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Matti Bickel posted on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:04:57 +0200 as excerpted: |
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>> A council member is inactive when: |
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>> |
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>> 1) He is inactive in critical discussions ( such as the whole Phoenix |
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>> discussion ) for a certain period of time |
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> |
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> Please, no. Or we start to get -council/-dev threads about why a certain |
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> thread here is not considered critical by half of the council when they |
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> don't reply. If you can't put a number on it, please don't make it a |
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> hard requirement. |
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|
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Agreed. I just don't see how this is can be practically enforced. Even |
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if it's possible to cleanly determine what threads apply, do we really |
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want council members posting the equivalent of "discussion-present" |
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messages? Does failure to post when someone else said it better, or even |
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just said it already, indicate inactivity? |
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|
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>> 2) Fails to accomplish his role by supervising the Gentoo projects. |
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> |
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> This isn't even in their domain. I would complain *loud* about any |
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> council member interfering with projects unless it's an inter-project |
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> issue. The council is meant for arbitration and vision, not for |
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> commanding devs. |
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I believe this was, in fact, specifically one of the reasons the purpose |
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was worded as it was, "global issues and policies that affect multiple |
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projects". Even if it was humanly possible for council to micro-manage, |
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should it? Projects and their leaders (and many participants) wanted the |
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flexibility and freedom to make their own decisions, not have council |
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constantly second-guessing them. |
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Instead, the wording is deliberately limiting to global Gentoo and inter- |
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project issues, tho it can be noted that there remains in effect a way for |
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council to act in the affairs of an individual project, should it be |
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deemed necessary, by declaring the issue to have escalated to enough |
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importance that it's now a global Gentoo issue. So there's a means of |
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escalation should it be necessary, and it's the council that makes that |
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judgment, subject only to reelection votes, but if it's clearly getting |
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out of hand, people will walk and form a new "genthree", if it comes to it. |
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|
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.... |
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|
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But an issue that I've wondered about before, that I've never seen |
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addressed, is this: With default-monthly meetings and council serving |
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only a year, that's only 12 meetings. A council member could make every |
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other one, skipping the last three in a row, and effectively the only |
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thing that could be done would be not reelect him. |
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|
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Now people are human, get sick, have loved ones die, have an earthquake |
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hit the day of the council meeting, whatever, so there's gotta be some |
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give. |
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|
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But it always seemed to me that a rolling 2 out of 3 should be required, |
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possibly with a council-can-forgive-one-absence clause. So if you miss |
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one, you better make the next two or you're forced to appeal to the "at |
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the mercy of the council" clause. And you can only use that council-mercy |
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vote once, so if it happens again, you're out, period. |
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|
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Also, there needs to be a way for an accelerated new election, should it |
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be needed, as otherwise, by 8 months in, by the time the machinery gets |
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going, the new councilor might get in for the last meeting, when |
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presumably the old council is only finishing up tail-ends. Is it even |
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worth it? But that's really a topic for another (sub?)thread. |
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Another alternative would be to make the terms a bit longer, perhaps 18 |
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months or two years, having half the council replaced every 9 months or |
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annually. Or make it 14 months and stagger terms starting every two |
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months. The idea being, it's never "the last couple months" for |
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everyone. And if the terms are staggered every two months, elections |
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would be basically constant, they wouldn't be such a big deal, and council |
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policy changes would be more gradual. |
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|
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |