PSF Board Election Reform

No need to be too pessimistic about it. It’s ultimately the case that the PSF can only engage with those who want to engage with them and are in a position to do so.

Not every individual/group/organisation is comfortable doing so, and when that happens it’s very likely that nobody ever finds out. When I hear about them, I always encourage them to reach out and say “hi” (I tend to hear it from people at small/medium businesses, but I’m sure it happens with community-based groups too), but there’s no way to force it.

Hello,

just adding my two cents with some review from the Latin community.
The way I see it we could have short and long term actions to reflect and work on.

Short term How to make the current election system better?

  • Limit the number of candidates a voter can choose. The limit could be the number of seats available.
  • Change the wording of the ticket, also +1 to improve the UX
  • Allocate resources to build awareness in communities that have low volume of voters. Mostly: how elections work, why is it important to be involved, etc. A starting point could be translate this info to the languages of the Python Docs.
  • “Mentor” future board members or create programs/groups about it. It’s not clear what it means to be a Board member.
  • Limit the ability to run if there are already x number of people from the same region serving as Board of Directors.

Long term

  • Define regions in need of representation. Many approaches can be taken to do this.
    • One suggested by @valerybriz is to have groups apply with at least 30 registered PSF members (this number can be lower or higher).
    • This links to the comment about not knowing who everyone is. For example, the Latin community can be the region at first and then as it grows, be divided into Central America and South America, etc. Same thing with Africa, Asia etc
  • Each registered region will be elegible to have a chair. This could be done with internal elections. In order to be eligible, work within that region or community must be verifiable without it necessarily being your place of residence.

About the role of ambassador. If the role is created, they must have the power to vote in board meetings or at least be able to raise motions. Otherwise, the invitation to attend meetings without being able to vote does not generate change needed. We can have those roles but not to resolve this issue.

Thanks for this conversation, and for everybody involved. I’m glad to see that we are all looking at the same direction.

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