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

[Dean Stephens]

On 02/13/18 00:51, Alec Warner wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:02 AM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@×××.org> wrote:
>
>> On 13/02/18 04:58, Dean Stephens wrote:
>>> On 02/12/18 11:55, William Hubbs wrote:
>>>> Hi Daniel,
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 08:53:24AM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
>>>>> How about if they just abstain from any votes where there may be a
>> conflict
>>>>> of interest? I would hate to limit the ability of people to contribute
>>>>> technically just because they were elected to council.
>>>> The confusing thing about this is, how would we define "conflict of
>>>> interest"?
>>>>
>>>> Suppose that the council decides to accept an appeal from comrel. Is it
>>>> a conflict of interest for a member of the council who is also a member
>>>> of comrel to vote in the appeal? If it isn't, it is at least a pretty
>>>> strong perception that it is.
>>>>
>>> Why? How? Exactly what sort of conflicting interest is supposed to be
>>> present?
>>>
>> There seems to be two divergent schools of thinking here:
>> 1) Those that think that there is, or could be, (potential for) a
>> conflict of interest,
>> and 2) Those that cannot conceive there even could be a conflict of
>> interest.
>>
>
> I'm not aware of anyone advocating for case two (not even Rich! :))
>
>
>>
>> I think it would be useful for both sides to state their cases, and
>> perhaps this particular issue could have its bike-shed painted once, and
>> for good.....
>>
>>
> Ultimately this comes down to a discussion about whether potential
> conflicts are allowed or not.
>
> In some fields (law, or finance for example) there are rules against having
> even potential conflicts. Should Gentoo emulate those rules and produce an
> organization that avoids even the appearance of conflict? In other fields,
> potential conflicts are allowed. There tend to be policies about disclosing
> conflicts (disclosure is typically encouraged here.) Organizations can use
> the disclosures to put in appropriate controls. To use an example:
>
> A council member is on a team (not even necessarily QA / Comrel). That
> team's lead makes a decision. The council member doesn't agree with the
> decision and appeals to council.
> I would argue the member raising the issue has a conflict and they should
> not vote (recuse / abstain).
>
Thank you for actually offering an example of a potential conflict of
interest. While I can certainly understand how such a circumstance could
be disadvantageous, not least with regard to the likely effects on the
team whose actions are being appealed by a member, I do not think that
it would reasonably necessitate entirely preventing council members from
being members of other projects (even just the limited set of QA and
Comrel).

Might I suggest that a more suitable approach to avoiding such a
conflict would be to have the next available "runner up" candidate for
council act as a council member in any circumstance where a council
member petitions the full council, taking the seat of the petitioning
member for that vote? Or, at the least, automatic recusal by any
petitioning council member?

> If you believe the above premise, even if we take William's patch, its
> clear we cannot eliminate conflicts of interest among Gentoo Leadership
> (e.g. the above example is a conflict; but it isn't resolved by William's
> patch.)
>
> I'm also not clear on the problem statement. William's opener was: "I have
> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's
> ability to vote fairly on appeals." So it seems that the problem statement
> is about appeals being fair (or appearing fair, or feeling fair?) Maybe we
> could discuss Appeals specifically; and how they appear or make people
> feel. I'm not sure I have a better idea of 'fairness' than just soliciting
> feedback.
>
> -A
>