I just sent a batch of test emails out to LLVM contributors to confirm voter registration. Check your spam folders and filters. The email has the subject “LLVM Election Information for %recipient.name%!” (exactly that text because my python is bad).
The body of the email includes instructions to opt-in to election contact for a test poll which I’ve configured. You can participate in the test poll or not at your discretion.
If you received an email, no further action is required to vote in the elections.
If you did not receive an email, you must either update your GitHub profile with a public email address, or may a commit to LLVM that does not use a GitHub relay email.
As mentioned on Discord, I object to the use of CIVS. This election system has been used in the past to abuse Debian Developers, and back then the response was not to take it down, so Debian blocked email from the system on its mail servers. Enabling receiving email from it for it is a global operation, not tied to a specific community or election so one would have to register, vote and unregister each time.
CIVS poll result (yes I’m aware it leaks my personal ID for a poll I didn’t vote in and view as abuse!) is an example of such a poll. Things got much more heated after that, with actual death threats towards people, and those at least got taken down, but the system is not fit for purpose. I don’t know of easy hosted solutions though, unfortunately.
I don’t like a poll that I have been invited to vote in. Can I ask to have the poll taken down?
Polls will not be taken down by the CIVS administrator without the permission of the poll supervisor except in extreme cases where the poll contains material in violation of U.S. law or where the poll contains clearly threatening or abusive content, in compliance with 47 U.S.C. § 230. In any case, any takedown request to the CIVS administrator should copy the poll supervisor. The CIVS administrator cannot make value judgments about poll content. Responsibility for the content of polls lies with the poll supervisors; CIVS is a medium for user communication rather than a publisher of content.Pragmatically, attempts to censor polls are mostly pointless. Any message that poll creators could send through CIVS can be more easily sent directly by email.
Spam, or thinly-veiled/“mild” abuse like the above, is not deemed justification for takedown, and this policy neglects that using the system funnels such spam through legitimate servers making it impossible to block separately from legitimate polls.
To Tom’s point, I think we may have to live with CIVS for this election cycle. It was included in LP0004 as the suggested system for hosting area team elections, so it would’ve been helpful to get this objection earlier during the lengthy input gathering process. My sense is that Chris has sent the emails, and we’re committed for this cycle. However, the process is a living document, so if you have recommendations for alternative voting systems, that seems like something I’d like to see explored in the end of year annual report from the project council.
To be fair, @jrtc27 did also raise this objection during the review period. I can’t speak for the other review managers, but for me personally, I did not feel like there was a viable alternative system that was being presented as part of the proposal.
I mentioned in the post for the second test ([RFC] Election test email - second test! - #4 by beanz) that we are working on a potential alternative. @tstellar and @boomanaiden154-1, have been helping me investigate and attempt to configure an alternative. I don’t know if we’re going to succeed yet, but if it becomes a viable alternative I’ll share the information once we have it ready.