Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [ANNOUNCE] upcoming vote: extra members for GA

[Anton Khirnov <anton@khirnov.net>]

Quoting Michael Niedermayer (2023-11-09 18:39:23)
> On Thu, Nov 09, 2023 at 06:06:16PM +0100, Anton Khirnov wrote:
> > Quoting Michael Niedermayer (2023-11-09 17:21:12)
> > > On Thu, Nov 09, 2023 at 01:21:13PM +0100, Anton Khirnov wrote:
> > > > As far as I can tell, the voter list in the last vote should be the same
> > > > as the GA from 2020, except for the extra members whose voting rights
> > > > expire after 2 years.
> > > > 
> > > > Do you dispute that? 
> > > 
> > > There are at least 3 issues here
> > > 
> > > * The first and maybe the biggest, is that our vote superviser can reply to
> > >   mails within 20min (like in this thread here) but is not replying to a simple
> > >   question within days where the list of voters comes from he used and how it
> > >   relates to the 2020 GA. It gives one the feeling he has some sort of
> > >   difficulty with awnsering that question
> > >   you took a guess here and replied, and i appreciate that. But really JB
> > >   choose this list and also the one in 2020. Only he can explain where these
> > >   lists come from and how they relate.
> > 
> > JB did explain where the list comes from [1] - it was generated by the
> > script that is now in our tree. Nobody disputed it in 2020.
> > 
> > > * I know for a fact that at least zane was not in the 2020 GA as i talked
> > >   with him and i know he did cast a vote in 2023 because again he told me.
> > >   So even if you partially apply the rules these lists do not match
> > 
> > Zane had 30 commits in July 2020, so he SHOULD have been on the list. If
> > he wasn't, then it was a mistake in 2020.
> 
> the 2020 GA list cannot have been created in July 2020 because there where
> votes prior that used it.

According to my mailbox, the vote on extra members was started on
2020-06-18. TC/CC election vote was started on 2020-07-12. Zane had 29
commits as of the former, and 30 as of the latter. In either case he
should have been on the list.

With what you told us so far, it is entirely possible he was on the
original list, but
* misremembered about not receiving the vote link, or
* did not get the email because of delivery issues (we had them even now
  during the first attempt to initiate the vote).

> > 
> > > * The 2nd issue is that there are rules how to change the GA over time
> > >   like that after 2 years there needs to a confirmation AND that the
> > >   other members represent the "active" developers in the last 36 months.
> > >   I can see an argument to leave the 2020 GA untouched and use it as is
> > >   I can also see an argument to update it, and exactly this was done in a
> > >   vote in 2021 by JB. Now we are here trying the 3rd variant of applying
> > >   only half the rules.
> > >   But whats more so, we actually are not. What you are doing here is
> > >   looking at what happened and trying to rationalize it, trying to find
> > >   an explanation for the list. Not stating upfront what this list is
> > >   IMO this is not acceptable for a vote. Uhm we found this list, lets see
> > >   where that might have come from ....
> > 
> > To be honest, it very much seems to me that you are trying to bikeshed
> > the process to death. Yes, it is imperfect, but that is to be expected
> > given we've only used it a few times so far, and the last time was over
> > 2 years ago. What we are doing here is trying to clarify the rules so
> > that we actually can vote with some regularity.
> 
> Is it bikesheding if 2 lists that are supposed to be the same differ in
> multiple entries ?

It is the way you are doing it, with all these "just asking questions"
and vague accusations of impropriety.

> these are lists with roughly 50 entries, now we _know_ 2 people differ

We don't. You only mention one, whom I adress above. Who is the second?

> but there where 3 on the extra voters list so really 4 differ almost certainly

I do not understand this math.

> thats roughly 10% of the voters are wrong.
> Thats not bikesheding IMO. We arent talking about 1 voter in hundreads.

Even if this was true (which I don't think is supported by evidence so
far), it's still less than half of the minimum needed to change the
result.

> I do want to know what happened here and want to have this not happen
> again. if i offend people with that investigation then so be it
> 
> 
> > 
> > In the vote we just had, option A won its contests against B/C/D by
> > 17/7, 23/1, and 17/7, respectively. While it is possible that the list
> > used was not entirely correct (also depending on
> > the intepretation of the rules), I see no reason to think it was
> > incorrect in 10 people, which is what you'd need to have a chance of
> > getting a different result.
> 
> Its not just this vote, its that we need to understand what happened here
> so we can prevent this from happening again

What happened is very clear to me. The process was bikeshod to death by
endless discussions and concerns, the script for generating the list was
not pushed into the main tree, and so the process for generating the
list remained obscure.

We don't need to "understand what happened", we need to define a clear
process, which is exactly what we are trying to do with these votes. If
you want to help, help with that.

-- 
Anton Khirnov
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