[Board] have fun today, hopes

[Howard Butler]

On Sep 13, 2010, at 8:37 AM, <christopher.schmidt at nokia.com> wrote:

> 
> On Sep 13, 2010, at 9:27 AM, ext Mark Lucas wrote:
> 
>> Chris, 
>> 
>> Appreciate the kind offer to use the board list.
>> 
>> I think a separate list for ex board members makes sense for a couple of reasons.
>> 
>> The board list should be primarily for the elected board.  
> 
> I disagree, and I think that at the AGM, we described the board list as an open
> way to communicate with the board for OSGeo members. The goal of the board --
> or at least, my goal as a member of the board -- is to be a strong representative
> of the people in the OSGeo community, and I think that the best way to do
> that is to increase the communication to this list from the entire community,
> and especially ex-board members. 

I have always seen the board list as the public discussion forum for anyone wishing to communicate with the board along with the board's public forum.  The vast majority of board business has historically gone through the board list rather than the board-priv list.  

> 
>> The ex-board members are not shy and we certainly would chime in where appropriate for board list discussions.  Ex-board members need a place to go when they step down - I'm sure that we will all respond if you need our assistance in any area - but I think that we should be very conservative and avoid any confusion on who speaks for the board.
> 
> I don't think that there is any confusion that people sending emails to
> board at lists.osgeo.org necessarily speak for the board. If there's confusion
> about that, we should see what we can do to fix it :)
> 
>> Consider us envoys for special missions, advisors when needed - and above all, supporters for the current leadership team
>> 
>> Besides, I think we should have special badges   :-)  Maybe our portraits should adorn a virtual hallway somewhere...
> 
> A virtual hallway is fine, but a private mailing list seems less than 
> an efficient method for such a thing :)

I completely agree.  Another problem with private lists is the care needed to make sure you are replying properly and list hopping (imagine an email sent to board-priv and ex-board-priv and a reply).  Proliferating mailing lists for this rather special case seems like bureaucratic wankery to me.