Thunderbird Council: Voting Process
Gervase Markham
the new Thunderbird Council.
Do NOT send votes to tb-planning.
Timing
------
Voting opens at 00:00:01 UTC on Saturday 20th February. The deadline
for sending votes is 23:59:59 UTC on Friday 26rd February, one week later.
This may be delayed in the unlikely event that Mozilla IT don't set up
the voting email address in time.
Motion
------
Voters will be approving or rejecting the following motion:
"The Thunderbird community endorses the following list of candidates to
form a Thunderbird Council and lead the project until either a) one year
has elapsed from the date this motion passes, or b) an organizational
home is chosen and a new governance model is put in place. A condition
of approval is that, in the case of b), the new Council commits to
working in good faith with the new organizational home to implement
governance arrangements which are acceptable to that organization, in a
timely fashion. Or, if the organization has no governance requirements,
the Council commits to consult on and implement a governance reform process.
If vacancies arise on the Council during its period of office, the
Council may leave them unfilled, or fill them using a mechanism of its
own choosing.
The list of candidates is:
Florian Quèze
Joshua Cranmer
Jörg Knobloch
Kent James
Magnus Melin
Matt Harris
Patrick Cloke
Philipp Kewisch
Wayne Mery"
Eligibility
-----------
Eligible voters are those who were subscribed to tb-planning as of 27th
January 2016, or who are unsubscribed now but have posted to the list in
2015 or 2016.
Voting Process
--------------
Voting will be by secret ballot. To vote, please send an email to:
from the email address which is subscribed to tb-pl...@mozilla.org.
Votes must clearly indicate "Yes" or "No", in English. Unclear votes
will be disregarded. The last clear vote from any voter before the
deadline will be the one accepted.
Submission email addresses will be checked against the tb-planning
subscriber list for an _exact_ (case-insensitive) match. If you are
claiming eligibility based on previous interactions rather than current
subscription, you must include a link to a Google Group archived message
that you posted to the list (from the email address you are voting with)
on or after 1st January 2015.
The scrutineers will examine the message to attempt to determine the
sending date and time, but it is advised that you not vote close to the
deadline. The last-dated clear vote from any address will be counted.
Individual voters should not attempt to vote from more than one
subscribed address; anyone caught doing so will be publicly named.
Voters may choose, if they wish, to sign their votes using email signing
technology.
Counting and Reporting
----------------------
The email address above sends copies of the voting emails to the
scrutineers, Gervase Markham and Ben Bucksch, who has kindly agreed to
serve in this capacity alongside me. Both scrutineers commit to keeping
the votes confidential.
Once the deadline passes, the scrutineers will independently count the
votes, and in case of a difference, reconcile the discrepancy until they
are as agreed as possible. They will then report the result to the
tb-planning mailing list, giving:
* Number of Yes votes
* Number of No votes
* Number of votes discounted due to being unclear
* Number of votes discounted due to voter ineligibility
* Number of votes discounted due to being late or early
* Number of votes discounted because the two scrutineers could not
agree on a determination
The motion shall be considered passed if the number of Yes votes
strictly exceeds the number of No votes. If the number of votes in the
final category listed above is equal to or greater than the margin of
victory, the ballot shall be re-run.
Gerv
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning
Onno Ekker
given how much responsibility the new council will get…
Onno
Op 16-2-2016 om 13:24 schreef Gervase Markham:
Gervase Markham
> I'd think a motion like this would require at least a 2/3 majority,
> given how much responsibility the new council will get…
Just to save everyone's time, I would reiterate that the message about
how the vote will be administered was not a proposal for discussion.
Onno Ekker
>> I'd think a motion like this would require at least a 2/3 majority,
>> given how much responsibility the new council will get…
> Just to save everyone's time, I would reiterate that the message about
> how the vote will be administered was not a proposal for discussion.
>
> Gerv
So, both people that are against the process and people that are against
one or more proposed members of the council should vote no? Giving you
no way to distinguish between the two?
And if the motion is rejected (fat chance I admit), you say the ballot
shall be re-run. So you're going to do the same motion, until it is
passed? That doesn't sound too much like a democratic way of doing things…
Onno
P.S. Gerv replied to my original message, but my message itself didn't
make it through moderation. Missing messages make threads harder to
read, so please approve my original message.
Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA)
> Op 16-2-2016 om 21:34 schreef Gervase Markham:
>> On 16/02/16 13:27, Onno Ekker wrote:
>>> I'd think a motion like this would require at least a 2/3 majority,
>>> given how much responsibility the new council will get…
>> Just to save everyone's time, I would reiterate that the message about
>> how the vote will be administered was not a proposal for discussion.
>>
>> Gerv
>
> So, both people that are against the process and people that are against
> one or more proposed members of the council should vote no? Giving you
> no way to distinguish between the two?
>
> And if the motion is rejected (fat chance I admit), you say the ballot
> shall be re-run. So you're going to do the same motion, until it is
> passed? That doesn't sound too much like a democratic way of doing things…
I don't recall seeing a statement that the *same* motion would be rerun.
My recollection is was stated that a new vote would be taken. Citation
please.
> Onno
> [I've reordered you p.s. just a bit.]
>Gerv replied to my original message, but my message itself didn't
> make it through moderation. so please approve my original message.
I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder, so
it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a copy
of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
Check if your message is in spam. If you don't find it, send me a copy
of your original message with the full headers and I'll see if there's
something there that might have caused a problem.
> P.S. Missing messages make threads harder to read,
I agree.
Onno Ekker
> On 2/17/2016 2:00 AM, Onno Ekker wrote:
>> Op 16-2-2016 om 21:34 schreef Gervase Markham:
>>> On 16/02/16 13:27, Onno Ekker wrote:
>>>> I'd think a motion like this would require at least a 2/3 majority,
>>>> given how much responsibility the new council will get…
>>> Just to save everyone's time, I would reiterate that the message about
>>> how the vote will be administered was not a proposal for discussion.
>>>
>>> Gerv
>>
>> So, both people that are against the process and people that are against
>> one or more proposed members of the council should vote no? Giving you
>> no way to distinguish between the two?
>>
>> And if the motion is rejected (fat chance I admit), you say the ballot
>> shall be re-run. So you're going to do the same motion, until it is
>> passed? That doesn't sound too much like a democratic way of doing
>> things…
>
> I don't recall seeing a statement that the *same* motion would be
> rerun. My recollection is was stated that a new vote would be taken.
> Citation please.
the rerun either:
> The motion shall be considered passed if the number of Yes votes
> strictly exceeds the number of No votes. If the number of votes in the
> final category listed above is equal to or greater than the margin of
> victory, the ballot shall be re-run.
>
>> Onno
>> [I've reordered you p.s. just a bit.]
>> Gerv replied to my original message, but my message itself didn't
>> make it through moderation. so please approve my original message.
>
> I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder,
> so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a
> copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
>
> Check if your message is in spam. If you don't find it, send me a
> copy of your original message with the full headers and I'll see if
> there's something there that might have caused a problem.
I didn't see it, but then again, I use Gmail and Gmail doesn't show
duplicate messages with the same ID. That's why I looked in the list
archives, but I didn't see my message there either:
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2016-February/thread.html
It may be possible that you (and Gerv) see the message because you are
moderators? That's the way some listservers work (e.g. SmartList),
although I don't think pipermail works that way. Please check the source
of the message to see if it contains any listserver directives
specifying the error.
Onno
Gervase Markham
> So, both people that are against the process and people that are against
> one or more proposed members of the council should vote no? Giving you
> no way to distinguish between the two?
> And if the motion is rejected (fat chance I admit), you say the ballot
> shall be re-run.
motion passes but the margin of victory is smaller than the number of
ballots that Ben and I can't agree how to handle (which we hope and
expect will be 0), the ballot will be re-run. This is me covering all
the bases, not an outcome with any significant likelihood of happening.
If the vote is No, then we will do a full governance reform process,
however long that takes. I would assume that involves something like the
following: defining who the electorate is (not a trivial task), and then
a general method of voting for things, and then proposing, discussing,
voting on and agreeing a governance structure, and then proposing,
discussing, voting on and agreeing a voting system which can elect
people into that governance structure, and then getting candidates, and
having them write platform statements, and giving time for the
electorate to consider the candidates, and then having another vote.
And then, of course, the governance would quite likely be reformed again
to a new system once Thunderbird chooses a fiscal home, which it will do
in the next few months.
If you believe that the end result of the above long process would be
the election of the same or substantially the same group of people who
are on the list we are voting about on Saturday, you might agree with me
that perhaps this is unnecessary in the current situation.
Gerv
The Wanderer
> On 2/17/2016 2:00 AM, Onno Ekker wrote:
>
>> Op 16-2-2016 om 21:34 schreef Gervase Markham:
>>> about how the vote will be administered was not a proposal for
>>> discussion.
passed, where/when was - the occasion for such discussion? Is/was it
open to the community, or limited to people who already hold roles in
Thunderbird governance?)
>> So, both people that are against the process and people that are
>> against one or more proposed members of the council should vote no?
>> Giving you no way to distinguish between the two?
>>
>> And if the motion is rejected (fat chance I admit), you say the
>> ballot shall be re-run. So you're going to do the same motion,
>> until it is passed? That doesn't sound too much like a democratic
>> way of doing things…
>
> I don't recall seeing a statement that the *same* motion would be
> rerun. My recollection is was stated that a new vote would be taken.
> Citation please.
>>>> * Number of Yes votes
>>>> * Number of No votes
>>>> * Number of votes discounted due to being unclear
>>>> * Number of votes discounted due to voter ineligibility
>>>> * Number of votes discounted due to being late or early
>>>> * Number of votes discounted because the two scrutineers could not
>>>> agree on a determination
>>>>
>>>> The motion shall be considered passed if the number of Yes votes
>>>> strictly exceeds the number of No votes. If the number of votes in
>>>> the final category listed above is equal to or greater than the
I read this as saying that if there are more votes which the people
counting the votes disagree over how to count than votes which they can
agree about how to count, the ballot will be done over.
This says nothing about re-running the ballot ("same" or otherwise) in
any other case, including the case where the motion is rejected.
>> Gerv replied to my original message, but my message itself didn't
>> make it through moderation. so please approve my original message.
>
> I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder,
> so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a
> copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
>
> Check if your message is in spam. If you don't find it, send me a
> copy of your original message with the full headers and I'll see if
> there's something there that might have caused a problem.
Message-IDs and sees that you already have (in your Sent folder) a copy
of a message with the same ID as this incoming message, so it discards
the incoming message as being a duplicate, without realizing - or,
apparently, caring - that the incoming copy has been modified from the
one which was sent out.
This makes _some_ degree of sense for people who read via the Gmail Web
interface, given some of the special "dynamic message location" features
of that interface. However, it doesn't account for people who want to
make use of possible modifications (new headers, altered headers, added
Subject-line tags, etc.), or for people who read by any other interface
- including a standalone mail client like Thunderbird.
--
The Wanderer
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
The Wanderer
> On 17-2-2016 11:44, Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA) wrote:
>
>> On 2/17/2016 2:00 AM, Onno Ekker wrote:
>>> Gerv replied to my original message, but my message itself
>>> didn't make it through moderation. so please approve my original
>>> message.
>>
>> I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my
>> folder, so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did
>> not get a copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016
>> 21:27:47 +0100.
>>
>> Check if your message is in spam. If you don't find it, send me a
>> copy of your original message with the full headers and I'll see
>> if there's something there that might have caused a problem.
>
> I didn't see it, but then again, I use Gmail and Gmail doesn't show
> duplicate messages with the same ID. That's why I looked in the list
> archives, but I didn't see my message there either:
>
> https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2016-February/thread.html
>
> It may be possible that you (and Gerv) see the message because you
> are moderators? That's the way some listservers work (e.g.
> SmartList), although I don't think pipermail works that way. Please
> check the source of the message to see if it contains any listserver
> directives specifying the error.
in the system.
For what it's worth, I received the message in question (before
receiving Gerv's reply, AFAICT) without issues, despite not being a
moderator of any mailing list in the past decade.
--
The Wanderer, having difficulty figuring out how to describe some TB
behaviors to report them as longstanding bugs...
Gervase Markham
> (Out of curiosity: in that case, where/when is - or, if it's already
> passed, where/when was - the occasion for such discussion? Is/was it
> open to the community, or limited to people who already hold roles in
> Thunderbird governance?)
how to generally run an open and transparent secret ballot. That
included inviting a second scrutineer for the votes, Ben, who takes a
different position from me on what the outcome of the vote should be,
and who has independent access to the raw vote emails.
The decision to hold a single up-down vote on a slate of candidates
created by canvassing core contributors as to who would be willing to
serve, was taken by the existing Thunderbird Council with the consent of
Mozilla. The Mozilla project is the current home of Thunderbird and
provides governance oversight for the project.
Gerv
Matt Harris
<huge snip>
I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder, so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
One thing I have noticed with this list is I never get my own posts back. I do not know if it is something Google does or the listserv. but my money is on the listserv.
Matt
“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.” ― Friedrich von Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans
Dave Koelmeyer
On 17/02/2016 9:14 PM, Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA) wrote:
<huge snip>
I have it here as well.
I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder, so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
One thing I have noticed with this list is I never get my own posts back. I do not know if it is something Google does or the listserv. but my money is on the listserv.
Cheers,
Dave
-- Dave Koelmeyer http://blog.davekoelmeyer.co.nz GPG Key ID: 0x238BFF87
Tanstaafl
> On 17/02/2016 9:14 PM, Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA) wrote:
> <huge snip>
>>
>> I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder,
>> so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a
>> copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
>>
> I have it here as well.
> One thing I have noticed with this list is I never get my own posts
> back. I do not know if it is something Google does or the listserv.
> but my money is on the listserv.
It considers the list message a 'duplicate' of the one in your Sent
folder, and helpfully/silently deletes (or hides) it for (from) you.
Onno Ekker
On 2/17/2016 10:16 PM, Matt Harris <unicorn.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17/02/2016 9:14 PM, Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA) wrote:
> <huge snip>
>>
>> I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder,
>> so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a
>> copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
>>
> I have it here as well.
> One thing I have noticed with this list is I never get my own posts
> back. I do not know if it is something Google does or the listserv.
> but my money is on the listserv.
You lose. This is how gmail has always worked.
It considers the list message a 'duplicate' of the one in your Sent
folder, and helpfully/silently deletes (or hides) it for (from) you.
Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA)
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:21 PM, Tanstaafl <tans...@libertytrek.org
> <mailto:tans...@libertytrek.org>> wrote:
>
> On 2/17/2016 10:16 PM, Matt Harris <unicorn.c...@gmail.com
> > On 17/02/2016 9:14 PM, Wayne Mery (Thunderbird QA) wrote:
> > <huge snip>
> >>
> >> I can assure you it was approved. And I have your email in my folder,
> >> so it definitely went through the list. Apparently you did not get a
> >> copy of your own message with Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:27:47 +0100.
> >>
> > I have it here as well.
> > One thing I have noticed with this list is I never get my own posts
> > back. I do not know if it is something Google does or the listserv.
> > but my money is on the listserv.
>
> You lose. This is how gmail has always worked.
>
> It considers the list message a 'duplicate' of the one in your Sent
> folder, and helpfully/silently deletes (or hides) it for (from) you.
>
>
> That doesn't explain why my messages are missing from the list archives
> on https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2016-February/thread.html
>
> Onno
later, unless someone has a clear solution/explanation for the missing
archive message - which was noted in a previous posting iirc.
Ben Bucksch
Gervase Markham wrote on 16.02.2016 13:24:
> To vote, please send an email to:
>
> thunderb...@mozilla.org
>
> from the email address which is subscribed to tb-pl...@mozilla.org.
> Votes must clearly indicate "Yes" or "No", in English.
Please put it in the subject of the email, that will make it easier for
Gerv and me to process.
> The email address above sends copies of the voting emails to the
> scrutineers, Gervase Markham and Ben Bucksch, who has kindly agreed to
> serve in this capacity alongside me. Both scrutineers commit to keeping
> the votes confidential.
If you disagree with the process of this vote in a general principle
basis, you can vote "No" - even if you agree with the proposed Council
members. A "No" vote shall not be considered that you necessarily
disagree with the proposed persons.
Obviously, as the vote is secret, there is no point in including a
justification in your vote email - Gerv and me would not be able to
publish it.
Thanks,
Ben