Re: [gentoo-project] rfc: council members and appeals

[Dean Stephens]

On 02/12/18 19:39, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> Ulrich Mueller schrieb:
>>> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
>>> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
>>> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
>>> full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
>> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.
>
> QA and Comrel are special in that they can take disciplinary action against
> non-members, which there is no recourse against except appeal to the Council.
>
At the very least: QA, Comrel, IRC ops (in every project specific
channel), planet/universe, forums, and wiki. Of those, since black
helicopter fantasies appear to be the order of the day, a ban on the
wiki could even, according to policy, keep a developer from joining or
leaving any projects (at least without assistance), so council members
should certainly not be allowed to be part of the wiki team since...
then at least there would be a council member who would have actual
knowledge of what the hypothetical problem that caused the wiki team to
take the hypothetical step of banning someone.

>> It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
>> of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
>> a candidate is suitable for the council.
>
> If everything were transparent then I would tend to agree, however it is not.
> Comrel processes are often opaque, especially when it comes to the
> aforementioned disciplinary actions. I think sometimes even the individual
> votes are not public (only the final counts). When an appeal happens, then
> Council may get briefed in secret too. So evaluating the candidate based on
> public information becomes difficult.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn
>
>