[Board] Added "OSGeo Charter Responsibilities"

[Jorge Sanz]

2014-08-18 15:46 GMT+02:00 Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>:
> Hi Venka,
>
> I too have several thoughts on the Charter Member election process from this
> year, I just wasn't sure if I should wait to explain them until after the
> Board election, or in person in Portland to the tribe, at the AGM there,
> or....   but anyway you have brought up good points and I will respond.
>
> Jorge did amazing work on setting up an electronic voting system, that
> obviously we will use from now on.  Thanks so much to Jorge for being the
> champion.
>
> What I noticed in this year's Charter Member election was that:
>
> - we had some very poor nominations (maybe a one sentence intro, and no link
> to an OSGeo wiki page for addition info)
>
> - the new rules to be accepted of "more YES votes than NO votes, as well as
> greater than 5% of charter members who voted" (which I can't even find on
> our Elections wiki page now, I had to find the initial email), from looking
> at the results did in fact lower the bar too low (every nomination, poor to
> good, was accepted).
>
> I think we tried to improve the selection process, but we made it a little
> too easy to become a Charter Member.  I wonder, if that "5%" number was
> changed to something like "51%", how our results would have been this year?
> I am not sure, but I do wonder.
>
> I am very appreciative of having 64 new Charter Members this year, for an
> amazing pool of 244 Charter Members now in total.  But I think the community
> should work with the CRO and the OSGeo Board to tweak this new process for
> the 2015 Charter Member election.
>
> -jeff
>

Some comments

- The updated criteria for election of CM is documented on the
Membership Process wiki page[1], linked on the elections page. That
page was updated by myself and Cameron *before* the nominations period
started.

- Regarding the 5%, or just the criteria on support, it was rised by
Angelos during the request for comments done by Cameron[2] and (I
suppose) Cameron placed a low limit for inclusiveness.

- After the elections results, I agree that limit it's too low and it
would be really hard for a candidate to not get it. Charter Members
should have a higher level of support to be accepted.

- As CRO, for the records, and hoping that those numbers are
meaningful and help to improve the criteria, let me share some basic
statistics regarding support, that is: yes/(yes+no+abs):

-- Maximum: 84%
-- Minimum: 39%
-- Average: 56%
-- Number of candidates with more than 51%: 45 of 64

Anyway it's the first time we have those numbers easy at hand. For the
next elections we can refine some details on the voting and nomination
process like making a better statement about what a good nomination
is, some tips to help charter members to make an opinion about a
candidate, decide a higher level of support requested, etc.

Best regards

[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
[2] http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Proposed-process-for-selecting-OSGeo-charter-members-tp5145917p5148688.html


-- 
Jorge Sanz
http://www.osgeo.org
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz