clarify election process for operations advisory group

[jeswr]

Drafting the election process for the operations advisory group. Comments are welcome.

[jeswr]

@jeff-zucker @CxRes @mrkvon - could you please identify if you would like any modifications to the phrasing of the self-nomination statement

[CxRes]

@jeswr You need to setup a small hoop for nomination process. This could be self-nomination, if you have previously contributed to Solid or requiring, say, two other community members (or previous solid contributors) to sign off on your nomination. This is a basic sanity check to prevent random applications.

Also the ranked choice voting for a committee is fundamentally flawed, as it selects from everyone's top choice (adjusted for eliminations) to fill n seats as opposed to everyone's top n choices to fill n seats. This is why, for example, elf Pavlik did not get elected in the first round of CG elections as he was a 2nd choice for a lot of people voting strategically. I would suggest Broda Count but that's my preference.

[jeswr]

Good thought - thinking out loud perhaps the phrasing could be:

Must have meaningully contributed to one of the following within the last 12 months, or be endorsed by two community members who have have meaningully contributed to one of the following within the last 12 months:

• solidproject.org
• solidcommunity.net
• Any repositories under the solid and solid-contrib GitHub organisations.

Got it on ranked choice being flawed - have you researched to see if the Broda Count is the best alternative / what is the suggestion based on?

[csarven]

The Solid CG used a Single Transferable Vote system because like with most of its charter/guidelines leaning on the W3C Process where applicable, it was one of them for various elections at W3C (AB, TAG, at the very least): https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#AB-TAG-elections . And, neither the CG or myself had the time or the expertise to figure out the most suitable voting method in combination with the voting system (provided by W3C) we could use (with some software we had to write tapping into W3C API for eligibility etc etc..). Perfect/Flawless? Most likely not. Most suitable considering various criteria/options? I would say so.

And to be more specific, W3C uses MeekSTV.

Regarding who got elected and who not.. there is the Solid CG Election Retrospective which might be of some use.

SC: I don't know how to evaluate the results in a meaningful and fair
way without understanding MeekSTV well. I'll trust the consensus in W3C
as to why they use it and keep it aligned to rest of election stuff
there. Easier to work with a process that they have than doing our own
things, in case we have questions, etc.

SC: That doesn't mean we cannot do additional things on top of things
we observe. Charter has some constraints on only one person from each
affiliation; we can add other constraints on other things. I don't know
if there should be some thresholds. Comes down to the math. Looking at
these results: one of the winners has 39% unranked. I don't know how to
interpret that, but at face value, from 41 ballots, 39% said they did
not want the candidate, but they got a seat. I don't know what to do
with that information, but it does stand out. It had to do with the method.

---

So, I don't have a strong opinion on a particular STV - folks with more time, expertise, and community support/history would be better fit to speak about it - but generally find it fair. Except of course when we get strange outcomes such as the one above - while 39% of the voters not even ranking a candidate (~do not want) yet they still get a seat.

[CxRes]

Got it on ranked choice being flawed - have you researched to see if the Broda Count is the best alternative / what is the suggestion based on?

Let me address that in two parts:

1. A perfect voting system is mathematically impossible. See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk
2. There is some research that favours Broda count. See a summary here: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/01/the-borda-count-is-the-best-method-of-voting.html but also see counterpoints in the comments.

And, neither the CG or myself had the time or the expertise to figure out the most suitable voting method in combination with the voting system (provided by W3C)

Like @csarven points out, this all came to us in hindsight after the Solid CG election. However, up to a first approximation, I am reasonably confident of my reasoning of the results. I think the W3C might be well advised to re-examine its choice of voting system, particularly for multi-candidate elections.

[pchampin]

"meaningful contributions" seems too restrictive for voters, but I don't have anything better to propose :-/

[CxRes]

I realize this as well, but options I can think of are silly!

[jeswr]

Thanks for all of the inputs, based on this thread I have:

• Changed to using a Broda count, my understanding is that there were no objections to this choice
• Removed any membership barriers to vote

See changes in c2c7a76

[jeswr]

I'm going to merge this PR - should further changes be needed please open an issue.