[cab-discuss] election calendar decision reqd

[Al Hopper]

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 johansen-osdev at sun.com wrote:

> Hi Al,
>
> > > What does it mean for campaigning to end?
>
> > > For that matter, why is this even important?  I don't mean to nitpick,
> >
> > If it was considered OK for a candidate to generate unusual levels of
> > email across a wide number of OpenSolaris lists during the election
> > period, then the other candidates would feel pressured to do the same and
> > our technical forums would turn into OGB election related "spam" for two
> > weeks.
>
> This policy is going to be difficult to enforce.  Assuming that candidates
> abide by the prescribed decorum, is it reasonable to expect that other
> people won't continue to campaign on behalf of the candidates?  As an

Of course that's reasonable and I'm sure that is exactly what will happen.

> example, can Swift Boat Veterans for OpenSolaris continue to post to
> mailing lists after campaigning has ended?
>
> I'm having a difficult time imagining how we can force parties who
> aren't candidates to stop advocating a particular viewpoint after
> campaiging has closed.  Aren't the candidates at a disadvantage if we
> prevent them from participating in political discussions just because
> campaiging has ended?  I may have misunderstood what the proposal is;

And this point was covered in the email that you are responding to.
Quoting myself:

AH> So a candidate would be expected to maintain a "business as usual"
AH> presence on the mailing lists and is free to respond to election related
AH> questions that might be posed by a voter.

> however, I do think Keith has a valid point: is it important to try to
> limit what and when candidates may express opinions?  It would be my

I don't see where you are getting this from.  There is no attempt to "try
to limit what and when candidates may express opinions".  All we are
saying is that candidates *campaigning* must end at the end of the
campaign period.  Then they maintain a "business as usual" presence on the
project and are "free to respond to election related questions that might
be posed by a voter" during the election period (2 weeks).

Here's a definition of campaigning from dictionary.com that might be
useful:

""An operation or series of operations energetically pursued to accomplish
a purpose: an advertising campaign for a new product; a candidate's
political campaign.""

> preference to avoid any kind of restrictions.

I could characterize the entire OpenSolaris.org project as a project with
a casual and tolerant attitude where there are few restrictions.

Regards,

Al Hopper  Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX.  al at logical-approach.com
           Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134  Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris.Org Community Advisory Board (CAB) Member - Apr 2005
             OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Feb 2006