[OSGeo-Discuss] election process

Mon Jun 22 11:42:54 PDT 2015

This proposal of requiring over 50% of charter members voting yes seems extraordinarily onerous. Most of our elected officials in Canada would never get elected under that rule. Without knowing what % of charter members typically vote in the elections I cannot comment on what I think that the appropriate % is, and I wonder if a required per cent is even required, if more vote Yes than No and a quorum is achieved then why not declare them elected?

Bob Bruce
Winnipeg, Manitoba

From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Bart van den Eijnden
Sent: June-22-15 1:32 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] election process

Hi everyone,

currently there is some discussion on the board list that really belongs on the general discuss list. Cameron has put a summary in an e-mail which got sent to the wrong list (OGC TC discuss instead of OSGeo discuss), I’m forwarding it below as a starting point for discussion.

Basically the question is how should we determine who gets elected and who not? Currently there is a proposal to raise the threshold from 5 to 50%, but two board members (including myself) have already voted -1 on this proposal, main reason being that we don’t know the opinion of the broader community on this.

The board discussion is unfortunately scattered over multiple threads with titles like:

motions from June 18 meeting - making OSGeo Charter membership more exclusive
motions from June 18 meeting

http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-June/thread.html

Best regards,
Bart

Begin forwarded message:

From: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>>
Subject: Re: [Board] motions from June 18 meeting - making OSGeo Charter membership more exclusive
Date: 20 Jun 2015 01:59:56 CEST
To: board at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:board at lists.osgeo.org>, "Discuss, TC" <tc-discuss at lists.opengeospatial.org<mailto:tc-discuss at lists.opengeospatial.org>>

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,  W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com/>,  F +61 2 9009 5099
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