On Tue, 04 Sep 2018 10:24:48 +0200, Richard Brown wrote:
On Sun, 2 Sep 2018 at 22:47, Jim Henderson <hendersj@gmail.com> wrote:
Richard, you know that I trust the board. But that said, there's a question of accountability - "trust, but verify" is important for the membership to know that the board is doing what they were elected to do.
In order to make an informed decision when someone runs for a second term on the board, how is anyone to know that the person they're voting for is representing their interests if the decisions they make (or votes they cast) aren't open to public review?
The same information that you had and have to vote on any other Board member candidate in the project.
That information is incomplete, but the best information we have. It's like a thing I've seen some companies do when hiring candidates: They have a cognitive abilities test (the CCAT is one I've seen) - it's no substitute for looking at actual performance data on the individual if that's available, but when you're hiring someone who's external, you don't get neutral performance data on the individual, so you have to use data from a test that's been designed to be a good predictor of future performance without covering past performance. But nearly anyone who works in recruiting will tell you that, if possible, actual performance data is a better predictor and far preferred. When someone runs for a board position as a new candidate, you don't have a voting record to use as a part of evaluating them. You can only go on their promises for what they will do as a board member, and what you've seen from them in non-board-member roles. Actually showing what you did, though, as a member of the board? That lets us draw a "you promised this, and you delivered on it" or "you promised this, and you didn't deliver on it". That's fairly important when it comes to re-election campaigns. The members' voting record is crucial data for an electorate. Candidates run on their record, when they have one. But you can only do that if the record is public.
Board Membership should not be the sole contribution that any individual makes to the Project
True. But their contribution as a developer isn't the same kind of contribution as someone in a position that's involved in project governance.
Their should be plenty of other examples regarding existing Board members opinions, work ethic, and other factors to help anyone assist where to put their votes, just as their is for when voting for new Board members.
See above. :)
We have our strict 2 term limit for many reasons, but I understand one of them was the assumption that the Board will be voting in private.
While talking about such rules, it's also worth pointing out the Project's right to recall a Board.
There is no provision in our rules for the Project to call for the resignation or removal of a single Board member.
Which is perhaps problematic, but also maybe a separate discussion.
But there IS a provision for the entire Board to be re-elected. The threshold for this is currently if 20% of the Membership call for it. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules
This rule and the very low threshold for recall only makes sense BECAUSE of the expectation that the Board will be making decisions as a collective. Otherwise it would be madness to have such a rule constituted in a way.
If we are seriously thinking about forcing the Board to publish the exact votes of each individual member, then I think we need a full review of all our entire constitution and ruleset.
Not a bad idea - as times change, it might be worth having a periodic review to see if those items still reflect the goal and will of the project and its membership.
I feel the ability for the Project to individually call for the removal of a specific Board member would be one rule that must be added in such a case.
And I would argue that the rule for the entire Board to be re-elected if 20% of the Membership call for it should be altered, either with a much higher threshold, or removed entirely.
Well, the latter would follow from the former - logically, if 20% of the membership could call for the removal of a specific board member, there's no reason they couldn't remove all the members individually. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org