Justin Wheeler
8a3eef9864
This repository is a process/documentation repository with no application code. Add an `AGENTS.md` file following the "agents.md" specification (https://agents.md/) to provide any LLM agent with the context it needs to work effectively in this repository. The instructions focus on technical writing, documentation, and project management — the actual work that happens here. Key content includes: - Repository purpose and the election interview workflow - Writing conventions (one sentence per line, governance precision) - Key roles (Fedora Operations Architect, FCA) and their constraints - The election schedule structure with typical phase durations, derived from the F44 (2026-05-07 to 2026-06-16) and F45 (2026-11-04 to 2026-12-11) cycles: 14-day nomination/question period, 7-day interview period, 11-14-day voting period - Issue management conventions (interview submissions, tracking issues, sample questions, tags, milestones, kanban board) - Privacy constraints around candidate interview content - Key Council decisions (#135 on ballot eligibility, #156 on question selection) that govern the process - Links to all SOPs in the Fedora Program Operations docs - Commit conventions including GPG signing and the Fedora AI-Assisted Contributions Policy The schedule URL pattern (fedorapeople.org/groups/schedule/f-{N}/...) and the consistent phase structure are documented so agents can understand and reference election timing without needing to re-derive it each session. Assisted-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) Signed-off-by: Justin Wheeler <jwheel@redhat.com> |
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elections-interviews
Interviews for the Fedora elections.
This repository supports the interview process for candidates running in Fedora's regular elections. When a candidate self-nominates for an elected position, they answer a set of interview questions by filing a private issue in this repository. The election wrangler(s) then process, review, and schedule the interviews for publication on the Fedora Community Blog before the voting period begins.
The Fedora Operations Architect is the primary election wrangler. The Fedora Community Architect (FCA) serves as the backup. Transparency and strict adherence to the published process are essential — the elections process is central to Fedora's community governance model.
Elected bodies
Fedora conducts regular elections for the following governing bodies:
- Fedora Council — Project-level governance and strategic direction
- FESCo (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee) — Technical governance of Fedora Linux
- Mindshare Committee — Outreach, marketing, and community engagement
- EPEL Steering Committee — Governance of Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux
Elections for FESCo occur after each Fedora Linux release. Council, Mindshare, and EPEL elections occur once per year. Other teams may request elections at any time.
How the interview process works
-
Nominations open according to the election schedule for each Fedora Linux release cycle. The nomination period and question selection period run concurrently. Each elected body's nomination wiki page is updated, and announcements are sent to mailing lists and Fedora Discussion.
-
Questions are finalized with each committee. If a committee does not provide updated questions by the deadline, the previous cycle's questions are reused. The top three questions for each body are selected based on Council decision #156. The finalized questions are stored as issue templates in this repository.
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Candidates submit interviews as private issues using the appropriate template. Only the election wrangler(s) can see the responses before publication.
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The election wrangler processes each submission:
- Acknowledges the candidate's submission in the ticket
- Verifies the candidate has a Community Blog account (adds
login neededtag if not) - Tags the issue with
interviewand assigns the release milestone - Links the issue to the relevant election tracking issue via the "Blocking" field
- Creates a Community Blog post with the interview content and schedules it for publication
-
Interviews are published on the Community Blog at staggered times before voting opens:
- Council interviews: 15 minutes before the voting period
- FESCo interviews: 10 minutes before the voting period
- Mindshare interviews: 5 minutes before the voting period
-
Candidates review a public preview of their blog post before it goes live.
Candidates who do not submit an interview by the deadline are excluded from the ballot, per Fedora Council decision #135.
Issue templates
This repository provides issue templates for each elected body:
| Template | Body |
|---|---|
Council-Election.md |
Fedora Council |
FESCo-Election.md |
Fedora Engineering Steering Committee |
Mindshare-Election.md |
Mindshare Committee |
EPEL-Election.md |
EPEL Steering Committee |
Each template instructs candidates to mark their issue as private before submitting, and lists the interview questions for that cycle. Questions are reviewed and may be updated each election cycle in coordination with the respective committee.
Kanban board
The Interviews board tracks each interview through the processing pipeline:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Submitted | Candidate has filed a private issue with their responses |
| Processing | Election wrangler is creating the Community Blog post |
| Ready for Review | Blog post is drafted; candidate has been notified to review the preview |
| Queued-Published | Interview is scheduled or published; issue is closed |
Example issues
The following public issues illustrate how this repository is used:
- Tracking issues are created for each election in a cycle to organize interview tickets:
- Sample question issues record the finalized questions for each body and cycle:
Individual interview submissions are private issues visible only to the election wrangler(s).
Milestones
Each Fedora release cycle that includes elections has a corresponding milestone (e.g., F35, F36, F42).
Milestones group all interview and tracking issues for a given cycle.
Related resources
- Fedora Elections overview — The election wrangler's guide to running elections
- Election interview processing SOP — Step-by-step guide for processing interview submissions
- Election setup SOP — Voting setup, blog post creation, and announcements
- Election opening SOP — Opening nominations and collecting questions
- Nomination closing SOP — Closing nominations and distributing interview questions to candidates
- Election results SOP — Posting results and updating team memberships
- Fedora Elections Guide — Voter information, eligibility, and range voting details
- Fedora Elections app — The voting application
- Fedora Community Blog — Where candidate interviews are published
License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.