On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 1:55 PM Richard Brown <rbrown@suse.de> wrote:
Hello Adrien,
On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 12:28 +0000, Adrien Glauser wrote:
``` Restraint is expected from current and former Board members during elections. When talking about candidates in their capacity of member or former member, they should seek to prioritize means of communication that:
Why should current and former Board members be held to a different standard than any other contributor? Are we not meant to be a community of equals?
Why should a former head of FDA not become a CEO of a BigPharma he just approved a controversial drug off of 3 years ago you meant? Or why former parliament members / ministers should not serve on the supervisor board of state-owned enterprises?
One of the key points that comes up during every election is the reminder that Board members have no additional priviledge or power over the direction of this project, but only the responsibility to remove blockages to the community when they appear.
It seems counter intutive to me to require restraint from current and former Board Members but not apply the same rules to the entire community.
No it doesn't then they are merely being petty, and clearly did not yet let go off what they in their own words describe as "very stressful and tricky role", perhaps, just perhaps you are not good at doing politics, guess what, governance bodies ARE politics, they make policy decisions, if they can approve them by themselves or need wider consensus does not change that fact.
I can understand a version of these rules that apply to current Board members, as they may have to work with the elected individuals..honouring the will of the vote and all that.
But I strongly feel former Board members have the same rights to a life of free contribution to the Project as any other contributor.
I think we should avoid creating a situation which effectively says to ex-Board members "Thanks for all the hard work you've done in a very stressful and tricky role for the Project, but now you're a second class citizen compared to every other contributor".
Not to every other contributor, you would be equal among your former and current board member peers. It is not uncommon in advanced democracies such as Switzerland to restrict former public servants from certain conduct or roles, for a good reason.
Assuming you can provide a justification for applying this rule to current & former Members, then I have a followup question. Do you feel it's fair to retroactively reply these rules to all past Board Members, even though they had no forewarning of these limitations before they decided to run for the position?
Humans have survived this long for their ability to adapt to changing circumstances, they sadly did not survive because of their strong ability to foresee the future.
I think that's an unfair imposition to hold dozens of contributors to a different standard than everyone else, when they had no forewarning about that standard before they offered to help the Project by running for the Board.
Victimizing yourself much? In the end, I assume no-one pointed a gun at your head and told you, you know be The Chairman or die.
Assuming you can't provide a justification, I can imagine these rules working Project wide, but such a constitutional change would almost certainly require a Membership vote to accept them, given they would be obligations for all contributors to the Project.
So project wide vote would be made, does not mean, we can't define a quorum and acceptance rate, we may e.q. require no participation rate, but require 75%+ approval rate.
- allow candidates to reply; - allow the community to follow and discuss claims and replies from both sides; - provide reliably records of all exchanges; - minimize the risk of harming the candidates' and the community's reputation.
I feel the first 3 are valid criteria, I fear the last one is impossible.
Someones reputation (and the communities) is based on what we all say. It doesn't matter where we say it,
Yes it does, it does matter when, where and how you say things, we call it context and there is an entire department at your company called the PR department that thinks about what to say,when to say it, where to say it, and how to say it. Some companies go beyond that and have also internal comms departments for communication of information within the organization effectively as opposed to externally focused PR departments.
the only way of minimizing the risk to candidates and communities reptuation is preventing the candidates and community from saying anything.
That is simply false, there is plenty of ways to mitigate risks of harm, you confuse minimize / mitigate with prevent / eliminate.
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