Steering Council - Early Election Vote

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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