Minutes of the IGDA Voter Guidance Committee Meeting #1

For those of you who are interested, here is a log of the proceedings at tonight's meeting of the IGDA Voter Guidance Committee. A summary of the ideas and our conclusions follows, and apologies if I've misrepresented anything. It's been a long day.

As an introductory sidebar, we discussed creating a barrier to entry for candidates to cut down on the number of people on the slate -- for example, by requiring candidates to get signatures from supporters. The idea was reasonably popular, though the number of signatures various parties felt was appropriate varied from 10-100.

The core problem, though, is getting information to voters on who the candidates are and what they represent. The current statements by candidates doesn't provide sufficient information, and voters don't seek out additional information on their own.  

We could create a base set of questions (perhaps 10-15) that all candidates must answer. These could either be the same set every year, or solicited from membership annually, perhaps in the newsletter. This idea met with wide approval.

We could have a forum for conversation with candidates, though there were concerns that this could require too much of a time investment from candidates; so perhaps with one thread per candidate. Concerns the forum would be high-volume or populated with trolls; this would require even-handed moderation. Another possibility is creating specific panels on these forums.

The Writer's SIG is starting a journalism initiative that could research/vet candidates and report on their findings. This would solve the problem of getting information from candidates that is not mere self-representation, but there is concern that an internal effort along those lines from the IGDA could be a matter of legal liability. A summary of how this would work will be presented to the Board, who will look at it from the legal perspective.

We could do a real-time Town Meeting, as a group or per candidate, in which candidates answer questions from members. This could be recorded on something like ustream. Concerns that this presents a participation barrier to members in disparate time zones and might be difficult to implement.

We could do a press conference, through forums or a podcast, in which we offer game-industry publications the chance to ask the candidates tough questions. Concerns this would be logistically difficult to implement and appears inaccessible to voters.

We could also do a roundtable or real-time debate of all or several candidates on a podcast, or record video statements from each candidate to post online. 

Suggestion that we could get the Localization SIG involved in translating election materials.

Sheri Rubin very helpfully summarized our next steps and solicited volunteers.

1. Andrea will create the edits for the procedures manual to incorporate they'll have a base set of questions to answer along with their statement
2. Brian (maybe) will take the initiative on determining what those questions are (either by committee or polling the igda membership via the forums or survey with notice in the newsletter)
3. Corvus is going to work on a proposal for the journalism initiative to do research on the candidates
4. Andrea will create the edits for the manual to state that they will be getting researched
5. TBD, someone needs to take on the task of determining the best ways to get the info Corvus's group digs up out to the voting membership (pending BoD review of legal question)
6. TBD, someone needs to take on the task of creating the forums for the candidates with Joda and looking into the online transcripted chat/video sessions with each candidate (pending feedback on these ideas from BoD and interested members)
7. Sheri will go talk to Tom with the Loc sig about getting things translated

And that's a wrap, folks. Have a great night!

Comments

[Andrew]

So, is there any way to get involved with this since I guess normal members weren't invited to this initiative? (I certainly never saw mention of it except for finding this via. some random *twitter* thing). You can contact me by email if that's easier to say "yes" or "no" privately.

Basically, I foresee a general IGDA trend of a "nice start, interested people, no activity", so it's worth me asking now, not when a call for volunteers goes out whenever. This is true even of Writer initiatives, but is pretty much the IGDA as a whole.

I put some ideas on Darius' blog actually (which he didn't even seem to know of this work, going to show that active prospective board candidates don't even know the IGDA is looking at this!), most of which are mentioned here, although I'm troubled that "active workload" and "legal issues" seems to always rear it's head for something as simple as questions, interviews and forum threads.

I find it funny how actually if I'm not allowed to get involved (for whatever reason) I might be able to do more just as a member without approval then anything the board approves, which is also kind of sad right? :(

[Andrea]

Hi, Andrew. I AM basically just a regular member who is frustrated by the voting process. I run the ARG SIG, sure, but in this respect that doesn't give me any particular weight. I'm not on the Board, I plan to never be on the Board, and I have no special commission or authority granted from the Board (or anyone else, for that matter). I'm just another IGDA member trying to fix a perceived problem. I'm spearheading this because... well... basically, because nobody else stepped up, and it needs doing.

I'm trying very hard not to be offended by your implication that this is some kind of secret conspiracy intended to lock members out. If that were the case, I certainly wouldn't be putting the actual log of proceedings out there on my blog for everybody to see.

I started talking about this initiative three weeks ago, set up this meeting one week ago, and sent out the date and time as widely as I could. Unfortunately, since I am just a regular member with no real authority, all I could do was post about it to my blog, to Twitter, and to the SIGS-Admin list, and ask people to spread the message. There's no intentional exclusion; anyone who cares to show up to the meetings and volunteer to take on one of the action items at the end is welcome.

Obviously as a regular member, I don't have as much reach as, say, the official IGDA newsletter. If you didn't hear about it, well then, that would be why. I did the best I could with what resources I have.

For all that, I promise you, word got to Darius about it; in fact, he was one of the very few responders I got regarding a good meeting time. If you read the log, you'll notice he was in the meeting (until he chose to recuse himself.)

If you'd like to be involved, then just say that next time, OK? Don't jump from the gate with complaints that you weren't invited to the party and a prediction that we're doomed to apathy and failure anyway. I'm doing the best job I can, and if you're really interested in helping to fix this small, broken part of the IGDA, the way to do that is by volunteering, and by supporting the efforts of the people who are actually trying to solve something.

[Andrew]

I'm not dooming this specific thing to doom ;) it's just generally seems to be what happens in a large amount of IGDA activities, sadly :(

You should have got it on the IGDA news feed - that's Joda's department, and there's always the forums too which I infrequently check :) Maybe get a forum thread up now and get Joda to post a news article pointing to that URL for feedback, might be useful.

I'm also volunteering now (if it wasn't obvious before with my rather dry tone I was volunteering then, just I did feel a bit cheated not knowing - obviously not on the fault of yourself, but the IGDA's general lack of ability to contact its members legally, as you well know certain issues...), but I still need to know how I can help! I hope this doesn't get bogged down, and at least want to foot some administrative effort even if I'm not deemed necessary to do any decision making or other work, since that's how it goes sometime.

I am involved heavily in the Preservation SIG, trying desperately to get students involved in the Students SIG, and giving a hand to the QoL efforts. I am involved, just not in this area, and I am happy to help. I am still worried about the board approval/legal issues side - an election can't really function if it's a muted one, but we can do what we can, right?

[Andrew]

Also, sorry. Sorry I came out - re-reading my comment it wasn't what I intended (as read, rather then intent as written), apologies from me on that regard.

[Andrew]

Woe is an edit button - "Sorry I came out" should be "Sorry I came out saying my first comment". Sorry for being sorry in such a ...worrying way.

[Andrea]

Hi, Andrew, sorry to leave you hanging -- I took the weekend off from the internet. It's good for the sanity every once in a while. (And then it took me *all day long* to finish this comment. Sheesh. Doubly sorry!)

Thanks for volunteering, Andrew. I think we're going to be putting together an email list for this effort, and I'll see about getting you added in.

I won't let this get bogged down even if it involves quite a lot of squeaking and elbow grease on my part. And I think there's a lot of general support for most of the things we're looking at doing, so... I have a good reserve of optimism going. ^_^

[Andrew]

I'd be proud to help someone who has optimism about IGDA activities :) I don't actually hear that word used very often, for some reason :(

A mailing list sounds good, post about it when it's available (or email me/add me to it).

[BealkelaFew]

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