Incentivize maintainership: Weighted maintainer votes in GC elections

[jack-berg]

Parent issue: Incentivize maintainership for long-term project health

Proposal

Give maintainer votes additional weight in Governance Committee elections. For example, maintainer votes could count as 2, while all other eligible voters get 1.

Rationale

Today, GC elections use a straight democratic model where every Member of Standing gets one vote. The eligibility bar for Member of Standing is 20 contributions in the prior year. This puts casual contributors on equal footing with the people who are load-bearing: doing releases, triaging issues, reviewing PRs, handling security advisories, mentoring new contributors, and all the other unglamorous continuous work that keeps the project running.

All contributions matter, but not equally so. A maintainer who has committed to the sustained, high-trust work of keeping a SIG healthy has a deeper stake in project governance than someone who has made 20 comments. Weighting their votes accordingly recognizes that difference and creates a tangible incentive to take on the maintainer role.

Scope

This proposal applies to GC elections only — not to GC internal decision-making, TC selection, or other votes.

Open questions

• What's the right weight structure? 2x is one option, but there are other approaches worth considering.

[danielgblanco]

FYI this would need to be implemented as different ballots and election links on Helios Voting (the current system) unless we change system. The end result would be a combination of two separate votes, where votes from one are x2.

Another option would be to have seat chosen only by maintainers (with the other 3/4 candidates selected from the general election minus the chose by maintainers). As elections are effectively alternating members ever 2 years, that would guarantee 2/9 members of the GC chosen by maintainers.

[tedsuo]

I feel like this overcomplicates voting in a confusing way. Maybe a better approach would be to give maintainers more of a direct say in the roadmap, rather than more voting rights for the GC.

[mx-psi]

I tend to agree that this is overly complicated. I feel like maintainers could have more of a say in the TC selection process and in the roadmap

[jack-berg]

I tend to agree that this is overly complicated. I feel like maintainers could have more of a say in the TC selection process and in the roadmap

@mx-psi Please open an issue so we can collect feedback on that idea independently

[mx-psi]

@jack-berg sure, created #3453