Steering Council - Early Election Vote

Django Internals
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I want to call a vote of the Steering Council to trigger an early election for the next Steering Council, with nominations opening on November 25th, voting beginning on December 13th, and voting closing on December 20th.

The context for this is that we want to try and get a great slate of fresh candidates in to form a totally- or majority-new board, and give them time before the next release series to spin up and help establish a more active role for the Steering Council.

The question being asked is, specifically, “Shall an election of the Steering Council occur?”. @steering_council members, please register your vote in this thread.

I vote +1/Accept.

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I vote +1/Accept as well.

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I vote +1/Accept also.

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I intend to vote, but I am not yet casting my vote because I want to be sure we remove the 18-month eligibility requirement before we trigger an election.

Once we have a completed vote on that, I will cast my vote here (and per DEP 10 voting process, this vote will stay open until all of us have voted, because until we’ve all voted any single vote could theoretically change the outcome).

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I’ve replied in the new vote thread on why I find that proposal inappropriate. In addition, it also strikes me as inappropriate for anyone to unilaterally decide they’ll hold up a vote because they want another, newer vote completed first.

and per DEP 10 voting process, this vote will stay open until all of us have voted, because until we’ve all voted any single vote could theoretically change the outcome.

Seriously? That’s not per the DEP 10 voting process :roll_eyes: that’s per the Steering Council’s inability to rectify the group being one member short. DEP 10 says “4 minimum” for process changes, not for all SC votes.

There’s been ample opportunity for Steering Council members to rectify this.

  1. 18 months ago – the May 2023 elections, it was clear not all positions were filled. There are clear mechanisms for the SC to fill a vacancy, and the SC didn’t.

  2. 6 months ago - May 2024 Background tasks vote, it was made very clear being a member short was a problem. The SC didn’t rectify it then either.

  3. 2 months ago - (DSF Members) Tweak to Steering Council membership rules?, this was again raised as an issue. We even had a pretty simple solution proposed.

  4. And finally – 1 month ago - in the same thread, we had an attempt from @adamchainz to follow through by nominating a fith member. This should (“SHALL”) have been notified to me as DSF Secretary. And after my checking, “SHALL” have been formally put to a Steering Council vote. None of that happened.

@ubernostrum, you yourself shot that down and made plain the obvious risk that “currently each of us effectively has a veto”. And now here we are, with one Steering Council member unilaterally deciding to obstruct the voting process that all three other have already participated in.

Where this leaves us

So – could we get the vote completed, one way or the other? There are a lot of Django community members interested in the upcoming Steering Council elections, as candidates or otherwise. It’d be healthier for all of us to see this decision through. And for governance changes to follow a more appropriate process.

James, if you truly believe you should withhold your vote until another vote is completed: I’d encourage you to reflect on what this looks like from the outside. And consider resigning. Your proposal and ideas have merit. Witholding votes just isn’t a way to get decisions happening. Other SC members – if what you want is early elections anyway, two of you three can resign to achieve the same outcome (per DEP10’s Process of selecting the Technical Board.

There are a lot of issues here which I hope future Django governance people will get to reflect on. I’ve heard lots of complaints about the SC being more reactive than proactive. People want proposals, yes. And governance changes, hurrah. And being more inclusive, spot on. But it’s very apparent from the last few weeks’ DSF Members forum discussions that we don’t need the current Steering Council to get there, and certainly we don’t need a unilateral change from the SC or any one member of it. We can leave that all to newly-elected members. They’ll have more time to fulfill their role of canvassing for ideas, liaising with the DSF Board for governance changes, and overall acting as community catalysts.

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Am I the only one who finds it kinda ironic that the “hostage”-threat by James is meritless given that those who are in favor of the vote only need to resign to get the requested outcome? :thinking:

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I had thought, coming into this, that we had clear consensus on a two-part plan which would loosen up the eligibility requirements for SC membership and then call an early election.

The voting thread for the eligibility change, however, made clear that I and another member who thought there had been consensus were mistaken, and no consensus existed. This is a strong argument against proceeding with any part of the plan; if half the SC misunderstood the situation with respect to the eligibility change, it seems unlikely that we all are truly in agreement on an election.

In light of which, I vote -1.

All members have now cast their vote. The votes consist of three +1 votes and one -1 vote. The score is thus 2 and, per DEP 10, the outcome is No Action – no election is triggered.

1 Like
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I would ask once again that members of this forum refrain from assuming or imputing malicious intent. Doing so is a violation of Django’s Code of Conduct.

As I have explained more times than I ever thought I would have to, I thought we had a clear consensus that we were going to do both things – eligibility change and early election – and apparently I was not alone among SC members in thinking that (@charettes in the eligibility-change thread apparently thought the same thing). I held off my vote here solely because I thought the sequencing should ensure the eligibility change first since it affects the way the election is run. For that I have been repeatedly accused of “hostage-taking” and similar malicious actions, by people who are supposed to be leaders and exemplars of our community.

I am very sad at the way this has all occurred.

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As of this morning, the Steering Council has now had three resignations since our last full election, so a new election has been automatically triggered and this call for an election is now moot, and so I consider this matter closed.

As the DSF Board is the arbiter of Steering Council elections, I will contact the secretary of the board to notify them of this situation and begin the process of holding a Steering Council election, though given the DSF Board elections are themselves ongoing, I imagine they may want to delay announcement until after they have concluded.

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That would make sense, especially if there are people that might wanna run for SC if they don’t get a spot on the board.

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As a quick reminder, from now until the SC election completes and the new slate of members are seated:

  • The SC cannot approve new DEPs.
  • The governance process as outlined in DEPs 10 and 12, including eligibility requirements for the SC, is locked and cannot be changed.
  • If somehow the current SC confirms appointment of any new person to the role of Merger or Releaser, the appointment will automatically expire one month after the SC election concludes, unless re-confirmed by the newly-elected SC.
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Thanks Andrew, can confirm reception :smiling_face_with_tear: I’ll work with the DSF Board and other stakeholders to determine when we announce the Steering Council elections. And then complete the necessary preparations.