[Board] motions from June 18 meeting - making OSGeo Charter membership more exclusive
Daniel Morissette
dmorissette at mapgears.com
Mon Jun 22 09:09:12 PDT 2015
Margherita makes a very good point here, that if someone gets multiple
NO votes then they are probably not a good candidate. That's what I
would have thought as well.
However, after last year's election I was extremely surprised to see
that even the top-5 candidates which all got over 70% support also got
2-3 NO votes each:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2014_detailed_results
I don't understand why someone would vote NO for those 5 people as
charter members given track record. I can only imagine that not
everybody interprets the "NO" vote to mean the same thing...
Daniel
On 2015-06-22 10:08 AM, Margherita Di Leo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> although I am all in favor of an inclusive community, I see a point in
> the proposal of thresholding. Currently, as a voting charter member,
> when I'm presented with a candidate, I have the opportunity to include
> (YES) or exclude (NO) him/her , and this makes sense when I know him/her
> and their work. What if I don't have idea? I would
> abstain. Particularly, what might be the reasons that might lead me to
> say NO to this candidate? I would say it should be a good reason.
> I don't remember very well the conditions given last year for the voting
> procedure, but I propose to give 3 opportunities for voting each
> candidate: YES (+1) , NO (-1) or ABSTAIN (0).
> This makes me think that if a considerable amount of people is voting a
> decided NO, there should be a reason why the candidate should not be
> awarded as a charter member and the reason isn't the fact that he/she is
> not popular enough (remember, if you don't know him/her, you can just
> abstain).
>
> My 2 cents
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 2:33 PM, Cameron Shorter
> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com <mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Venka,
> As Peter notes, the minimum 5% YES votes was discussed amongst the
> community (along with extensive discussion about many other aspects
> of the proposal).
> Here is one of the emails in the thread:
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-July/013049.html
>
> Hi Jeff,
> I'd prefer not to have it implied that the 5% figure was "an error".
> It was the final result of extensive community discussion. If you
> wish to continue with changing this 5% threshold, then I request it
> be taken to the OSGeo Discuss list first.
>
> Warm regards, Cameron
>
>
> On 20/06/2015 9:45 pm, Jeff McKenna wrote:
>
> That said, the vote for changing the election process will
> proceed; I appreciate Cameron's concerns, but, that 5% threshold
> was an error made last year and the Board is now correcting an
> unfortunate error. As I mentioned in my elections-kickoff
> message to the Board on 25 May, what we saw last year for the
> first time was strategic nominations placed by some people and
> we will correct that this year. I am sorry for being direct here.
>
>
>
>
> On 21/06/2015 5:52 pm, Peter Baumann wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> in fact, I do remember quite involved discussions around the
> whole procedure,
> where the 5% were only one facet. There were arguments like "an
> applicant might
> be disappointed when not elected, so let us put the barrier
> low". My view:
> democracry is not about giving posts to everybody for avoiding
> "disappointment",
> but to establish a leadership accepted by a majority (sic).
>
> And I am concerned that a procedure seen as debatable by several
> members
> (including me, BTW) should now be pursued further without an
> opportunity for
> reconsideration. Obviously there is at the very least a need to
> find out whether
> there is room for improvement.
>
> -Peter
>
>
> On 06/21/15 09:44, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
>
> The issue of setting the selection criteria at 5% was discussed
> after the last years Charter member elections [1].
>
> There was no community discussion when the criteria was changed
> to a threshold of 5%. So I do not see the logic in calling
> for a community
> discussion now
> on a matter in which the the community was never consulted,
> despite the fact that
> some of us expressed our apprehensions about lowering the
> threshold.
>
> Venka
>
> [1]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2014-August/012016.html
>
> On 2015/06/21 2:21, Vasile Craciunescu wrote:
>
> I get Cameron's point of view. Personally, I really
> don't want to leave
> valuable people "outside" just because they are not
> "popular" enough or
> because they not recommended to the charter members by a
> popular figure.
> Myself, I'm not from on a country with notably
> contributions in term of code
> to the FOSS4G realm. I do really know that passion for
> FOSS4G is not always
> enough to make a person noticeable in the eyes of the
> community (especially
> if you are not a programmer). On the other hand, why do
> we call the process
> "elections" if we always accept all the nominations? We
> really need to have
> some kind of mechanism to assure that "proper" people
> are elected as charter
> members, people that really understand and share the
> values promoted by
> OSGeo. If the mechanism is right, all the "good" people
> will get elected
> (most probably, all people proposed). Of course, there
> is no easy path to
> achieve this. I agree that changing the rules of
> engagement just before the
> elections is not the best approach. But, I also recall
> that, since the board
> meeting in Portland, the 5% rule was contested by an
> important number of
> board and charter members (not always on public
> channels). My proposal is to
> delay a bit the elections schedule for this year (not
> sure if bylaws permit
> this) or shorten the nomination/voting periods in order
> to have a real
> consultation on the topic with the OSGeo community.
> Postponing the rule
> amendment for an entire year may find us in the very
> same situation one year
> latter in 2016 (as Jeff already mentioned, nobody had
> nothing to reply to his
> message from May). I encourage all the board/charter
> members to express their
> opinion on this subject. If you do care, please talk now.
>
> Best,
> Vasile
>
> On 6/20/15 1:59 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>
> OSGeo board,
> As an OSGeo Charter member, I request that the
> following motion (see
> below) not be passed without first discussing
> publicly on the OSGeo
> Discuss email list.
>
> The current process for joining OSGeo Charter
> Membership [2] was
> specifically refined to be more inclusive than
> before, in order to make
> it easy for all passionate people within the OSGeo
> community to join,
> while aiming to protect against the now relatively
> unlikely possibility
> of a hostile takeover.
>
> Based on the proposal below, 11 out of 64 of last
> years successful
> nominations would be rejected under the proposed
> new rules. I suggest
> this is not in OSGeo's interests.
>
> It is possible that some of these 11 people are not
> very involved in
> OSGeo, and maybe haven't contributed much since
> being nominated, but is
> that a bad thing? Have any of these 11 people been
> actively detrimental
> to OSGeo while being an OSGeo Charter member? Note,
> the only official
> duty of a charter member is to vote for the board.
> However, being
> recognised as a charter member is useful for many of
> our members looking
> to gain OSGeo credibility, such as when presenting
> at conferences.
>
> If we are more inclusive, and add 10 new
> non-active/non-disruptive OSGeo
> Charter members, then I'd argue that it is worth it
> for the 1 passionate
> Charter member we also gain.
>
> I remember a quote from Jeff which rang true with
> me, and which I think
> is applicable here:
> /
> //"I once heard an interview with a legendary lead
> singer of a band, who
> said his goal each concert was to make the kid
> sitting in the very back
> row to feel like he's as much a part of the concert
> as the kid sitting
> in the front row, and this is exactly how I focus my
> community work for
> OSGeo."/
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-August/013498.html
>
> Warm regards, Cameron Shorter
>
> On 20/06/2015 5:29 am, Vasile Craciunescu wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Please also vote for motion below.
>
> 5) For the new charter members elections, change
> the threshold of
> required YES votes of charter members from 5% to
> 50%. See Jeff's
> e-mail [1] for detailed explanations and the
> rationale of this change.
> If needed, also check the Membership Process [2].
>
> My vote is +1.
>
> Best,
> Vasile
>
> [1]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-May/012863.html
> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
>
>
> On 26/05/2015 2:18 am, Jeff McKenna wrote:
>
> 3. Decide on 2015 Selection Process
> -----------------------------------
>
> To refresh everyone's memory, last year we
> (Board) modified the
> selection process[3] for Charter members; but in
> my opinion we made a
> mistake with the voting change of "Each
> candidate with more YES votes
> than NO votes, and greater than 5% of voting
> charter members voting
> YES for them, will be included as new charter
> members."
>
> What I saw was, for the first time in OSGeo
> history, strategic
> nominations by certain projects, for relatively
> unknown community
> members; the result was that all 64 nominations
> were accepted as
> Charter members.
>
> For 2015, I am proposing we make 1 change,
> instead of the 5%
> acceptance, change that to 50% or greater voting
> YES. Such as:
>
> ***
> Each candidate with more YES votes than NO
> votes, and greater than or
> equal to 50% of voting charter members voting
> YES for them, will be
> included as new charter members.
> ***
>
> I have checked the 2014 results again, and with
> those new 50% rules,
> we would have accepted 45 nominations versus all
> 64 nominations. I
> believe this is much better.
>
> But of course this needs to be decided by the
> Board and community. I
> am merely kicking off the process So please
> speak your mind, or edit
> the 2015 Elections wiki directly.
>
> Yours,
>
> -jeff
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>
> P +61 2 9009 5000 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>,
> Wwww.lisasoft.com <http://Wwww.lisasoft.com>, F +61
> 2 9009 5099 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>
> P +61 2 9009 5000 <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>, W www.lisasoft.com
> <http://www.lisasoft.com>, F +61 2 9009 5099
> <tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Dr. Margherita DI LEO
> Scientific / technical project officer
>
> European Commission - DG JRC
> Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
> Via Fermi, 2749
> I-21027 Ispra (VA) - Italy - TP 261
> Tel. +39 0332 78 3600
> margherita.di-leo at jrc.ec.europa.eu
> <mailto:margherita.di-leo at jrc.ec.europa.eu>
>
> Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may
> not in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of
> the European Commission.
>
>
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--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
T: +1 418-696-5056 #201
http://evouala.com/ - Location Intelligence Made Easy
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