It is my honor to accept this nomination for the 2023 Astropy Coordination Committee Election. I have served as a Coordination Committee member from the founding of Astropy, along with ~16 other named roles over this time (e.g. coordinates maintainer, Tutorials&Guides infrastructure, finance committee, and core package release coordinator). Moreover, I believe deeply in the principles of open development, radical transparency, and growing an inclusive community where all contributions are valued as important for the success of the Project.
With this in mind, on the new CoCo I would continue many of my previous tasks, serving as a hub of information in the CoCo for several different strands of work the Project is pursuing, and using that perspective supporting the work of our team members and contributors. In particular, I aim to continue as a connection between the finance/grants part of Astropy (I am currently on the finance committee and am PI or admin PI for our largest grants) and the coordination committee.
While it is likely that I will not stand in a future election, so that I can give space to other Astropy community members to serve on the CoCo, I would like to continue these efforts for another term to ensure they are either wrapped up or transferred to others more effectively.
I feel obliged to point out that Erik Tollerud currently works at the same institution as Pey Lian, who is an active Coco member and has a Coco term 2022-2025. APE 0 does say, “Unless it [the Coco] would be short of candidates otherwise, it should not have more than one member from any particular employer.”
APE0 uses the language “should” and does not spell out an enforcement mechanism, so, as far as I can see, Erik can run in the election, and it is up to the voting members to elect the Coco from the available candidates.
Thanks for that added bit, @hamogu - yes, I should have mentioned this previously, as Pey Lian did in last year’s election. This was an oversight on my part to not disclose that and I apologize. As an explanation, as Pey Lian pointed out one key element of APE 0 - it says "Unless it would be short of candidates otherwise, it should not have more than one member from any particular employer.” and at least as of right now that is indeed the case. That said, I also pledge that I will do my best to do what I have tried to do in the past by saying as clearly as possible that I do not speak for STScI when working on the CoCo.
Moreover, I would also like to clarify that if the prospect of continuing with both of us on the CoCo makes enough of the community uncomfortable, APE0 allows for the community to indicate this by not simply not voting for one of the candidates. So even if there are only two candidates for two seats, if the majority of voters vote for only one of the nominees, the other does not get the seat. I wouldn’t personally argue for this, as I believe that Pey Lian and I are both invested in Astropy independently enough that it is worth having us both on the CoCo. But if the voting members disagree, I will certainly abide by their wishes!