Each year, in the lead up to Python Software Foundation elections, current and prospective PSF members visit psfmember.org to register as members and affirm their voting privileges. This can be a confusing process, especially for those newly registering. My intent with this post is to share common feedback regarding this experience and improve the user experience of the site before the next election cycle. I’ve collected feedback from a number of community members and am outlining some common issues below (in no particular order):
The option to enroll as a Managing / Contributing member is difficult to find. Currently, the only comprehensive resource for finding information on and links to register for the different membership types is the PSF Membership FAQ (PSF Membership Types & FAQ | Python Software Foundation). There exists a link to register as a Supporting member on the homepage of psfmember.org but no links to the registration form for Managing / Contributing members, which leads to prospective members attempting to register using the wrong form and getting stuck. Adding a second registration link to the homepage of psfmember.org and clearly labeling them would go a long way in solving this stumbling block.
The process to create accounts on two different sites is confusing. The Managing / Contributing membership form directs new members to first enroll as a basic member on python.org and then email the PSF to link the two accounts. It is not clear to me what linking these accounts entails or results in, but this has been a consistent point of confusion that leads to prospective members questioning if they will be able to vote in an (often very soon, due to late registrations) upcoming election. I’m not sure what can be done to improve this step, but I want to raise the concern anyway.
Related to the previous point, members express confusion about the difference between psfmember.org and python.org/users/. Members are not aware that these two sites are not synchronized, and the phrase “basic membership is not a voting membership class” included on that page leads them to believe that they are not registered as a voting member. Connecting these two membership directories may not be a simple task.
An affirmed intent to vote is not readable by a logged in user. As of the 2024 election cycle, users were able to log in and affirm their intent to vote, but this intent was not displayed to them, resulting in users affirming (or thinking they have affirmed) their intent multiple times. Recent bylaws changes should already address this in part by treating previous voting action as an affirmation, but populating the affirmation form with a user’s current status would make this more clear. Edit: this has already been fixed. Thank you to Joe for fixing it and Marie for pointing this out!
There are too many sources of information regarding PSF membership. During election season, several links regarding PSF membership tend to be shared on social media sites to encourage signups. The most comprehensive one appears to be the membership FAQ (as stated above), but prospective do not always land on a page that includes all of their membership options. Ideally, members would have access to all of their options in one place with little required navigation away from or toward the registration forms.
There used to be confusion regarding the overlap between Managing and Contributing memberships. These membership classes have been consolidated as a result of the last election bylaws changes, and I want to thank the folks that brought this up for a vote and the voting members that approved it. This is a change that especially reduces confusion for members that contribute to the Python community in more than one way.
A few improvements were made to the membership forms leading up to the 2024 elections. I want to thank the PSF staff for being responsive and helping get new members registered to vote.
This post aims to identify a number of common issues with membership registration and to make the process easier for the future. I would like to encourage the community to share other experiences that I have not included here and to revisit the registration process if it’s been a while since you’ve gone through it (it’s easy to forget what your experience was like, and things may have changed since you registered). I was directed to the forum as the best place to share this feedback, and I am happy to help with any changes that are necessary to improve this process.
Hi @jonafato, thank you so much for putting this post together. Many of these things are already on our radar, though your precise recommendations for improving the member experience are very helpful.
We have made one improvement you’ve suggested already! Thanks to Joe Carey, the Voting Affirmation page now specifies the year (it is the current calendar year), reports to the user if they have already submitted it, and allows the user to update their choice (rather than creating duplicates). If you run into any bugs or issues with that page since the update, please let us know, because we should now have the rights/know-how to make further adjustments.
I will share this post with the PSF Board & Staff to ensure the right folks have seen it. For the election-specific bits, I will incorporate this into our preparation for next year. Thanks again!
If anyone else has other feedback about the membership experience, I welcome more comments
@riecatnor Thanks for pointing out that Joe has already improved the affirmation page!
(I tried to edit my post to reflect that this is no longer an issue, but I’m unable to because “An error occurred: Sorry, new users can only put 2 links in a post.”. If a mod can help me out, I think it’s worth amending that list item to keep the top post in the thread actionable. Edit: fixed, thanks for the help.)
Thank you for improving this took me about 1h last time to figure out which form(s) to fill in and with what details, so I’ve been hesitant to recommend others also go through this process.
My sources of confusion are already listed here I think - I remember trying to figure out whether I should I register as Managing or Contributing, and trying to understand the different PSF accounts I had and which one to use for what.
Are there any ways that the community can directly contribute here? My initial request that led to this forum post was “how can I submit a pull request to fix some issues?”, and I expect that we have a bunch of community members that would be happy to pitch in. An additional example regarding membership classes that would be a good candidate for a community contribution: there are currently at least three places that still reference Contributing and Managing membership classes as separate things (the self-certification form, the membership page, and the membership FAQ) which are outdated as of the bylaws changes that were approved in July via this year’s election cycle. I’m keen to direct prospective PSF members to accurate information, and “do I choose Contributing or Managing?” is still a common question that I hear from folks as they go to sign up.
The psfmember.org site is a WordPress site hosted and managed by a third party contractor, and many changes/edits are done via the management panel. So unfortunately, there really isn’t any good way to allow community contributions as giving folks access to the management panel would raise privacy issues.
Unfortunately the content on the python.org pages that you linked is CMS content, meaning there is no obvious way to accept direct contributions, someone with access needs to edit the page on the site. Anything that is part of the python.org codebase can be addressed by issues and/or PR’s.
With all of that said, I have now updated the self-certification form, and the membership page and membership FAQ, to remove references to Managing membership.
I’m attaching a screenshot of a modified page here for a more concrete example of how I think we could reduce a lot of confusion here. This is not a visual design suggestion, just an option to make links more discoverable and to link back to the membership info hosted on python.org’s Membership FAQ.