#366 Election Interview Questions - Council (F34)
Closed: approved 2 years ago by bcotton. Opened 2 years ago by bcotton.

In order to move forward with the next election, we need to determine which questions the Council would like to have asked of candidates.

We need the Council to please identify the questions before 2021-05-12 so we can properly communicate them to candidates and so they enough time to answer them.

In case the selection is not complete by 12 May, the Election wrangler will use the same set of questions as the last election cycle:

  • Why are you running for Fedora Council?
  • What do you see as Fedora's place in the universe?
  • How can we best measure Fedora's success?
  • What big changes does Fedora need to make in the next five years in order to continue to be successful?

Some additional questions are listed in the wiki, or you may come up with new ones.


Recently, Fedora chose to not make a Black Lives Matter statement while the Fedora Council did collectively publish a statement about Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. Do you agree with how both incidents were handled? What do you agree with and what do you think would have made a better response in either situation?

So I've been thinking about this since I got the email notification and here's where I think I stand at the moment.

I'm a 0 on that question.

In general, I don't like the idea of putting "comment on this specific issue" questions on the ballot. While I understand the intent behind the question, and do agree that it would be good for candidates to weigh in on, I'm concerned that the practical effect will be re-litigating those decisions. Candidates can certainly bring it up themselves if they want. I've seen that happen several times in FESCo elections where candidates took a strong position on Modularity (for example) without being specifically prompted.

As someone who will have to moderate the comments on the posts, I'm also not looking forward to drawing the attention of the general internet population who will feel compelled to revive the argument. As recently as Tuesday I had to remove an abusive comment from Fedora Magazine regarding the FSF statement. While I think disabling comments on our Magazine post was the right decision, I wouldn't want to do that on the interview posts because they provide a venue for the community to ask questions of the candidates, and that's very valuable.

So yeah, I'm 0 on that. I won't oppose if the consensus is that it's worth including, but I also can't bring myself to endorse it.

Rephrase for the "next five years" question:

We just completed our thirty-fourth Fedora Linux. That's amazing! The tech world isn't the same as it was in 2003, though. What do we need to do differently in the next 12-18 months so that we're set up for another successful decade?

Repeating my comment from today's meeting for ease of discovery:

I wonder if making it more general would help. something like "how should the Fedora Council balance our focus on the mission while also addressing the broader social concerns that affect the inclusiveness of our community?"

@mattdm @bcotton Your questions get at the perspective I wanted to understand from candidates in a more focused way, so I redact my original proposed question in favor of either or both of the last two proposed questions.

Proceeding with the following questions:

  1. Why are you running for the Fedora Council?

  2. What do you see as Fedora's place in the universe?

  3. How can we best measure Fedora's success?

  4. We just completed our thirty-fourth Fedora Linux. That's amazing! The tech world isn't the same as it was in 2003, though. What do we need to do differently in the next 12-18 months so that we're set up for another successful decade?

  5. How should the Fedora Council balance our focus on the mission while also addressing the broader social concerns that affect the inclusiveness of our community?

Metadata Update from @bcotton:
- Issue close_status updated to: approved
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

2 years ago

Metadata Update from @jflory7:
- Issue priority set to: Waiting on Assignee (was: Next Meeting)

9 months ago

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