Election Process
Given recent events in the IGDA, people have been talking about how the election process for the IGDA Board is broken. I agree that it is.
Here’s how the process works:
- An email goes out to the members calling for nominations.
- After nominations close, another email goes out pointing members to a page with short statements of candidacy for each candidate, which also has a link to a web form where you can vote. The voting method is approval voting (you check a box for however many candidates you support).
That’s it. It is not a bad skeleton of a process, but there are some problems with it. The brief statement of candidacy is not a lot to go on. In fact I have voted for Board members that I wish I hadn’t, simply because I recognized their names from various IGDA mailing lists as active volunteers, and their short candidacy statement seemed pretty good.
I’d like to see Board candidates engaging in dialogue about IGDA issues. Most of the people who run for Board are not exactly internet-shy, but usually the only time you see them mention their candidacy is to spam Facebook or post to their blog reminding you to vote for them. This is one of the reasons I started this blog: I post my opinions on IGDA business, and people can get in touch with me and ask me to comment on specific issues.
One concrete way to improve election process would be for the IGDA to provide a public forum where members can ask questions of Board candidates, and Board candidates can choose to answer. Participation of all parties would be optional, although failing to participate would (rightly) reflect poorly on a candidate.
What ideas do you have for improving the election process?
Hélder Maurício Gomes Ferreira Filho Said,
August 5, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
Basically, I think that when a candidate don’t reach the quorum, he should not get elected, even if this mean a smaller board, the reason for that is that even if we don’t vote on candidates that we dislike, they will still get on the board, Tim Langdell is a example, Dino on the forums told me that just don’t vote for him next time, but he was not elected, he was appointed because lack of quorum, altough the board DO choose him because he had a high vote count, still he was not voted enough to be on the board.
Andrew Said,
August 6, 2009 @ 7:03 am
I’ve proposed something about this to Coray after GDC, some ideas which I wouldn’t mind helping with (where I’ll use my SIG-invested time to instead do these):
* Each candidate gets their own page where people can thread comments. At the very least if this is not possible they get a forum thread starting out with their proposal.
* Interviews with each candidate going over several generic/specific questions (including “what would you do” real situations), so that people can not just get what they want to do but also get information on what they do - and what they are like a bit more personally. Would preferably be done by phone, IM to ask counter-questions/clarification as needed - but also email possibly would work (and is easier to manage).
* Profiles of each person done journalism-stylee to provide more in-depth information - biography stuff, what they’ve worked on game-wise (which, yes, can help to know about even if board members don’t have to be active developers), and worked on in the IGDA, links to other interviews and so forth.
* Opportunities for the nominees to do their own news piece that goes out on the IGDA new feeds, which then would all be linked from a newsletter.
A minimum amount of time of 2 in between newsletters, or at least if not that then some special newsletters need to be sent out, to inform members of the different activity.
There could also be opportunities for people to put forward recommendations for candidates - I mean, currently it’s basically self nomination. Having a mandatory seconder (or maybe thirder) who also have to provide statements would be nice. Bonus points if these people are IGDA members of course
There is also the *existing board* as well as specifically the ones stepping down (who don’t step down until the elections are over!). Either: having those people ask questions of the candidates (especially the leaving ones, who’s work they might have to take over), like normal members do - although possibly could have these go to every candidate as part of the interview above, and/or having the board members chip in with opinions of what the IGDA needs - who they would want to work with and who would benefit the IGDA the most, given they know what the board actually does (which normal members might not know fully).
And for re-electors - definitely need to show what they’ve done as a board member. How public were they? how private? Was there any practical benefit from electing them before? What was it?
Finally, since you propose a general forum, certainly a good idea - having someone oversee it and pick out Q&A’s that then can be added to a persons profile, or a news item, would be recommended - if it is even only 100 threads per election, no one will be bothered going through lots of discussion to find the answers from each candidate - since they’ll be harder to pickout given forums usually use forum handles not real names.
There is a problem when it comes to the “international” side too - while English is a preferred language for the site, not every member knows it (in fact many join because of local chapters of course, so maybe their chapter head knows English but they don’t). It would be worthwhile investigating if localisation of the material produced for each candidate could be made available.
Like I said, I’m interested in doing this, basically “just because” since I want to help the org. I honestly hope you have some good competition for the 3 seats next year, that would be absolutely amazing. I’m going to hopefully put this (these ideas) forward to the board later this year, well before elections even get thought about, and once the new site is sorted, so that it can be effectively planned. I mean, does anyone even know when the next election dates are?
Darius Kazemi Said,
August 6, 2009 @ 7:07 am
Great comments, Andrew! I’ll take all of these into consideration, as I do have conversations with Board members about the way elections are run. (I can’t be involved *too* much though, since I think it would be a conflict of interest to have a candidate dictating the way elections are run.)
As for your question, I personally do not know when the election dates are, although that doesn’t mean they aren’t already set. I’ll see what I can find out.
Andrew Said,
August 6, 2009 @ 7:42 am
Once you find out post them on your blog
I’ll use that as a basis for putting forwards myself to actually perform some of this and/or see if they’ve thought about anything themselves (and if not put some ideas forwards).
Hélder Maurício Gomes Ferreira Filho Said,
August 6, 2009 @ 8:49 am
And the quorum rules? Aaah! They need fixing! I am totally against the board being able to appoint anyone that they want when quorum is not reached…
Florian Schwarzer Said,
August 6, 2009 @ 9:42 am
I agree with a lot of things Andrew said and would happily volunteer to contribute to the profiles (I’ve been doing indicator-based research for some time now).
On your original propopsal, Darius: I’m actually skeptical towards a strong reliance on a forum-style solution unless heavy-duty moderation can be ensured. Elections are by their very nature controversial events, and we’ve all seen how well free-for-all forums handle controversial subjects.
Andrew’s suggestion of chat- or email-based interviews with write-in-questions seems to be the effectively more transparent solution, since it’ll be it easier for casual observers to get info on the candidates without of dredging through two flamewars.
Max Nichols Said,
August 7, 2009 @ 5:53 am
Unless my information is wrong (and it might be, since it’s essentially forum hearsay), in the past they have never appointed “anyone that they want.” Instead, they appoint the nominees with the highest votes who didn’t quite reach quorum. So it has still been member decided, more or less.
But that doesn’t mean that that will always be the case.
I’m not sure how we could fix them though. It’s dangerous to simply say that if not enough people reach the vote threshold then we should simply have a smaller board, because the board cannot remain effective if it gets to small. From a sheer work-hours perspective if nothing else.
They could simply lower the quorum required to elect a board member, I suppose. It’s side-stepping the issue of voter apathy, but it would work as far as I can tell.
Coray Seifert Said,
August 7, 2009 @ 7:39 am
Would love to see the Writers SIG get involved here, as a ton of folks on that list have some fairly serious journalistic cred.
Dave Weinstein Said,
August 21, 2009 @ 10:48 am
Suggestion: Stop the IGDA Co-Chair from ordering staff to mass-delete posts on election issues.
Just a thought.