Hi Bryce, Thanks for splitting the discussion. We discussed a similar voting-count-system at the GSoC summit, but I think we decided for something stronger (the meetings). But now when I read your mail, I think what you propose is very good, because it tackles exactly the problem we want to fix.
Thanks, Johan On 30-10-2014 10:00, Bryce Harrington wrote: > On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 07:41:14PM +0100, Johan Engelen wrote: >>> Why? What is the specific problem(s) that meetings would solve? >> >> I will come back to this later, but the trigger for this was a >> discussion on how to resolve board inactivity... we spoke about >> making a more objective 'rule' that would not require nasty >> discussions. One proposal was "miss 3 meetings in a row" > > Ah, I wondered if that was the case. > > So let's not put the cart before the horse. Let's set aside discussion > about meetings and focus on this, since it sounds like the real problem > here. > > I also share this concern. It bugs me when we hold a vote and we get 3 > yes votes and silence from the other 4; this has happened more than a > few times. Even when we have a majority, it still is annoying to me > that we don't ever seem to get to 100% voter turnout. I think about > this pretty much every time we vote. > > Most of the time the solution is fairly simple - I privately ping > whomever has gotten inactive and politely inquire what's up. Sometimes > that gets their attention, they get their vote in and are more active, > perhaps after getting some real life stuff sorted out. In a couple > instances they opted to honorably step down to free the seat for someone > else. So far in all but one of the instances, the issue got happily > resolved one way or the other. The one instance still outstanding > (i.e. MentalGuy) I'm still trying to resolve off-list. > > I have to emphasize the "real life stuff" as something we need to be > conscientious of. Folks here on the board have shared privately some of > the tough stuff they've had to go through: Family crises, employment > disruptions, extensive travel, health troubles, intensive work > situations, and even plain old burn out working in Inkscape. Probably > more, that just isn't shared. But usually whatever the problem is, it's > temporary or will settle down and allow participation again after a > month or two. For someone going through a rough spot, kicking them off > the board would be adding insult to injury. It might end up driving an > otherwise great contributor away from the project permanently. > > Now, all that said, It's probably for the best that we are adding some > objective mechanism to oust board members. Hopefully we never have to > use it, and I think we should work very hard to never, ever do so. But, > if someone disappears and can't be contacted for months on end, that may > be our only option. (As an off topic aside... Long timers will recall > such an event was one of the things that led to us starting Inkscape in > the first place...) > > Rather than meeting attendance, I think voting history would be a better > objective mechanism. Say, out of the past N months if you cast votes in > fewer than X% of the referendums. Where N is like 3 or 6 months, and X > is like 5 or 10. My thinking is that while meeting attendance is really > just a means to an end, but voting is the fundamental reason we were > elected to these seats. > > Bryce > > > > (Wish we could apply rules like this against the US Congress members...) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Inkscape-board mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-board
