[Board] Kicking off Elections 2015 process

[Jeff McKenna]

Thanks Vasile!  I can also be a backup for you, with Jorge.

-jeff



On 2015-05-25 5:52 PM, Vasile Craciunescu wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> With a little bit of help from Jorge and the community I can take this
> responsibility (or parts of the work).
>
> Best,
> Vasile
>
> On 5/25/15 10:32 PM, Jorge Sanz wrote:
>> El 25/05/2015 18:20, "Jeff McKenna" <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com
>> <mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>> escribió:
>>  >
>>  > Hi Board, all,
>>  >
>>  > I'd like to make sure we begin the OSGeo Elections process, for both
>> Charter members and Board members.
>>  >
>>  > I've added this to the next Board meeting agenda, but, we
>> shouldn't/can't wait that long to begin, so, here are some tasks:
>>  >
>>  > 1. Ask for volunteer to manage the 2015 Elections process
>>  > ---------------------------------------------------------
>>  >
>>  > This is for the CRO (Chief Returning Officer) position[1].  Jorge did
>> a great job last year, and setup an electronic voting system that will
>> likely be used again this year.  Do we have any volunteers for this year?
>>  >
>>  > Note that what I found worked well last year, was Jorge as CRO but
>> having at least 2 others CC-ed in the cro@ alias, I think it was Jachym
>> and myself, to follow along and help where needed.  It is a big task for
>> one person.
>>  >
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I won't run this year for the CRO role. Last year I worked on July and
>> August on a reduced schedule that allowed me some time to work for this
>> task. This year, on the contrary, as I changed my job, I won't have that
>> and besides frankly, it's really consuming most of my time and energy so
>> I can't see myself on that duty again.
>>
>> On the other hand it's my second year serving on the Board. If I run
>> again for the reelection I can't be the CRO anyway.
>>
>> The biggest issue as a CRO is during the charter member nominations,
>> every nomination takes several tasks that seed to be done to assure the
>> nominee is accepting, the wiki is well feeded with the supports and all.
>>
>> I will volunteer as CRO "backup". As Jeff said, it's a also a very
>> important role, much needed because we are humans and errors happen so
>> having someone looking on your shoulder is really appreciated. I will
>> help and assist also on the voting system, it's in fact the easiest part
>> IMO.
>>
>> Actually I'm thinking that during nominations we don't need to put all
>> the work in just one person. Tracking the nominee, the wiki edits and
>> all can be shared over more than one people. Maybe we can use Trac for
>> this? Just taking ideas from top of my head
>>
>> Later when the nomination is finished yes, just one person in charge of
>> the voting process is OK I think.
>>
>> I remember Eli giving good advice for the process, by the way. I'd love
>> to hear ideas or comments on how to make this easier and reproducible.
>>
>>  >
>>  > 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 agree with this change and share Jeff views about being a little bit
>> more strict on the support requested by the membership.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jorge
>>
>>