Re: [gentoo-project] [GLEP 39 overhaul] Voting by email, proxies and slacker rule.

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 20-04-2010 17:40, Roy Bamford wrote:
> On 2010.04.18 00:46, Denis Dupeyron wrote:
>> During the last council meeting we discussed voting by email, see the
>> log at [1]. What should we do about proxies if we make that happen?
>> What's the impact on the slacker rule?
>>
>> [1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/meeting-logs/20100308.txt
>
> Team,
>
> I have some strong views on voting by email.
>
> 1. Voting by email should be encouraged. This allows things to be
> resolved on the mailing lists and never come to a council meeting.
> It speeds the workflow and it therefore a good thing.
>
> 2. Voting by email in advance, on a topic to be *discussed* at a
> meeting should not be permitted. In the event that the discussion
> turns up something unexpected, there is no opportunity to vote in the
> light of the new information. That further discussion is deemed to be
> required, shows that not all the evidence is in and the council is not
> ready to vote.

I agree with Roy about the usefulness of voting by email and the
"danger" of voting before meeting.

> For the sake of clarity, if its just to announce a decision with no
> opportunity for discussion, an email vote in advance of the
> announcement is fine.

I think this falls in the already exiting rule that nothing prevents the
council of having impromptu meetings as deemed required and announcing
decisions. This obviously doesn't apply to GLEP votes which have their
own rules.

> 3. email votes post discussion/meeting are fine. This allows GLEP39 to
> be updated to remove both slacker marks and proxies which van only be a
> good thing.

I don't agree with Roy on this point as I think we still need some rules
to ensure that the council members don't go MIA or that the body simply
stops working. We can have more lenient rules, but they should still
exist, IMHO.
I do agree that dropping the ability of council members to send proxies
to a meeting can avoid issues and is thus desirable.

> Its perfectly possible for a member to serve properly on the council
> and never show up to a meeting. With the span of time zones with the
> current council, its already difficult for them to find a time to meet
> and email voting would ease the pressure.

I don't think it's desirable to have council members that don't show up
to a single meeting or that hardly have direct talk with the other
council members. If we ever get a council with people spread so far in
the world that it isn't possible to find any schedule to host a meeting
with everyone present, I would prefer the council to have rotating
meetings to allow each member to attend a meeting from time to time.

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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