[OSGeo-Conf] Should cities bidding for FOSS4G be notified of votecount?

Thu Dec 29 08:14:16 PST 2016

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 12:47 AM, Polimi <maria.brovelli at polimi.it> wrote:
> 1) If we wanted to provide the votes, it would be better to add (as we want
> also to help the proposers) a motivation in such a way that the proposers
> understand what they have to improve. The list of short individual anonymous
> motivations can be provided by the committee in such a way that the
> proposers can verify if and how they can improve the proposal.

We could provide it non-anonymous as well.  Or we can provide an
opportunity for teams to discuss with Conference Committee members.

In my experience reading bids, we often have multiple very good bids
which could all be successful.  Sometimes the deciding factor for me
is geography, geography of recent conferences, experience of members
on the LOC, philosophical presentation of core OSGeo and FOSS4G
aspects, timing, or other minor aspects.  These are all things that
can't readily be 'improved' and typically, the bids were a very good
bid to begin with and don't necessarily need 'improvement'.

>
> 2) I was thinking that probably it is the time of discussing again about the
> three options ( NA, Eu, the rest of the World). Why to be so rigid? At the
> end of the day we are weighting NA and Eu as the whole rest of the world.
> But in terms of population this is definitely wrong. Shall we start making
> new hypothesis about that subdivision?

This discussion might be better on a separate thread since this thread
is about, "Should cities bidding for FOSS4G be notified of vote
count?".  We don't want to hijack this current discussion thread or
short this potential future discussion thread of its proper attention.

Best regards, Eli

>
> Cheers,
> Maria
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/137617942@N02/
>
> Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli
> Vice Rector for Como Campus and GIS Professor
> Politecnico di Milano
>
> ISPRS WG IV/5 "Web and Cloud Based Geospatial Services and Applications";
> OSGeo; GeoForAll Advisory Board; NASA WorldWind Europa Challenge; SIFET
>
> Sol Katz Award 2015
>
> Via Natta, 12/14 - 22100 COMO (ITALY)
>
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>
> e-mail1: maria.brovelli at polimi.it
>
> e-mail2: prorettrice at como.polimi.it
>
>
>
> Il giorno 29 dic 2016, alle ore 01:12, Venkatesh Raghavan
> <venka.osgeo at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
> I am not in favor of disclosing the number of votes
> received by teams responding to RFP.
>
> This is mainly to keep the competition alive.
> This was the practice till our 2017 selection
> process and we had not received any suggestion
> on the contrary. The chair of the Thai team
> for the 2018 RFP has also suggested that
> number of votes need not be make public.
>
> Best
>
> Venka
>
> On 12/29/2016 2:23 AM, shshin at gaia3d.com wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
>
> I am also in favour of disclosing the votes results publically for both
> stage 1 and 2. This will increases transparency and will eliminate
> unnecessary misunderstanding around bidding process. Also this could be a
> part of RfP each year.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> 신상희 드림
>
> ---
>
> Shin, Sanghee
>
> Gaia3D, Inc. - The GeoSpatial Company
>
> http://www.gaia3d.com
>
>
> 보낸 사람: Steven Feldman
>
> 보낸 날짜: 2016년 12월 28일 수요일 오후 5:29
>
> 받는 사람: conference
>
> 제목: Re: [OSGeo-Conf] Should cities bidding for FOSS4G be notified of
> votecount?
>
>
> I think votes should be shared publicly. Openness in our decision making
> process should be a guiding principle.
>
>
> Perhaps the CC should review this as part of the preparation for the RfP
> each year.
>
> ______
>
> Steven
>
>
>
>
> On 27 Dec 2016, at 02:29, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Conference committee,
>
> Should vote counts for cities bidding for FOSS4G be shared, either publicly
> or privately?
>
> This question is applicable for both stage 1 and stage 2 voting.
>
> Options suggested so far:
>
> 1. Results of vote are publicly announced, number of votes for each city is
> not shared.
>
> 2. Additionally, each city is privately notified of votes for each city.
>
> 3. Additionally, votes for each city is shared publicly.
>
> --
>
> This question was raised while refining FOSS4G committee discussions.
> (Discussions were initially private to reduce email fatigue). Discussion so
> far is shared below.
>
> I'll hold this thread open for two weeks for discussion, until 10 Jan, then
> raise a motion to be voted on.
>
>
>
> On 24/12/2016 5:48 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
> Venka,
>
> <snip>
>
> With regards to publishing the results of FOSS4G votes, I suggest that this
> should be described in the FOSS4G RFP document rather than here. (We should
> only describe in one place, and it should be easily found by cities looking
> to vote).
>
> I agree it is a topic worth discussing and suggest we should take the
> conversation to the public list. I assume that you'd all be ok with me
> sharing your responses on this thread publicly?
>
> A 3rd option is to privately share number of votes for each city with the
> city, but publicly only declare successful bids.
>
> <snip>
>
> Cheers, Cameron
>
>
> On 24/12/2016 4:26 AM, Steven Feldman wrote:
>
> Good point Eli
>
>
> Open or closed voting or even a change in process should be for the CC to
> decide on a year by year basis
>
>
> Regards
>
> Steven
>
>
>
> +44 (0) 7958 924101
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
> On 23 Dec 2016, at 17:18, Eli Adam <eadam at co.lincoln.or.us> wrote:
>
>
> Some people have argued that the bidding process is over-competitive
>
> and leads to a lot of work for an unsuccessful bid (only one bid will
>
> be successful) and that we would be better off with a different
>
> selection method that doesn't have multiple LOCs putting a lot of work
>
> into an unsuccessful bid.  I'm not sure that I see a clearly better
>
> way while LOCs are still almost solely responsible for the success of
>
> the conference.  Getting voted out in stage 1 could be better for
>
> community morale than getting voted out in stage 2.
>
>
> I'm see both sides to public and private votes.  I see both sides to
>
> our current bidding method or another which doesn't have multiple LOCs
>
> compete for one conference.  I'm not sure which is better and don't
>
> have a strong opinion on either right now.  Both of these are leading
>
> away from the current topic of the Conference Committee process.
>
>
> Do we want to resolve the public or private nature of stage 1 and
>
> stage 2 FOSS4G selection as part of the Conference Committee process?
>
> Could that be left open and determined each year or at a later time?
>
>
> Best regards, Eli
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Maria Antonia Brovelli
>
> <maria.brovelli at polimi.it> wrote:
>
> In my opinion we have to evaluate if those numbers are useful for the
>
> proposers or can be demotivating. Just an example: if we have two proposals,
>
> one very good and the second which appears excellent, the vote can happen to
>
> be completely unbalanced toward the latter proposal and the former proposers
>
> can become demotivated and sad because of the low rank reached. A proposal
>
> is a common fruit of a local community, which proudly wants to be
>
> protagonist of our global activity. Is the count useful for the community?
>
> Are there other points of view that I'm not able to see?
>
> Best!
>
> Maria
>
>
>
>
> Inviato dal mio dispositivo Samsung
>
>
>
> -------- Messaggio originale --------
>
> Da: Eli Adam <eadam at co.lincoln.or.us>
>
> Data: 23/12/16 17:23 (GMT+01:00)
>
> A: Venkatesh Raghavan <raghavan at media.osaka-cu.ac.jp>
>
> Cc: Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com>, Cameron Shorter
>
> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>, Maria Antonia Brovelli
>
> <maria.brovelli at polimi.it>
>
> Oggetto: Re: Revised conference committee processes
>
>
> In my memory (I didn't bother to check the archives), stage 1 was not
>
> revealed until recently.  However, stage 2 was often revealed because
>
> it was a tie.  Even in cases that it wasn't a tie I seem to recall
>
> stage 2 results sometimes being public.  I don't have a strong
>
> preference either way, although see Venka's point for stage 1.
>
>
> Best regards, Eli
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 4:35 AM, Venkatesh Raghavan
>
> <raghavan at media.osaka-cu.ac.jp> wrote:
>
> Steven,
>
>
> On 12/23/2016 9:14 PM, Steven Feldman wrote:
>
>
> Venka
>
>
> I do not understand why we would want to keep the number of votes cast in
>
> stage 1 and 2 secret? It doesn’t feel a very transparent way to determine
>
> one of the most important decisions that OSGeo makes each year.
>
> The number of votes received by bidding teams was never made public
>
> until the 2018 bid (and there was no issue about that). One of the main
>
> reason for not making the votes received by teams in stage-1 is
>
> to keep the competition alive or the second 2.
>
>
> You may recall that the chair of the Thai-team who withdrew from the stage
>
> 2 bid also suggested something to the similar effect.
>
>
> Transparency in the FOSS4G selection process is necessary and has always
>
> existed,
>
> but I do not think that declaring number of votes is necessary and was
>
> never
>
> done
>
> (except for the 2018 bid).
>
>
> Best
>
>
> Venka
>
>
> [1]
>
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2016-October/004127.html
>
>
>
> Can you explain?
>
> ______
>
> Steven
>
>
>
> On 23 Dec 2016, at 11:38, Venkatesh Raghavan
>
> <raghavan at media.osaka-cu.ac.jp> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Cameron and all,
>
>
> <snip>
>
>
> Regarding the FOSS4G selection, I would like to
>
> suggest that the number of votes received by
>
> each team should never be declared and only
>
> know to the CRO. It is adequate to declare the
>
> teams that are short-listed in Stage-1, without
>
> mentioning which team got how many votes.
>
> Also, the ultimate winner is stage-2 can be declared
>
> without revealing the number of votes received.
>
>
> Best
>
>
> Venka
>
>
>
>
>
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