Thunderbird Governance 2018 - Council Elections

[Goverenance TB]

The Thunderbird Council is asking the community for feedback about Thunderbird governance, which will be considered in designing the future of the council.  We encourage you to help publicize this effort by posting this message in its entirety in other venues frequented by Thunderbird users.

We are splitting our requests for feedback into manageable pieces, each of which will cover different aspects of governance. This is the first message of a short series over the coming weeks. This first request is for feedback specifically on the method of conducting elections.  Future messages will cover other topics, for example composition of the Council.

Background - Past Elections

The following is a summary of past elections.  To date three councils have been elected, each using a different process.  In 2014 the first Thunderbird Council of seven was elected by a typical nomination process of those present and simple majority vote at a fall summit meeting of 22 very active Thunderbird contributors.

In fall 2015 discussion began in tb-planning for the second council, in such subjects as  "Council Elections" and "Reorganizing the Council", with a goal of having the community elect the council.  Voting in February 2016 used the following process, "The existing Council will serve as a nominating committee, and recruit candidates who agree to serve on a renewed Council. (This could be existing Council members or new people.) This slate of candidates would then be presented to tb-planning for a single vote [by anyone active on tb-planning], much like the one a year ago, to see if there is consensus.".  The slate and voting process was announced, and the results also posted on tb-planning.

In 2017 the third council election process established a public list of electors, who are active project contributors per criteria defined by the Council.  Electors discussed on the tb-election mailing list, and then nominated and voted to seat seven council members using “ranked choice” with the STV method.  Results were announced on tb-planning. The election was run by volunteers who were not members of the council. The council was pleased with the results, and there were no major complaints from the community.

2018 Elections

In this message we are looking for your feedback on the 2018 election process, namely nominating and voting for council members.  Feedback will be reviewed by the council, the results summarized back to the community and used by the Thunderbird Council to inform the process to be used in the 2018 election. Please send feedback (idea or concern) with subject "Thunderbird Governance 2018 - Council Elections" (the subject of this email) to gover...@thunderbird.net, NOT tb-planning. Please formulate your feedback as a problem statement, with or without a potential solution.

For example, you might offer feedback on defining the electorate, as in the past this has been a challenging aspect of the process.

"The electorate of 2017, while being inclusive, did not include population X, and they should be included because of reason Y. And here is how you might identify or define this population...”

Additionally, we encourage you to respond if you think the previous procedure used was adequate, so we can properly gauge the opinion of the community for electing the Council.

Please send your response by Monday November 20.  Please post this message in its entirety in other venues frequented by Thunderbird users.

Thank you for your interest in Thunderbird.

The Thunderbird Council

[Gervase Markham]

On 09/11/17 22:01, Goverenance TB wrote:
> In this message we are looking for your feedback on the 2018 election
> process, namely nominating and voting for council members.  Feedback
> will be reviewed by the council, the results summarized back to the
> community and used by the Thunderbird Council to inform the process to

> be used in the 2018 election.Please send feedback (idea or concern) with

> subject "Thunderbird Governance 2018 - Council Elections" (the subject

> of this email) to gover...@thunderbird.net, *NOT tb-planning*.

I think it should be acceptable, if people choose, for them to share
their feedback in a public forum also so a discussion can develop.

I believe that the electoral process used in 2017 was adequate and
appropriate, with one exception, detailed below. I think the methods of
nomination and voting, and the systems used, all worked well. Here is a
document with more details of last year's process:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fuq11n3mmwOMfMp5RMHI9N0QPvx4RpIiZn9v4lJPPFw/edit

We ended up doing ranked choice voting using Scottish STV, with the help
of the "OpaVote" website. All of that worked fine.

The one exception is that I don't believe that we paid sufficient
attention to making sure the electorate appropriately included all those
who make significant contributions to Thunderbird. I do not have
examples of excluded communities; I am making this judgement based on
the amount of time spent on the problem in 2016/2017, and my perceptions
at the time. My proposal would be to make sure, in good time, we have a
wider discussion about where to find contributors and how to evaluate
their contributions, so we can have a better go at defining an
appropriately-broad electorate.

(Declared interest: I designed and ran the 2017 electoral process.)

Gerv
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

[neandr]

FMPOV the 2017 process was handle very professional -- thanks to Gerv and Ben (and others I missed to mention here) -- so there should be no concern to repeat the same process with the next elections.

Not sure what the next steps for the TB Council 2018 elections are.
Today Mozilla dropped a Discource message \1\ which could lead to a little changed process.
As they did, also TB Council candidates should be asked to not only introduce them self, but give answers to some of the burning questions Thunderbird is faced with. Like as a product / a open source project, it's future and how he/she see the "home" of TB. For sure not a complete list, but all candidates should answer to the same questions. This would expand the Thunderbird Council Elections 2017 List \2\ with point 3.


Gerv just posted ..

My proposal would be to make sure, in good time, we have a
wider discussion about where to find contributors and how to evaluate
their contributions, so we can have a better go at defining an
appropriately-broad electorate.

.. that's a big +1 with me.

I felt with the 2016 election process there have been some "external" people applying for the council, but the community -- afair -- decided against those candidates. Wouldn't it be great to add a broader view to the Council? I hope for that!

Günter

1\  https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/important-council-elections-november-2017-nominee-q-a/21201
2\  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-planning/Fq6qggT6IMo

[Matt Harris]

On 11-Nov-17 1:56 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:

On 09/11/17 22:01, Goverenance TB wrote:

In this message we are looking for your feedback on the 2018 election
process, namely nominating and voting for council members.  Feedback
will be reviewed by the council, the results summarized back to the
community and used by the Thunderbird Council to inform the process to
be used in the 2018 election.Please send feedback (idea or concern) with
subject "Thunderbird Governance 2018 - Council Elections" (the subject
of this email) to gover...@thunderbird.net, *NOT tb-planning*.

I think it should be acceptable, if people choose, for them to share
their feedback in a public forum also so a discussion can develop.

I think that the involvement of a voting public is a great idea, but I have concerns this mailing list is not the way to go, or representative of anything more than a small group who managed to jump the hurdles of an obscure Mozilla mailing list subscription.  This mailing list is being repeatedly held up as representative of the core Thunderbird people,  but who is actually on this list and by what right should they be empowered to decide who is on the council.  I do not know those answers,  but I think the questions need to be answered.  Sure it was a convenient starting point three plus years ago.

Lets talk about either contributors (Current,  not a patch or a support issue 12 months ago or updating a single word in a support document), or the paying public as the appropriate voting group or a combination of both.

There is a substantial mailing list of financial contributors.  Why is it not a better "list" of those eligible for a vote?  Now the paying public would leave me without a vote.  I strongly suspect I would not be alone from the members of this list in that,  but if I were inclined a small cash donation would make me "financial" and eligible.  Why raise this?  because I think as a responsive product we need to actually consider the wants of those actually paying the bills. 

Do they want to vote?  Should they be encouraged to support a "users representative" or two on the council?  Should the council actually be a group who represents the wants hopes and aspirations of differing parts of the project.

I would think a process similar to the one used by the Mozilla Foundation to replace their board members might be more appropriate really.  Otherwise I suggest that we actually advertise this mailing list to our users as a place to get a say in the future of the project if they wish to vote in future council elections.  After all,  finding this list is quite difficult,  almost as difficult as finding a web page with list the current members of the council and their contact information. 

One of the frustrations of the current arrangements is that the makeup of the council and the process by which they get there is not easily locatable. Unless you are in the "know".  We need to do much better in advertising the council and the living breathing existence of Thunderbird as a "non" Mozilla product.  If we want to bring in outside people to the council great,  let them join in the process,  but lets make the process very public so they can.

Matt.

[Ben Bucksch]

2 questions that I would also be interested in to be answered by the
community:

* Which problems for Thunderbird as a whole would you like the Council
to address?
* How do you see the TB Council? What do they do well? In which ways and
areas does the TB Council need to improve?

(Please do not feel that you are not involved enough in the project to
answer these questions. I'd like to hear even from those of you who only
use Thunderbird as end user. Let's give everybody a fair slice of the
voice, and accept other people's voices as they are.)

Ben Bucksch

[Wayne Mery]

On 11/10/2017 8:27 PM, Ben Bucksch wrote:

2 questions that I would also be interested in to be answered by the community:

* Which problems for Thunderbird as a whole would you like the Council to address?
* How do you see the TB Council? What do they do well? In which ways and areas does the TB Council need to improve?

(Please do not feel that you are not involved enough in the project to answer these questions. I'd like to hear even from those of you who only use Thunderbird as end user. Let's give everybody a fair slice of the voice, and accept other people's voices as they are.)

Ben Bucksch

I hope no one takes offense, but what you are asking is part of a future set of questions (as the original posting of this thread states, there WILL be future requests for feedback), and so this and other topics are out of scope for the current topic.

[Ben Bucksch]

Wayne Mery wrote on 11.11.17 07:08:

Ah, OK, sorry, I didn't understand that. Let's hold on this part, then,
until we move on to that.

Thanks for pointing that out.

[Gervase Markham]

On 10/11/17 23:35, Matt Harris wrote:
> I think that the involvement of a voting public is a great idea, but I
> have concerns this mailing list is not the way to go, or representative
> of anything more than a small group who managed to jump the hurdles of
> an obscure Mozilla mailing list subscription.

It has never been the case for any council election, as far as I am
aware, that the electorate has been defined as "subscribers to tb-planning".

> There is a substantial mailing list of financial contributors.  Why is
> it not a better "list" of those eligible for a vote? 

Because most of them will have no idea who the candidates are, and I
suspect most of them will not be interested in voting.

> I would think a process similar to the one used by the Mozilla
> Foundation to replace their board members might be more appropriate
> really.

You mean get a BDFL to choose someone, whose qualities are then
discussed publicly?

[Goverenance TB]

This email is followup to tb-planning post on 2017/11/9  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-planning/U7QniGGFepo  (and quoted  below), which  solicited community feedback about determining the electorate and the method of voting. (It should be noted the wording in that email was not consistent - in one place stated as "method of conducting elections", and in another "nominating and voting.") 

This email provides the council's proposals based on that feedback including the rationale behind these proposals, and we request your feedback on the proposals and rationale.

Four people emailed in tb-planning which you can read in this thread (one of which was off topic), plus one person replied to gover...@thunderbird.net, quoted below [1] in the interest of full disclosure.  The council had hoped for more feedback, but we are certainly thankful for those that offered opinion and advice.  The sample size is small, but the feedback might be summarized as a) the process used was generally fair and worked well, b) maintain a public process and c) broaden the electorate, with some emphasis on including donors.  Additional comments worth highlighting

• in the electorate discussion process, "candidates should be asked to not only introduce them self, but give answers to some of the burning questions Thunderbird is faced with." (yes, we can incorporate that) 
  
• in building the electorate, "I don't believe that we paid sufficient attention to making sure the electorate appropriately included all those who make significant contributions to Thunderbird...." (see below)
  

Council discussed this feedback.

Regarding broadening the electorate there are two key points:

• Donors (of which there are 10,000) are of course extremely important, we understand the reasons people want to give donors a voice in this process, and we  have discussed this and other donor related issues several times in the past year.  But the challenges remain the same as in 2017, and so we propose not to include donors in this election cycle for several reasons as follows... We do not have contact information for most donors, and it would be unfair to include some donors and not others (within reason). We don't have access to contribution amounts and therefore would be unable to set minimum requirements should that be deemed desirable.  Lastly, the vast majority of donors are likely not familiar with project issues, and also likely do not have an interest in Thunderbird governance, making them a relatively uniformed and less than ideal population to include in the electorate. 
  

• Given the positive feedback on tb-planning, and the quality of the 2017 electorate pool (which netted 110 names) we propose to target the same communities and use the 2017 criteria [2], which requires 20 hours of contribution in a 2-year time period and includes the ability for people to self nominate.  We have considered last year's list [2] and have not found nor has anyone proposed additional communities (other than donors), but we would welcome more.  If you know of any group (contributor, support venue, ...) missing from the list we are eager to hear about them - please send it to us with a suggested contact in the group, so it can be considered for possible inclusion.
  

Regarding electorate discussion and electorate voting, we propose to use the same process which includes STV voting.  The reasons for doing so are the positive feedback on tb-planning, the lack of complaints expressed during the election process, no alternatives suggested to council, and no better methodologies in council discussions.  See https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fuq11n3mmwOMfMp5RMHI9N0QPvx4RpIiZn9v4lJPPFw/edit#heading=h.32x43zap0qqf previously posted by Gerv which describes last year's process.

Please see "Council Member Duties and Roles" https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v4bp_Nu96V343HiW5Qetq7lx0W5l5KOSSAy0bZcxQ14 which we have developed to help the community and electorate better understand what it means to be on the council.

With respect to the above proposals, if anyone has additional suggestions, serious disagreement, or need to discuss or ask questions that have not been previously posted, please post them now in public or email privately (your choice) so that we may consider them for this round of elections.

The next email on elections will request your feedback on council size, eligibility, and term overlaps.

Regards,
Wayne (writing for the governance committee)


[1] one feedback email received at gover...@thunderbird.net

I think the last elections were held professionally and adequately. I
would think we should follow the same procedures.

I also agree with Gerv that the voting body should be expanded a little
to make sure we get all relevant contributors, and I would go even a
step further: we should also invite those who donated to Thunderbird (or
maybe a subset that donated more than a certain threshold) to vote.
(name withheld, because the feedback was not posted publicly)

[2] Electorate criteria - Contribute at least 20 hours in the timespan of two years. The idea is to admit people who have contributed to the Thunderbird project in any way, shape or form by

    Doing BMO triage
    Giving support on SUMO
    Sending patches
    Working on localisations
    Contributing add-ons to the ecosystem
    Helping the TB cause in Mozilla central
    Furthering the TB cause by constructive contributions to TB planning.
    Doing other things for TB, like public relations, blog post, social media, artwork, etc.

There is also the option to self-nominate in case we have overlooked someone in the published list. 

[Jörg Knobloch]

On 19/01/2018 05:02, Goverenance TB wrote:

Given the positive feedback on tb-planning, and the quality of the 2017 electorate pool (which netted 110 names) we propose to target the same communities and use the 2017 criteria [2], which requires 20 hours of contribution in a 2-year time period and includes the ability for people to self nominate.  We have considered last year's list [2] and have not found nor has anyone proposed additional communities (other than donors), but we would welcome more.  If you know of any group (contributor, support venue, ...) missing from the list we are eager to hear about them - please send it to us with a suggested contact in the group, so it can be considered for possible inclusion.

Just regarding: If you know of any ... contributor ... missing from the list ... please send ...

You can find the 2017 list at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Council_Elections_2017.

We'd also like to include SUMO contributors of languages other than English who might be missing from the roll.

Proposed additions so far who do not need to send a suggestion:
Justin Wood (missed last time)
Mats Palmgren (missed last time)
Alfred Peters (new contributor)
Gene Smith (new contributor)
Makoto Kato (Mozilla Japan, helping with patches and reviews)
Zibi Braniecki (Mozilla Japan helping with reviews)
Axel Hecht (Mozilla, helping with patches and reviews)
Gijs Kruitbosch (Mozilla, helping with advice)
Marco Bonardo (Mozilla, helping with advice)
Tom Prince
Ryan Snipes
Oleksandr Popov (add-on author)
Łukasz Płomiński (add-on author)
Jiří Lýsek (add-on author)
Ángela Velo (SUMO and L10N Spain)

Jörg.

[ISHIKAWA,chiaki]

On 2018/01/19 16:50, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
> We'd also like to include SUMO contributors of languages other than
> English who might be missing from the roll.

I think this is great, Japan being in the top position of the countries
where the number of TB users is large. Also, Germany is a big user base
if I recall correctly (however, many Germans use written English rather
well.)
Chinese speaking users seem to be large in number although I am not sure
how many.

Chiaki

[R Kent James]

Top 10 countries by usage are, in order: Germany, Japan, United States,
France, Poland, Italy, Russian Federation, Spain, United Kingdom,
Brazil. China is not in the top 20. There are no Chinese languages in
the top 10 locale list.

:rkent