Maemo Community Council: election announcement

As current chair of the Maemo Community Council, I'm announcing that the third council election will conclude at:

Sunday, 27th September 2009 23:59 UTC

This will give the incoming council about two weeks to nominate a chair; prepare for the first sprint meeting of the new term (Tuesday, 6th October) and get ready for the kick-off of the community days at the Maemo Summit 2009.

What is the council?

The council is an elected body of 5 members of the Maemo community who represent the community to Nokia and facilitate cross-community discussions and organisation. For example, activities the council have been involved in include:

• The Maemo Summit 2009 location, date, schedule and accomodation.
• Promotion and support of Mer, as the future of Maemo for current devices.
• Chairing the monthly maemo.org sprint meetings and helping set priorities for the paid members of staff.
• Triaging bugs.
• Acting as a point-of-contact for people outside of the community.
• Helping define the Extras QA process.
• The interviewing and choice of the maemo.org docmaster.

You don't have to be a council member to work on these tasks, but the council can help avoid duplication of work; and raise awareness of the good work that many people in our disparate community are doing.

Who can stand?

The full election process is outlined in the wiki, however a candidate must meet the following criteria:

• Karma of 100 or higher.

This allows Nokia employees, commercial partners and anyone who is an involved member of the community to stand for the council.

Who can vote?

The full election process is outlined in the wiki, however a voter must meet the following criteria:

• maemo.org account older than 3 months at the date of the election.
• Karma of 10 or higher.

Each voter will receive a tailored ballot which allows them a Single Transferable Vote on the available candidates.

What happens next?

A list of eligible candidates will be prepared and published later this month. Information on ensuring you are getting all the karma you are entitled to will also be published (of particular interest to about 1,600 talk.maemo.org account users who are are eligible to vote but need to register a link with a maemo.org account).

Nominations officially open 2 weeks prior to the election; the nomination period will run from:

Monday, 7th September 2009 00:00 UTC to Sunday, 20th September 2009 23:59 UTC

Nominations must be announced on the maemo-community mailing list in the form:

Subject: Council Nomination: name

Eligible candidates can nominate themselves, or be nominated by others. If nominated by others, they must accept the nomination on maemo-community, by responding to the original nomination.

Voting will start following the close of the nomination period and will run for a week:

Monday, 21st September 2009 00:00 UTC to Sunday, 27th September 2009 23:59 UTC

Following the close of voting, provisional results will be announced. Everyone will be able to check that their anonymous vote was registered correctly.

If no challenges are upheld, results for the elections are finalised a week after the voting closes.