[Board] Clarifying Board voting rules

Wed Feb 11 04:38:39 PST 2015

On Mon, 9 Feb 2015 20:58:07 +0100
Even Rouault <even.rouault at spatialys.com> wrote:

> Le lundi 09 février 2015 20:35:32, Jachym Cepicky a écrit :
> > If we agree on, -1 means "veto for now, but can be over voted",
> > that opens a lot of interesting possibilities...
> 
> The "can be over voted" is for example useful to avoid a single
> person that would go in "bad mode" (e.g. that would be acquired by an
> hostile party) to block the whole board for months or years.

It is actually the same procedure of law approval in Italy: the
President can refuse to sign a proposed law, but only once. I think
that if we understand the meaning of veto as "Let's think twice, but if
you really are convinced, then I won't block it", it makes sense. If we
keep it as "We just have to ask the question twice, the second answer
will always be a yes" - then we have a problem, but not a technical one.

I have thought for some time about the current Board voting procedure,
what could make it safer against bad intentions. I suspect that every
system can be gamed, the differences are in how difficult it is. That
said, with my current knowledge and experience, I am OK with current
rules, and current complexity of these rules:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure

I was surprised too when I realised that the details of voting were not
explicitely written down until now. A positive thought is, probably so
far the Board didn't strongly need to check if a motion should pass,
according to a rule. It really depends on the content of  the motions,
so I can't say if this has always been a good thing. But at the same
time I don't want to get too picky on applying a rule; I think that the
intention should shape the rule, and not the opposite. So in this case
Maxi's concerns were heard, more details have been asked, things are
going forward.

Best,
Anne

> > To me -0 would be something like "strongly against proposal, but
> > don't want to slow down the democratic decision"
> > 
> > J
> > 
> > On Mon, Feb 9, 2015, 19:18 Massimiliano Cannata <
> > 
> > massimiliano.cannata at supsi.ch> wrote:
> > > Jeff,
> > > this is embarrassing :-)
> > > (OSGeo expects their project to have a clear PSC voting procedure
> > > but it has not.)
> > > 
> > > I would then change my vote to -1 (if rules permit this).
> > > Motivation is that there is no rationale for the request: a
> > > detailed cost estimate is in my opinion the base for any decision
> > > on allocating money for a given purpose.
> > > Otherwise why one should ask 10k and not 20k or 2k? How these
> > > money are going to be spent?
> > > 
> > > Or can I ask 10k to run an event (hackathon) without providing
> > > details of costs?
> > > 
> > > TO BE CLEAR, I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST STUDENT AWARD, I'm 100% in
> > > favor, but I would like to have a formulated request to get money.
> > > That's all.
> > > 
> > > We could vote again this point to the next meeting, having a clear
> > > rationale for this request.
> > > 
> > > If you would stack with my -0 not blocking vote, I still can live
> > > with ;-)
> > > 
> > > Maxi
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Il giorno Mon Feb 09 2015 at 4:33:11 PM Jeff McKenna <
> > > jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> ha scritto:
> > > 
> > > Board, I have recorded the voting procedure on the wiki (wow it
> > > had
> > > 
> > >> never been done) at
> > >> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure Please verify
> > >> and make changes directly there.  Sorry for this confusion.
> > >> Thanks,
> > >> 
> > >> -jeff
> > >> 
> > >> On 2015-02-09 11:17 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> > >> > Hello Board,
> > >> > 
> > >> > There was some confusion at the last OSGeo Board meeting
> > >> > regarding what a "-0" vote does for a motion.  I tried to
> > >> > explain that a -0 is a slight disagreement and that the motion
> > >> > would proceed (only a "-1" stops the process).  It was
> > >> > explained to me that a "-0" stops the process, and explained
> > >> > to me that the MapServer project does not pass a motion with a
> > >> > "-0" vote.
> > >> > 
> > >> > The voter in this case confirmed that the desired effect was to
> > >> > "slightly not agree" (see logs[1]).
> > >> > 
> > >> > I have verified that the example used, the MapServer Project
> > >> > Steering Committee, in fact does *not* stop a motion with a
> > >> > "-0" vote, as
> > >> > 
> > >> > explained from the PSC Guidelines[2] here:
> > >> >    - A vote of -0 indicates mild disagreement, but has no
> > >> > effect. A 0
> > >> > 
> > >> > indicates no opinion. A +0 indicate mild support, but has no
> > >> > effect.
> > >> > 
> > >> >    - Respondents may vote "-1" to veto a proposal, but must
> > >> > provide
> > >> > 
> > >> > clear reasoning and alternate approaches to resolving the
> > >> > problem within the two days.
> > >> > 
> > >> > Therefore, as I explained in the Board meeting, if someone does
> > >> > slightly disagree with a "-0", the motion will not be affected.
> > >> > 
> > >> > This will apply to the results of this email vote occurring
> > >> > now on the mailing list.
> > >> > 
> > >> > Sorry for this confusion everyone,
> > >> > 
> > >> > -jeff
> > >> > 
> > >> > [1] http://irclogs.geoapt.com/osgeo/%23osgeo.2015-02-05.log
> > >> > [2] http://mapserver.org/development/rfc/ms-rfc-23.
> > >> 
> > >> html#detailed-process
> > >> 
> > >> 
> > >> 
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> Board mailing list
> > >> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> > >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Board mailing list
> > > Board at lists.osgeo.org
> > > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
> 

-- 
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Aghisla
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