Hey, On 04.09.2018 14:59, Richard Brown wrote:
On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 14:03, Henne Vogelsang <hvogel@opensuse.org> wrote:
Maybe I'm a bit too sensitive. Everything you say afterward feels like the part of the sentence before the "but". I like you, but...
Maybe you are, but we're talking it out, and I think that's a good thing.
I would rather you have seen everything "afterward" as a sincere effort
Sure that would have been ideal. Yet, just from my personal experience, it is seldom the case that people remember the things before the 'but'...
In an ideal world, in retrospect, I would have liked the minutes of the meeting to reflect the Board as a whole.
Something along the lines of "The Board decided agree to the sponsorship request, but there were opposing views." [...] I'd be much happier with seeing the minutes cover not only the decision and a summary of the logic that led the majority to such a decision, but also a summary of the logic that led to any minority wishing for a counter decision.
I think that would be a really good thing to see for those few cases where the Board is not unanimous in a decision.
Yes I also think this would be really good.
We, the Board, have a collective responsibility to the Project, and we, the Board, should do a good job of detailing what we, the Board thought about any decision we made on behalf of the Project.
But it should be _we_, the Board, not Richard, Ana, Gertjan, Sarah, Christian, and Simon as individuals. We need to work together as a team.
So that description of the two "logics" in the minutes would not include the names people who follow it because you think it is not team-work if one of that individuals has a different _public_ opinion while supporting the decision of the majority? Isn't that the definition of team, supporting each other even in case of hard times (like disagreement)? I, as a non board member, wouldn't conceive hiding this as anything other than obfuscation of facts. And weak team behavior. And what about the teamwork between the board and the rest of the community? Aren't we also a team? Or are we outside, not to be trusted to understand and differentiate between you as individuals and the majorities you form?
This is especially important because of the nature of the decisions we make often being ugly ones.
Ugly decisions, like you have described canceling membership or conflict resolution, often need a different approach for sure. Some situations call for unanimous and swift decisions that leave little room for debate. Everybody is aware of that I guess. What I really don't understand, help me out please, is what stops you from deploying the appropriate individual measure to two complete different problems? Canceling membership versus voting on sponsorship for a football team. Why can't you come out with force in the former and explain to the rest of us what's going on to the fullest extent in the latter? Now to construct an even more evil situation. What measure would you deploy if you cancel a membership when you are the only one voting for it (with your veto) or a 50:50 split of votes?
"I'm happy to take from this lesson the collective decision that the Board will make less decisions and I will support any effort in the Board to push back from requests for it to make decisions and instead encourage more public debate and public decision making."
Which are the recent decisions you think you should have pushed back? How many percent do you guess would get off your plate?
https://en.opensuse.org/Archive:Board_meeting_2018-06-05 [...]
Thank you for the list of things, it really helps to understand your point. I agree that most of these should not be concerns of the board. The question is why are they and why do people think they should be?
And another thought, don't you think that defining the boards body of work so narrow on conflict resolution would take something away from the project?
Conflict resolution has most certainly been the primary topic of the majority of Board meetings since the last election, yes.
I guess there is no debate about that. Does it have to be though?
I'm hopeful that this now epic debate has two outcomes.
My hope would be that the board sees this as a signal that the board needs to do something about facilitating decision making processes. Facilitating means helping the people who should decide to decide. It doesn't mean deciding for them.
Project which rises or falls on the _actions_ of our contributors, not the _decisions_ of our Board
Au contraire. We rise and fall on the _actions_ of all contributors, _including_ the board :-) Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org