Re: [gentoo-project] Foundation membership and who can join

[NP-Hardass]

On 10/14/2016 11:15 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 11:03 AM, Raymond Jennings <shentino@×××××.com> wrote:
>> This is why I oppose mooshing the roles together.
>>
>> An ebuild maintaining nerd/codemonkey type may have little interest in
>> foundation politics, and vice versa.  We should not force them to shoulder
>> roles they don't want.
>>
>> As long as they're willing to play nice with the community, they should be
>> allowed to offer their support in any way they see fit.  I don't think
>> putting vote quotas on anyone is going to help.
>>
>
> It is a valid argument, but it does then lead to the situation where
> we have diverging foundation and dev membership, which means that if
> you post the same question to both groups, you could get different
> answers, and thus conflict.
>
> However, this could be mitigated a great deal if we still purged
> foundation members who are no longer active staff/devs, while keeping
> foundation membership optional for those who are, and if somebody
> loses foundation membership due to not voting they could ask to be
> allowed back in.  Then while somebody might not be voting for who the
> Trustees are, they can't really complain because they need only ask
> for the ability to vote for them, and crisis could be averted.
>

What exactly are the requirements for quorum as necessitated by NM law?
How do explicit abstains from a vote affect that if they do?   If
explicit abstention is allowed, then make voting completely compulsory,
and those that do not feel that they have a desire to put a filled
ballot forward are required to submit a ballot of abstention.   This
might alleviate some of the concerns of developers being forced to vote
for trustees, while still putting developers in a position where they
have to weigh what degree they wish to weigh in on such a matter.
IANAL, but my suspicion is that the law only mandates that a quorum be
present, not that a quorum vote one way or another.  According to this
document [1], abstentions only affect votes where the
quorum/majority/unanimity is required of *present* voters, thus votes
where only quorum/majority/unanimity of total votes is required,
abstention is removed entirely from the assessment of quorum for the
decision itself.

Note, in the document from NM [2], I couldn't find specific reference to
this (and we should speak to a lawyer), but there are some points where
quorum is discussed of present members and some where it is discussed in
relation to the entirety of the body.

TL;DR: It might be possible to force all to vote, and but permit
abstentions in the case of the trustees election.  This might allow an
easier time aligning the bodies while not forcing developers to forcibly
vote where they might not have an opinion.

Please note, the above might be worth looking into regardless of whether
we align the voting bodies as it might make achieving a quorum in future
votes more attainable.



Regardless of quorum requirements, if we align the Foundation and Staff
memberships, and make voting compulsory (within a 2 year period), it
might be wise to loosen the voting periods to make it easier for members
to vote, i.e. if voting is open for 2 weeks currently, make it open for
4 weeks as a month should be ample time to cast a vote, whether it be
abstention (if allowed) or a filled ballot.



-- 
NP-Hardass

[1] http://www.robertsrules.com/faq.html#6
[2]
http://www.nmag.gov/uploads/files/Publications/ComplianceGuides/Open%20Meetings%20Act%20Compliance%20Guide%202015.pdf