On Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:43:59 +0000, Moray Allan wrote:
(Outsider point of view following.)
> (a) where there are mistakes and significant gaps in the summary,
> compared to what really happened in previous years;
IMO your summary describes quite well what happened in the last
years.
> (b) what improvements we could make to the process in the future.
Some thoughts after following the last couple of decision meetings
on IRC:
> - Venue decision meeting 2:
First of all I think it's important to have a chairperson and a
timetable beforehand.
> * Quick introduction from each team, and quick questions to each
> team -- ideally by now everyone should already be clear on the bid
> statuses.
>
> * Bid teams describe how their bid meets each of the points on the
> priority list (http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/PriorityList).
>
> * Bid teams describe weak points in their own bids.
>
> * Bid teams describe strong points in other bids.
These stages worked quite well in my experience.
> * Then we work through the priority list, considering where bids are
> stronger than each other.
>
> * A decision is made. Even if there's already agreement on each
> bid's advantages, this isn't simply a mathematical calculation: some
> aspects are more important than others.
And these points were not so optimal IMO.
- Going through the priority list sounds reasonable and is necessary
in one way or another; I've perceived it as extremely long and
tedious in prior meetings, and my impression was that it favoured
those who had more endurance and "fought" harder, and disadvantaged
teams who were more willing to concede own weak points (or were
simply less awake or less vocal). Especially the disputes about
"half points" and the bargaining ("Ok, same for point A if we get
more for point B") seemed counterproductive to me.
- "A decision is made." sums up my main issue quite well -- it's not
specified who takes the decision and how it's taken. If my memory
doesn't deceive me it was like "No, we don't just sum up points" in
the beginning and then "Hm, what do we do now, everyone's tired
etc. -- Ah, it seems X has won as they have more points. Fine."
I guess this situation puts a lot of stress on the bids'
representatives, as they both want to see their bid win and play
nicely at the same time (which contradicts each other to a certain
extent, and the latter doesn't pay off when the outcome of the
calculation is important), especially as it's not so clear what
happens after going through the list and collecting points.
I don't claim to have "the solution" at hand but I think changing
this rating procedure and especially clarifying the actual decision
making are the points to start at.
Maybe it would help to take some of the steam out of the decision
meeting if the roles were changed a bit, i.e. if the bids'
representatives were not forced to rate/agree on a rating on the
checklist points for the proposals and this task was moved to some
more neutral parties ((members of the) global team, nominated
referees not involved in the bids, etc.). -- If the points are
necessary at all (maybe they just try to give an impression of
transparency and objectivity that doesn't and can't really exist).
It feels a bit weird to say, but maybe the approach to try to reach a
consensus is also not the best method in this case, and some kind of
voting (again preferably by a jury of people not involved with the
bids) at the end would make the decision itself clearer and less
painful (and reduce the importance of the mathematics before).
Just some thoughts from a happy and grateful DebConf participant.
Cheers,
gregor
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