On Wed, 2012-01-25 at 16:43 -0500, Robert Schweikert wrote:
All,
During today's project meeting a discussion about openSUSE membership started, see earlier posts to the list for meeting minutes.
While we have documented procedures (http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Members) on how to become a member, we do not have any guidelines about what it means to be a member in good standing. Additionally, the only way to get pruned from the list of members is to repeatedly violate the guiding principals or actively request removal.
I am suggesting that the conditions for loss of membership are not sufficient. As briefly discussed in the meeting today we have about 500 or so members. Also in a recent meeting it was suggested that we have a large contingent of non active members. This would then explain why we end up with only 200 and some odd votes of 500 members for the board elections.
I think one thing we do need to be concerned about is that in the beginning, we often stated there is no expiration for membership. While I think, upon reflection, we should have set expiration dates, we do need to recognize that expectation existed when many of our members became members. That raises whether we should willingly redefine existing memberships or grandfather them in and only set expirations on new memberships.
As probably anyone who is a member of some club or association knows, there is always some condition, often a fee, that assures continued membership in said club or association. No I am NOT proposing a membership fee for openSUSE. However, I am proposing that we come up with a mechanism to prune our list of members and that there is no such thing as a "free" (as in I don't contribute) life time membership.
I do agree we need to do *some* pruning because it lends credibility to our membership. "500 members, WOW!" becomes meaningless if it is seen as inactive. However, I'd like to suggest we also consider approaching these members who are inactive and see if we can coax them to come back into the fold. This is definitely more work, but we should actively engage rather than a simple form "Do you wanna stick around or not?" which seems so impersonal. Definitely we'll lose at least *some* inactive members and that's fine. But we really should consider outreach as the very point of membership is to celebrate contributions which is the core of what makes a project successful. If they contributed once before, then they obviously have the tools to contribute again. Thus are low-hanging fruit for jump-starting again.
I propose the following guideline:
" On even years of membership anniversary (that would be year 2, 4, 6...) a member gets an automated e-mail.
If the e-mail bounces and there is no other means to contact the person than the person is removed as a member.
If the person does not respond within two weeks, another e-mail is sent. If after 2 additional weeks no response is received the person is removed as a member.
The way its done at GNOME is to reach out to those who have expiring memberships about 2-3 months in advance. I think 2 week turnaround time is just too conservative given the nature of open source participation. There are valid reasons why someone may not be checking their email for a month or so.
A response to the received e-mail should include a short list of areas in the project where the member was active during the past two years. This can be verified by the membership team. With the response and verification membership continues. "
I would like to propose that we allow a *waiver* period. Meaning, you are allowed one period of inactivity, as long as you say you still wish to be a member. E.g., you've been active, but you were not active in the last membership period. That's okay. But if the second membership expiration period comes up and you're still seen as inactive, then you get the disqualification. Again, reason for this is because of external extenuating circumstances. I've seen a lot of people who were highly active then go quiet for a period of time (due to family illnesses or stopping to focus on their Uni studies, or etc.) This scenario is just simply not that uncommon and why penalize someone who contributed for 5+ years who needed to take a temporary break from giving his free time to the community? I just feel that if you've contributed significantly in the past, you deserve to have one waiver period. Out of fairness. And it shows we still care and want them to come back when it is possible for them.
I realize I am proposing more work for the membership committee, sorry. However, I would hope that this is not too much of a burden. With maybe 300 or fewer active members there would be on average less than 1 verification e-mail per day sent. In addition this is spread out based on anniversary date of membership, thus the additional verification should be small.
Currently, the membership committee's function is simply to review and process membership applications. If we make any kind of change that reflects membership expiry periods, then there will be some technical considerations that have to be made, including setting up a database that will maintain current membership qualification statuses.
Why would we as a project want to do this? IMHO, it is important that our members are active and contribute to the project. There is nothing gained for us as a project to accumulate a large number of members when the members are not active in the project and do not contribute. Having only members that are active also bestows more meaning on board election results and other votes we might have in the project. This goes back to my earlier comment and leads to a question, what does it mean when the board gets elected with a vote count that is less than 50% of the membership? (I am not implying that I am dissatisfied with the board). No direct answer to this question please. If we have only active project participants I would speculate that we will get participation of 80% or more. Last but not least this should create a perceived draw to become a member, as you can only be a member and remain a member if you contribute to the project.
I'd like to point out that the vote outcome is actually very impressive. It's the highest number of votes ever cast in openSUSE history. In terms of percentages, it *looks* bad, yes. Our first election had much lower membership (I think it was around 125?) and we had over 75% turnout. So the number of people who demonstrated a vested interest in the Project is definitely growing if you look at the votes. But percentage-wise it does cast an erroneous light, indeed. I do know a number of people out there chose to "strike" against voting, though they've never really given any reason why so all I can do is shrug about that one. It isn't a large number, if my estimate is correct. Bottom line is, I want to make sure we aren't just pruning for pruning's sake. We should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, meaning, we should take a look at how to actively re-engage inactive members first before we pick them off the tree. Thanks for bringing this subject up, Robert! Bryen
For the discussion, I'd like to ask that people stick to the topic and not go off on some tangent ;)
I have added this as a topic to the next project meeting (Feb 8, 2012) and will provide a summary of the discussion on the wiki. The board can then make a decision on how to move forward on this proposal based on the summary, and hopefully board members will be following this thread.
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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