You all may be interested in this posting.

For what it's worth, I disagree with the direction this is going.

i completely sympathize with you on the "where this is going" but i can't help feeling the Council should stand as one voice. by showing dissension you are opening the flank to even more arguing then there is going to be about this anyway

I must say I wasn't expecting that this much discussion would have happened in response to me posting my late interest in running for a position - well, I had considered the possibility, but was thinking the odds were low it would happen - and that's just me referring to the first page after joerg_rw first said he wanted to see me run. I certainly didn't think that from it so much argument to fill the other pages, would have come forth.

Anyway, getting a bit back to the topic that started this: I'd like to thank those who would support me being on Council (and/or Board, even though most of the comments were specifically regarding Council), or at least would like to have me run for it on principle even if they don't intend on voting for me - even if it doesn't happen, knowing that there are people who would like to see me run is good to know - it means I'm a lot less likely to be late for the next nomination. As a result of some people expressing that they would indeed like me to run, I decided to send my late self-nomination into the mailing list for both board and council - I sent it to the mailing list about 2 hours ago if I recall correctly. (Can people see it? I don't know how the mailing list works exactly... If not I can post what I said there, here as well.)

I am perfectly willing to accept not having it accepted, and I won't have any hard feelings if that is the case. But I'm currently still unclear as to what, ultimately, has been decided (my understanding is that ever since joerg_rw withdrew his candidacy, nothing did get decided, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong). (Edit: Saw the update posted by woody about council vote regarding not being allowed to withdraw one's acceptance of a nomination.)

I want to take this post to both reinforce some points I made in my self-nomination, and to respond to some of the stuff that has been said in this thread so far.

First: joerg_rw, from the commentary you made earlier, I gather your reason for withdrawing from the board (as opposed to council) is no longer just to make a nomination extension happen, but perhaps is also due to annoyance at some of the responses to your initial withdrawal of the council candidacy, and/or community members in general? I could be wrong - either way, regardless of what exactly gets decided as far as the acceptance of my nomination goes, I certainly didn't wish for another good candidate dropping out on my account, but more importantly, I think you're probably a person who the community could benefit from, and I'm sure there are members who would like to see you specifically in the running. But that is of course your decision, and either way, I appreciate the sentiment behind your effort to get nominations extended.

Second: I do think that the detriment to community well-being from any large delays in elections vastly, VASTLY, outweighs any advantage that me running might bring. I am not sure off the top of my head what election rules prevent/allow/demand what, but if it's impossible (or highly difficult, unpopular, or otherwise unfeasible) to accept my self-nomination and add me to the running without ideally no more than a few days of election delays, then I am happy to not run. I do think that the idea that "either we have elections now, or nothing gets done soon enough and the lights go out soon" is a false dichotomy, but at the end of the day, if all the time that's left is needed to make sure negotiations with Nokia/Nemein go smoothly - then I am by no means selfish enough to wish that time be lost on my account. As I understand it, if the community, council, and/or board wanted me to be in a position of greater influence than mere community member, it could happen through means other than this particular election, which is perfectly fine. As I said in the e-mail to the mailing list - if getting me accepted into the running is significantly detrimental to the community's odds of getting through the near future, then it runs counter to my intent behind running in the first place.

Third: To the criticisms saying that "if there was legitimate interest, the deadline wouldn't have been missed". First, and purely from an objective perspective - do those making this criticism (or agreeing with it) mean to tell me they have never managed to miss something that really was important to them, whether due to external circumstances, or personal flaws like tendency to procrastinate? Or never known others whose sincerity they can trust, that have done so? Either way, it happens, for reasons other than lack of caring.

But specifically regarding this situation: There's more to deciding to run then simply caring/interest. While I would like to think of myself as someone useful to the community to be worth having on the council/board, I also like to appraise who is running, how many people are running, and what the current situation is before submitting myself for consideration. Finally, I have to also try to honestly appraise how much time I will have - it does no one any good if I commit myself to helping the community, only to drop out of contact because suddenly I find myself swamped with other aspects of life. And not only does all of that take time, but actually taking the time to contemplate the matter also takes time. As it so happens, I had 'interest' in running for a council position since over a year ago, but given all the differences in circumstances during the elections since then and this one, it wasn't until this one that I it would actually be a good idea try to run. And that idea took a while to coalesce fully into a true 'decision' - until that decision happened, I admit I wasn't paying careful attention to the nomination date, because I didn't think I would need to know it. And by the time I did decide I should commit to running (partly prodded into the final stages of making that decision by seeing this very thread about a day after it went up or so), I found that I had just missed it.

So depending on the exact semantics and nuances in meaning, you could call that a number of different things, and that's fine, but to me saying that there wasn't 'valid interest' (or similar phrasing with same meaning) suggests that I'm less sincerely committed to serving the community if elected by the body than the people who did get their nominations in on time, which, even if it were true, wouldn't necessarily logically follow the fact that my decision to self-nominate happened later rather than sooner.

Fourth: Regarding Estel's comment that as far as he knew, I was interested in just the board, and not in council - this is probably my fault for not clarifying: I am actually okay with both. I think this idea formed in his mind because we had been having a PM discussion on a largely unrelated topic when I asked him what his opinion was about me running for either of the positions, and he pointed out that he felt the council wasn't worth bothering with now that the board existed. I hadn't yet gotten around to replying to that PM.

On that note: I am myself not yet decided about the question of whether or not the Board and Council are best kept separate or merged, if people want my opinion on the matter. But either way, I think that's an issue that can fairly easily be resolved later, after we've seen how the two operate side-by-side. Right now getting A Board, takes priority, because we need that for the legalities. So, to be clear - I'm fine with either position, and I believe that it is better to let the community judge where they'd rather have me.

Also, this may likely be an unpopular sentiment, but I don't consider Estel a troll as seems to have become commonly accepted, nor anything like what abill_uk was like. Yes, lately Estel has been often critical in a hostile manner (and in my opinion, lately often unjustifiably so), of a number of members - by lately, I mean it's been snow-balling from occasionally, to fairly frequently, since after the fallout from the whole community awards situation happened. But am I the only one that remembers/notices that Estel does still contribute useful posts, and that Estel has done things useful to the community too? Honestly, from what I've observed, I think this whole situation with Estel is more a matter of accumulated frustration and anger on his behalf at multiple other parties (and over time, the development of feedback frustration in the opposite direction). But I don't think he's posting what he posts with the intent of actual 'trolling', i.e. provoking retaliation/hostility just for the fun of it. I think he's sincerely interested in the well-being of the community, even if how he expresses it has been rather aggressive.

But either way, I would much rather all of this arguing just stop. The initial question this all spawned from was a simple matter - if nominations would get extended, and then, some debate sprung up specifically about getting my self-nomination accepted. Neither of these things need discussions about prior council member behavior (except purely historical observation of possible precedent being set). We can (or at least could have, if we no longer can by the time any given individual reads this) discussed that matter without a good chunk of the posts made since then in this thread.

Quick note on the above (since I know my posts are long, and people aren't likely to see a tiny edit added, I wanted to point out I edited the part that says "since joerg_rw withdrew his candidacy .... nothing decided", since Woody's prev. post mentioned an update to that situation.

On that note personally, I agree with Woody for voicing the dissent - it is in the interest of democracy, that elected bodies are clear and open about how they decide things and who voted on what. And in the long term, the benefits of dissent being out in the open outweigh the short term benefits of surface-level unity, in my opinion.

And I agree with Woody as to the dissent itself, because - well, if joerg_rw states clearly and openly that he's not interested, and he's sure he's not interested, I can't imagine why people would vote for him, unless they were throwing their vote or otherwise making a statement.

Clicking on 'thanks' is not quite enough. Thank you for these posts, Mentalist Traceur.

Mentalist
my push to force nomination extension was carefully thought, regarding no severe impact on the important stuff to be done real soon now. We don't need council next week already, for the tasks board has to deal with now. An extension wouldn't have hurt. And I also hoped we'd see same effect as last (few) election(s) and several candidates would follow your example and decide to self-nominate.

My withdrawal from board (as well as final withdrawal from council, without the plan to join in after nomination period got extended) been caused by some here rather clearly suggested I should rather p*ss off, while others seemed to be interested only in finding some victim so current council could resign, after telling me lies about current status regarding next council's appointment. I don't think I can work in such a crew, and obviously others don't want me to. Fine with me, I'm not eager for that position.
Sorry for all the noise this has triggered, but then maybe better now than later.

/j

For those who don't know how to get to the mailing list archives, here is the message I sent to it:
http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...er/005645.html

Edit: wrong thread, moved.

I added my thanks for your post above, since you seem like the sort of candidate that we need-someone willing to be flexible, cooperative, and ultimately has the interests of the community at heart.

Amen to that! These positions are, after all, volunteer positions, with no pay, and no real power, rather, it (from what I can tell), involves a bunch of extra work outside of real life, ultimately because you (not specifically you, Mentalist, the general you, as in any council member or Director) want to see the community succeed, and perhaps to give something back to that community that has given you so much.

Another 'Amen' !

Wouldn't this be the possibility to "assign" joerg's seat to Mentalist?
--edit
Ah no, this was rule of bylaws for board, not council, so ...