the next election. If we go forward with an idea of this type, it should be announced and discussed in advance, before the nomination period starts. So there is no need to rush any kind of decision here.

The focus for discussion might be: 1) is this whole topic worth looking at. If yes 2) what would be the next step to move it forward - start a public discussion, collect some data(which?), something else?

I really think the first thing we need to ask is why people don't submit themselves for fesco elections. If we don't tackle that problem first, everything else will just result in shortage of candidates and blocked elections (this is what happens for openSUSE Board elections, which have similar rules to what we're discussing).

@ngompa

My proposal doesn't have term limits. It doesn't create shortage of candidates. It adds encouragement to a new set of candidates and creates a public statement that Fedora Project is interested in new people coming. If they show up - good, if not - then nothing changes.

Now, I have literally had a conversation "Do I have any chance when applying to FESCo seat since I am not widely known to community" multiple times in last three years with different people.

This is of course the anecdotal reference, so the question to you would be: what kind of data you are looking for, how it can be gathered?

P.S. We had a question "Why you haven't applied for FESCo seat in one of the Fedora Contributor Surveys, I can dig it up.

@ngompa

My proposal doesn't have term limits. It doesn't create shortage of candidates. It adds encouragement to a new set of candidates and creates a public statement that Fedora Project is interested in new people coming. If they show up - good, if not - then nothing changes.

Yes, yours is mostly fine. I was referring to the others discussed in this ticket.

Now, I have literally had a conversation "Do I have any chance when applying to FESCo seat since I am not widely known to community" multiple times in last three years with different people.

Yes, I've had that conversation before too. Hell, I once asked that question myself before I ultimately decided to run.

This is of course the anecdotal reference, so the question to you would be: what kind of data you are looking for, how it can be gathered?

P.S. We had a question "Why you haven't applied for FESCo seat in one of the Fedora Contributor Surveys, I can dig it up.

That's a reasonable question, but also I'd like to see how people in SIG/WG leadership positions respond to that specifically. I'm curious if we get different answers.

We discussed this during yesterday's meeting, and concluded that this warranted broader discussion. I was !action'd to do initiate that, so I did: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/potential-fesco-election-policy-changes/174967

That discussion thread is still active (last post 20 minutes ago).

Discussed in today's meeting: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QLPMFUG5VSBZW6L5WORW2PVZFB57JJOS/

This is punted for now while discussion is ongoing.

The discussion on the discussion site looks basically done.

I'm not sure there was any consensus at all :)

Proposal:

• There is no limit to how many total terms someone can be on FESCO.
• FESCO members may be elected to no more than two consecutive terms.
• Any previous FESCO member having at least a single term off the FESCO board may run for a FESCO seat again.
• In the event there are not enough candidates for the available FESCO seats in an election, the Fedora Council must make a decision regarding who can be candidates for the seats.

Aspirations:

• Outgoing FESCO members should aim to identify and mentor one or more people to run for their seat.
• Mentoring new FESCO members should be a goal of existing and outgoing FESCO members.
• Previous FESCO members sitting out a term are encouraged to help mentor newly elected FESCO members.

I missed that this proposal was made. I'm almost onboard with it, except for one thing.
We currently have 7 out of nine members who would immediately lose eligibility. And one election later, they'd all suddenly regain it. So implementing the policy as described could lead to a yo-yo effect.

Proposed extension:
- in any given election, if in the group of members whose term ends there are more than two members hitting the term limit, the limit only applies to two members with the longest consecutive terms in the latest sequence or the largest total number of terms if the latest sequence is equal.

Note: this is intentionally based on the previous membership, independent of their decision to run for reelection. Because I think this should be predicatable and potential candidates shouldn't have to guess whether somebody else will run and then potentially lose or gain their right to run.

Note: I think 2 is a good number. We have either 4 or 5 spots in each election, so 50% or 40% or candidates would be new. With 3 as the number, that'd be 75% or 60%, which seems a bit too much.

Example 1: in the next election, sgallagh (since f17 or so), ngompa (since f33), decathorpe (since 41, more terms earlier), salimma (since 41) are up for reelection. So sgallagh and ngompa would need to take a break.
Example 2, hypothetical: ngompa (since f33), decathorpe (since 41, more terms earlier), salimma (since 41), otherperson (1st term), then ngompa and decathorpe would need to take a break.
Example 3: in the election after that, we have: nirik (since FC1 or so), zbyszek (since f28), dcanterell (since f34), duffy (since f44), siosm (since f44). So nirik and zbyszek would need to take a break.

I agree, limiting the "you must take a break" to 2 people each election makes sense, otherwise there will be too much initial churn.

Other than that, I'm +1 to the proposal.

Let's discuss this during the meeting today (18:00 GMT in https://matrix.to/#/#meeting:fedoraproject.org).

This was discussed during the meeting today. A number of requests for changes were made. We'll wait for an update to the proposal from David.

Hmm, this seems to have gone nowhere. I'll put it agenda for today.

This was discussed during the meeting today:
APPROVED (+8, 0, -1):
- There is no limit to how many total terms someone can be on FESCO.
- FESCO members may be elected to no more than two consecutive terms, and periodically need to take a break of at least one release cycle (6 months).
- If in the group of members whose term ends there are more than two members hitting the term limit, the limit only applies to two members with the longest consecutive terms in the latest sequence or the largest total number of terms if the latest sequence is identical.

Now this needs to be turned into a patch against the election docs for FESCo.

made a PR: https://forge.fedoraproject.org/fesco/docs/pulls/135

PR was merged.