Debian Project Leader Candidates' Platforms Online

An anonymous reader writes "The platforms for the Debian Project Leader candidates are now available here with more information about how votes are tallied. The candidates this year are the incumbent DPL Martin Michlmayr, and developers Branden Robinson, and Gergely Nagy (but if you vote for him, his tamagotchi will sit on you.)" Nagy's platform is interesting reading.

Comments

Re:Martin Michlmayr

[reaper20]

It's tough to measure what the DPL does if you're not a Debian Developer. I've been using Debian since Potato and I still have no idea what the DPL really does. Should it matter to me? Not really, I don't vote, the DD's do.

We (as in users) depend on them to provide us with Debian the distribution, and as such they pick the DPL. The parent might see this effort as "nothing" but then again, why fix something that isn't broken? The only main problem with Debian is still the release process, which has been broken for years, some might even argue that it isn't broken at all, I guess it depends on your point of view.

All I know is that I've been using sid for years, and it has served me well, with over thirteen thousand packages working as well as they do, I hardly think anyone from the outside can call Debian anything other than a miraculous success.

Of course, those involved in the process can criticize all they wish, that's probably the reason it works so well in the first place.

Instant Runoff Voting

[waldoj]

I can't find out on the Debian site how the votes will be tallied, but I certainly hope that they've got the good sense to use instant runoff voting. Mathematically speaking, it's the best method of tallying votes. Practically speaking, it's the best method of ensuring that the person elected is the most widely-desired candidate.

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:Instant Runoff Voting

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find out on the Debian site how the votes will be tallied, but I certainly hope that they've got the good sense to use instant runoff voting. Mathematically speaking, it's the best method of tallying votes. Practically speaking, it's the best method of ensuring that the person elected is the most widely-desired candidate.

Debian uses the Condorcet voting method, with Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping (SSD) as the tiebreaker method, and some modifications for supermajorities for use when voting on amendments to the Constitution, DFSG, and Social Contract. For people not familiar with Condorcet, the short explanation is that each ballot provides an ranking of the options, from most preferred to least preferred. The winner is the option that is preferred over every other option by a majority of people, meaning that a majority of people ranked that option over each other option.

Condorcet is far fairer than Instant Runoff. For example, Instant Runoff is non-monotonic, meaning that a vote for a candidate can make that candidate lose, and a vote against a candidate can make that candidate win. In addition, Instant Runoff generally eliminates "compromise" third-party candidates, even if they would have been preferable to the winning option. In fact, Instant Runoff Voting is the only option that is worse than the standard Plurality or "First Past the Post" system (one vote per person, most votes wins). This is primarily caused because Instant Runoff only looks at your top choice, and ignores the preferences below that, until your top choice is eliminated. This forces you to vote strategically, instead of honestly.

See electionmethods.org for more information on various voting methods (and some good criteria used to evaluate voting methods). In particular, read their article The Problems with Instant Runoff Voting. For more information on Debian's implementation of Condorcet, see the Debian Constitution.