Discussion on voting systems

[Gregory Meyer]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Leo Franchi <lfranchi at kde.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The transition team has been discussing schemes for how to allocate
> voting power amongst the body of voters.
>
> We are bringing this out for further discussion, mostly because us 4
> have not coalesced on a single decision.
>
> The two options are as follows:
>
> 1) 1-vote per person
> 2) 1-vote + bonus per person.
>
> bonus is calculated as follows:
>
> "
> * Every voting member starts out with 1 point as the base
> * Added to this is the percentage of active contribution time, with
> the project lifetime being 100%
>
> The equation:
>
> 1.0 + ( 1.0 / months_of_project_lifetime *
> months_of_active_contribution )
>
>
> Example calculation for a contributor who has been with the project
> for 12 months, assuming that the project is 72 months old overall:
>
> 1 + ( 1 / 72 * 12 )  = 1.17
>
I think you meant this to be (1 + ( 1 * months_of_active_contribution
/ months_of_project_lifetime ))  The way it is in your example gives
people with more months a lower result, for instance, a person that
has been around since the beginning:

1 + ( 1 / 72 * 72 ) = 1.0001929

> So a completely new voting member would start out with 1.0, while the
> maximum achievable score is 2.0.
> "
>
Although on the surface this seems fair, there are two problems with
it in my mind.

1) it adds some complexity to the voting process and someone has to
keep track of all that, and
2) people that join the project later will never have a possibility of
catching up.  Someone that submitted one patch and hangs out in irc
for four years could potential have more of a vote than some that
joined up a year ago and has really made a comittment to the project
both in ideas and code.  This only rewards longevity and not activity.

So I'd say the bonus system is not really practical.  I do however
understand what Mark is trying to accomplish here and I don't think it
is necessarily a bad thing.

--
Greg