[OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members

[Alex Mandel]

In general this sounds workable for this year. Nominations will no
longer compete against each other but only against the benchmark of what
makes a good member.

The only reservation I have is on the 50% Yes/No, but maybe I just need
a clarification.
I see plenty of people potentially voting Yes/No/Abstain(just not
marking a particular candidate). So is 50% of the number of people who
picked Yes vs No or is 50% the total number of charter members or is 50%
the number of charter members who voted in the election? How this line
is calculated varies the number of required votes. FYI, only voting Yes
and skipping No give people about the same style of vote as the previous
method.

To me more than a few no votes for a person seems somewhat
controversial. At the same time we don't want to give veto power to
small groups of people. If a vote is close 50/49, do we really want to
allow someone in the 49 charter members clearly have a reason for
rejecting? I don't really have a suggestion at this time for what the
right way to solve this is.

Thanks,
Alex


On 06/29/2014 01:26 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> OSGeo board,
> In the interests of making a decision such that Jorge Salinas (our CRO)
> can move forward, I propose the following process be followed for voting
> new charter members in 2014:
> 
> 1. Charter member to nominate potential new charter member(s) (as before).
> 
> 2. Charter members then vote (in/out) nominated charter members. This
> will be different to prior years, as we previously voted in a fixed
> number of members for a larger selection pool. (eg vote in 20 people
> from a list of 30). For this year, I propose we have a "Yes/No" vote.
> Ie, if we have a list of 30 candidates, we will ask all charter members
> to vote Yes or No against each candidate. Each candidate with greater
> than 50% of YES votes will be included as new charter members.
> 
> 3. Charter members would be guided to select candidates who fit the
> "Positive Attributes for Charter Members" as defined here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes
> 
> 4. There will be no limit to the number of new charter members who can
> be selected. This will require an update of
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
> 
> 5. Note: This vote is being put to the board and not to charter members
> as I don't wish to complicate this decision by adding a 2nd (positive)
> idea for change. We can address getting charter members to vote on
> issues as a separate motion.
> 
> Board members, can you please all vote on above:
> 
> +1 Cameron
> 
> 
> 
> On 25/06/2014 9:31 pm, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> Following the community discussion, I further researched OSGeo's
>> foundation documents, (in retrospect I should have done this earlier).
>>
>> Of particular relevance to current discussion is our ByLaws:
>>
>> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html
>> /Section 7.1. Admission of [Charter] Members. An initial group of up
>> to forty-five (45) persons shall be admitted as the initial [charter]
>> members of the corporation upon the affirmative vote of the Board of
>> Directors of the corporation. Thereafter, to be eligible for [charter]
>> membership, a person must be nominated by an existing [charter] member
>> of the corporation pursuant to a written document in such form as
>> shall be adopted by the Board of Directors from time to time. The
>> nomination must be included in a notice to the [charter] members at
>> least ten (10) days in advance of the meeting at which the [charter]
>> members will vote on the applicant's admission. Proposed [charter]
>> members shall be admitted upon the affirmative vote of the members of
>> the corporation./
>>
>> This section implies that the proposal below of automatically
>> accepting "Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders" is unconstitutional, as
>> charter members need to be voted into the role by existing charter
>> members.
>>
>> It also implies that while a separate paid membership category could
>> be created, paid members would still need to be voted into a charter
>> member role by existing charter members.
>>
>> The ByLaws don't mention limiting the number of new charter members.
>> This criteria seems to have been introduced as a Membership Process by
>> the 26th Board meeting:
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
>> /The number of new members will be between 10% and one third of the
>> existing charter membership count as decided by the board/.
>>
>> Such a statement created by the board, could be updated by the board,
>> and as such the board could agree to accept an unlimited number of new
>> charter members.
>>
>> So I'm now thinking that our election process can be simplified to:
>>
>> 1. Charter member to nominate potential new charter member(s)
>> 2. Charter members then vote (in/out) against all nominated charter
>> members
>> A suitable criteria for determining whether a nominee qualifies is
>> listed here:
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes
>> 4. Nominees with a majority of votes are included as new Charter Members
>>
>> On 15/06/2014 9:52 am, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>> Within 2 weeks we intend to start our annual process for selecting
>>> new OSGeo charter members.
>>>
>>> In previous years the Charter Member selection process has been a
>>> little contentious. We typically receive numerous nominations from
>>> high caliber members of our community, and insufficient positions to
>>> accept them all. This typically results in unnecessary disappointment
>>> and dissent.
>>>
>>> In response, the OSGeo board has agreed to trial tweaking the voting
>>> process. The aim is to automatically accept recognised OSGeo
>>> community leaders, while continuing with our existing process which
>>> attracts the many valuable community members who contribute in other
>>> ways. Community comments are encouraged, and will be considered over
>>> the next week.
>>>
>>> *Design guidelines:*
>>>
>>> * We want a process which is simple to understand and implement.
>>> * We want a process which encourages recognised OSGeo community
>>> leaders to become OSGeo charter members, while continuing to accept
>>> members from the many other valuable OSGeo roles.
>>> * We want a process which is difficult to abuse.
>>> * For the first iteration, we should err on being more selective in
>>> our criteria, with potential widening of selection criteria in future
>>> years.
>>>
>>> *Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders**
>>> *
>>> OSGeo aims to provide OSGeo Charter Membership to all recognised
>>> OSGeo community leaders who are nominated. Hopefully, sufficient
>>> positions are available. If there are more candidates than available,
>>> then membership will be allocated to the first to be nominated.
>>> Remaining nominees will be automatically offered to go through the
>>> standard voting process.
>>> Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders are defined as people who have
>>> been *voted* into a position of authority within official OSGeo
>>> projects and committees, where the voting community includes at least
>>> 3 OSGeo charter members.
>>>
>>> Acceptable roles are currently limited to:
>>> * Project Steering Committee member of a Graduated OSGeo Project
>>> * Chair of Official Local Chapter
>>> * Chair of an OSGeo committee
>>>
>>> The application process for recognised OSGeo Community Leaders is the
>>> same as for other nominees.
>>>
>>> Full text of our processes are at:
>>> * http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process_2014
>>> * http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2014
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> 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,  Wwww.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
>>
>> -- 
>> 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,  Wwww.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099
> 
> 
> 
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