I've been giving this some thought and it occurs to me that part of the problem here with our inability to move forward on this proposal is that we've somehow convoluted the intent. If you'll indulge me, bear with me s I present my thoughts. Simplicity: The proposal's intent is to address the question: "Should we move members who have not participated and are uncontactable for a certain period of time into some sort of inactive status?" It's a fair question that Robert ask, and one that deserves some consideration. Cornelius rightfully points out that we need to keep this simple although I will say right here that any proposal that includes language requiring a member to vote in order to maintain active status will get a nay vote from me. Processes: A good portion of this proposal actually deals with processes and automation. I don't think this part should be in the proposal. Instead, such things should be presented directly to the membership team because they are the ones ultimately responsible for ensuring a sane and effective process. In fact, a vote by the general membership on process/automation does not guarantee implementation. We don't *need* a vote on process/automation. We simply need someone to create it and whomever does, does not need a vote to tell him/her to create it. As the illustrious Mr. Henne says... "Just do it!" We have processes all over the Project. Some work well, and some truly suck. But where have we ever had a general membership vote on process/automation? Why should the membership committee be the exception? They are the ones who decided to join the committee and do the work. It is up to them to decide whether the processes can be automated or streamlined and develop the requirements needed to make their jobs easier. So let's take references to automation out of the proposal. Contribution: There's been a lot of discussion centering around what defines contribution. Yet, as far as I can recall, only one example was shown where a contributor may have been unfairly excluded from being a member. (The example from JDD.) When I was first approached to be a member, I asked what are the standards? I was told, the bar is kept low. When I became a board member and reviewed membership applications, my fellow board members and I kept that in mind and also kept the bar low. I presume the membership committee also keeps the bar low. To point out, we now have ~500 members in just a few years. As a comparison, I recently counted how many members are in GNOME Foundation. ~350. Some would argue that overall, GNOME folks are demonstrably more contributory than we are. Someone in one of these threads even pointed out the number of people who actually talk and participate in -Project ML discussions which doesn't come anywhere near the 500 members we have nor the ~200 members who have voted on anything. This is evidence that entry into openSUSE membership is historically easy and frankly negates why we are spending so much time here trying to define minimal level of contributions. If anything, we should expect that the membership committee has a fair appeals process if an applicant feels they were not fairly considered before rejection, and that process should include an ultimate avenue to complain directly to the board for final resolution. If you feel the overall definition of contribution in terms of membership qualification is unfair by the membership committee, then you have the right to take your concerns directly to the board. The membership committee is an outsourced function of the board and board has the responsibility to ensure fair review of membership qualifications. Additionally, if you all feel the very definition of contributor needs a wholesale revision, then you can certainly address that in a new thread and ultimately in a community vote specifically on the question of contributor. I say this because the definition of contributor is the same whether you are a new applicant or renewal applicant and thus does not have a direct impact on the basic question inherent in Robert's proposal. But the very low percentage of "unfair rejections" and the very high number of members we have tells me we really are beating a horse that doesn't deserve it. Robert's proposal keeps it simple by only requiring an honor system for active membership renewal. That is, once again, a process question and thus I think can be removed from the proposal itself. Conclusion: The proposal to be ultimately put to a vote via Connect should have the following text, or similar thereof: "Should active members who have not contributed for 2+ years and are uncontactable be reassigned to Member Emeritus status, thus retaining all basic membership benefits with the exception of voting on openSUSE Project matters?" - Yes - No That's as simple as it can get and won't elicit convolution or confusion for those who will vote on this proposal. After all, its highly doubtful all 500 members have been reading the two threads on Robert's proposal. :-) And Robert, for the remainder of your proposal, don't throw it out. Simply bring it before the membership committee. Nothing is invalid in your proposal and can/should be worked on regardless of the outcome of the proposal vote. And if an inactivity rule is approved by the Community, you simply incorporate that into your process re-tooling. Bryen M Yunshko openSUSE Project 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.
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.
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.
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. =====
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.
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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