Generally good, some questions of clarification below: On Thu, 2012-02-16 at 12:20 -0500, Robert Schweikert wrote:
Previously we discussed a proposal (http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2012-01/msg00381.html) about a potential for membership lapse. A summary of this discussion can be found on the wiki, http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Membership_lapse_summary
Based on this summary and the last project meeting, see minutes http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2012-02/msg00064.html, I am putting forth the proposal below for further discussion, if further discussion is necessary. This, or a refined proposal will be presented for a vote to project members for acceptance at some point in the, hopefully, near future. We agreed on soliciting a vote in the last project meeting.
To recap, the goal driving this initiative is to provide a more equitable level between becoming a member and being a member, with focus on contributions. In order to become a member one has to contribute to the project and upon completing the membership application show these contributions to be verified by the membership committee.
As always, please focus on the topic at hand, avoid rants, and be kind.
Proposal: ======= At a time 4 month' prior to a member's even number year anniversary (that would be year 2, 4, 6...) attempts will be made to contact the member via the known e-mail address. Initial contact attempts will be automated to reduce work for the membership committee.
The automated e-mail will contain a link to a web page that enables the member to check areas of contributions to the project. Submission of the form results in automatic membership "renewal" until the next even number anniversary of the member.
Some clarification requested here. As part of the previous discussion centered around what to do about "no-longer-contributing" members, does this part of the proposal indicate that contribution, or non-contribution since initial membership is not a factor for renewal? I'm generally fine with that. Just want to see it clarified that contribution is definitely not going to be part of renewal criteria.
Should the automated e-mail bounce 2 more automated attempts will be made to contact the member within 3 weeks of the initial automated e-mail. Should these automated attempts fail a member of the membership committee will make an attempt to locate the member via ML messages, IRC, and possibly other means such as social media. This is a best effort attempt to contact the member.
Should the automated e-mail arrive (not bounce) but the web form should not get submitted, 2 more automated attempts will be made to contact the member within 3 weeks of the initial automated e-mail. Should these automated attempts fail a member of the membership committee will make an attempt to contact the member with a personal e-mail message or locate the member in IRC, Connect or other media. The member will be requested to submit the web form. This is a best effort attempt to contact the member.
I'm all for engagement and contact, but I fear this might cause quite a bit of bureaucratic overhead. If we were to implement this today, and we used the last election votes (218) as an indicator, then that's ~300 people that the membership committee is going to have to go out and follow up on. I think that the personal followup should be considered a courtesy step rather than a requirement step within this proposal. There are many factors that can affect whether our *volunteer* membership committee can commit to doing such detective work. Let me propose this change in wording from: "...a member of the membership committee will make an attempt to contact the member..." to: "...a member of the membership committee may make an attempt to contact the member..."
In the event that a member cannot be contacted in the 4 month time frame or a member is no longer contributing to the project the member will become an Honorary member.
I think we need a better name for this. When I think of "Honorary" I think of it as a gift bestowed on someone who hasn't been a member yet. Like an honorary degree is granted to someone who may have never attended that college. The "honorary" member in question here is someone who was at one point a member. That doesn't jibe with the perception that "honorary" bestows in my example. I think "Contributor" is a better term to use and in fact it is more universally recognized.
Honorary members retain their @opensuse e-mail address. However, honorary members may no longer participate in any voting activities that are open only to members.
Resuming contributions to the project at any time will provide an honorary member with the opportunity to request reinstatement as a member to resume vote participation.
The "resuming contributions" lends the question I posed earlier about criteria for renewal. I think we have thus a confusing point here that needs clarification. As I read this overall proposal, it states that if you are presently a member and wish to renew it, no proof of contribution is required. But if you have become an honorary member, proof of new contribution since last membership-expiration is required (referring to the 'resuming contributions' part.)
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In conjunction with this proposal, I propose that we implement infrastructure such that initial contribution verification is simplified and ongoing contribution recognition is possible, see FATE 313229 https://features.opensuse.org/313229. This infrastructure would eliminate the need for contributing members to visit a web page to mark their contributions and membership "renewal" would take place automatically. In addition this infrastructure will reduce the tedious work the membership team completes today and thus will improve the processing speed of new membership applications.
This proposal also requires the implementation of some basic infrastructure, or will put a good chunk of work onto the membership committee.
Last but not least, please keep in mind that this is about contributions. Yes, voting is effected, but should not be the center of the discussion. Basically it is expected that members are interested in voting. If a large percentage of members do not vote this, in and of itself sends a clear message that there's something going on with the project. Thus, we do not need to discuss the "what if I don't want to vote..." or "voting should be mandatory..." arguments we have heard previously.
Isn't this kind of the problem that sparked the discussion in the first place? What is the definition of "significant percentage?" Last election had 218 votes, which is less than 50%. We presume that a majority of the other ~300 non-votes were folks who no longer actively participate (though that's not the case in *every* instance.) Non-votes are clearly a significant percentage. Interesting to note, the previous election garnered 220 votes. And we've not had any major votes (even non-Board polls) that achieved a significant majority in recent times. By your definition here of "significant vote percentage", this proposal is guaranteed not to pass regardless of whether it has merit or is amply supported by most of the active community members. Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Project
Later, Robert
-- Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU SUSE-IBM Software Integration Center LINUX Tech Lead rjschwei@suse.com rschweik@ca.ibm.com 781-464-8147
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