<div dir="ltr">Running a little behind in this thread...<br><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 4:53 PM, Venkatesh Raghavan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:raghavan@media.osaka-cu.ac.jp" target="_blank">raghavan@media.osaka-cu.ac.jp</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hi Jeff,<div><br>
<br>
On 2014/08/16 2:06, Jeff McKenna wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
Hi Venka,<br>
<br>
I agree, that the new Board should consider assigning more responsibilities to our Charter Members. What potential types of "crucial issues" could you see involving the Charter Members down the road? Do you have any examples?<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
About "crucial issues" there a many, one of the recent example was the new rules for<br>
Charter Member (CM) Election. I think that the rules of the CM election needs a broad<br>
consensus from the membership and cannot be changed by board decision alone.<br>
How can the board change the rules of CM elections when it is CMs that elect<br>
the board in the first place?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I thought that Cameron got fairly broad consensus (or provided opportunity for that to happen) through the discuss list starting here, <a href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-June/012946.html" target="_blank">http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-June/012946.html</a><br>
<br></div><div>And then worked through the wiki, <a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Membership_Process_2014&oldid=78363" target="_blank">http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Membership_Process_2014&oldid=78363</a> <br>
</div><div><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
With the revised election process item 6 [1], 5% vote of charter membership to become CM<br>
is making the hurdle so low that it makes the whole election process (one that Jorge has worked<br>
so very hard) a waste of time and effort. Can someone point me to a volunteer organization<br>
where one could be elected by getting mere 5% vote from the electorate?<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The point of the new election process was that the previous process was seen as flawed since it denied people who some thought should have been admitted. Do you think that the previous process was flawed and needed revision? How would you revise it? Perhaps the Board can direct Jorge to provide some aggregate anonymous results (i.e. what was the average 'yes' vote for all nominees, 'no' vote average, 'abstain' vote average). This could also help revise the process. It is possible that the average election rate was 50%+ 'yes' which seems good and would suggest that this 5% number could be raised. <br>
</div><div><br></div><div>I think that most non-profit volunteer organizations allow membership by simply signing up or paying $5-50/year. <br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
I suggest that the new board that will start functioning soon to revisit CM election rules<br>
(which, I think, is a "crucial issue") and after seek broader consensus from the charter members<br>
(through electronic voting of necessary) re-formulate these rules.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If Jorge thinks that it is feasible to run frequent electronic votes, I think that is great. I also think that informal opinion polls are better than binding votes. I also like the open discussion on the OSGeo email lists. I get more benefit from open discussion than private polling. Open discussion gives me new ideas and perspectives and things I had not thought of before, it also gives me the opportunity to learn more and change my mind. Private polling just exercises the limited thoughts I already have. I like doing both but don't think that private polling can replace open discussion. I don't see why Cameron or others would wade into such an unpleasant task as 'determine community consensus on this contentious issue' if they had the alternative of 'run a private poll by pushing a few buttons (or asking Jorge to do a bunch of work)'. I don't see any reason to limit opinion polls to Charter Members. Why not run community polls? <br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Please note that I raise the issue about a process and not against any individual.<br>
I am very pleased to see great new team of CM has entered OSGeo, I am also glad<br>
to see the excellent list of nominees for the Board elections.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So then it worked. Let's improve it and ensure that it works even better in the future. <br></div><div> <br></div><div>
Thanks for this open discussion. It is useful to me and I hope others too. <br><br></div><div>Best regards, Eli<br></div><div><br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Venka<br>
<br>
[1] <a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process_2014#Nominations" target="_blank">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/<u></u>Membership_Process_2014#<u></u>Nominations</a><br>
<br>
P.S. I could have made my views on the new CM election rules earlier. I did not realize<br>
that rules has changed until the election process had started and refrained from expressing<br>
my views until the elections were over. Perhaps there are others who feel the same as me<br>
and I urge them to speak up now, so that we could make our community better.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Often times it does seem that we as OSGeo do things on a compressed last minute timeline. I don't think that is ideal but people don't make efforts to do it sooner and generally people don't engage when people do make earlier attempts. <br>
</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div><br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
-jeff<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2014-08-15 10:39 AM, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
As I have mentioned on many occasions before, I hope that our Charter<br>
Members will be assigned more responsibilities in future decision making<br>
on some crucial issues. Now that we have tested our new voting system,<br>
it could also be used to seek broad based consensus form our excellent<br>
Charter Membership on some some of these crucial issues.<br>
<br>
Venka<br>
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</blockquote>
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