Many Chairs

Post Reply
User avatar
DGDanforth
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 1:16 am
Location: Palo Alto, California, USA
Contact:

Many Chairs

Post by DGDanforth »

I propose to replace the roll of Chair with a distributed form
where each member of the Center can act as Chair for an issue. The process entails:

(1)Create a redmine issue.
(2)Discuss the issue in an appropriate topic.
(3)Create a vote (or withdraw the issue from consideration).
(4)If vote passes do steps necessary to update the unstable version.

Hence each member starts and finishes an issue.
If no issues are created then no votes occur.
If many issues are created then each can be voted on.

In that way we eliminate the need for 6 month periodic vote for a Chair.
That seems more democratic to me.
-Doug
cfbsoftware
Posts: 204
Joined: Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:06 pm
Contact:

Re: Many Chairs

Post by cfbsoftware »

Doug,

At first glance it sounds like a very good idea to me. Have a look at the original discussion 'The Chairman' if you want to see if there are any flaws in your suggestion,

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=26&start=10

Regards,
Chris
User avatar
DGDanforth
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 1:16 am
Location: Palo Alto, California, USA
Contact:

Re: Many Chairs

Post by DGDanforth »

cfbsoftware wrote:Doug,

At first glance it sounds like a very good idea to me. Have a look at the original discussion 'The Chairman' if you want to see if there are any flaws in your suggestion,

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=26&start=10

Regards,
Chris
Chris,
I see no major conflicts with the previous discussion about the Chair.
It may be necessary to have a "moderator" if conflicts arise that can
not be settled amicably. I am not sure I like that. Comments?
-Doug
User avatar
DGDanforth
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 1:16 am
Location: Palo Alto, California, USA
Contact:

Re: Many Chairs

Post by DGDanforth »

I'd like to hear pro and con arguments about my proposal.
User avatar
Josef Templ
Posts: 2047
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 6:50 am

Re: Many Chairs

Post by Josef Templ »

To me, changing the process now would be an overreaction.
The current process with the rotating chair worked fairly well so far and any
new process will show new problems. It is not clear that it will be better overall.

One possible small improvement may be to also nominate a vice chair
for situations where the chair is not available for a longer period of time.

The vice chair could also be the previous chair by default, which would
guarantee a smooth transition to a new chair.

- Josef
User avatar
DGDanforth
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 1:16 am
Location: Palo Alto, California, USA
Contact:

Re: Many Chairs

Post by DGDanforth »

One motivation of my proposal is to engage people in the creation of issues.
Todate that process has been restricted to a few members. It feels skewed.

Also, by having more members involved in the whole process, security of
BB maintenance is enhanced.

I think we should try an issue based governance.

-Doug
User avatar
Robert
Posts: 1024
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:04 am
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

Re: Many Chairs

Post by Robert »

DGDanforth wrote:I'd like to hear pro and con arguments about my proposal.
1 - I deliberately did not comment earlier while there was an active vote taking place under the existing process.

2 - For several, individually weak, reasons I don't hold the view that the new proposal is a good idea. However I don't want to write an essay on the subject, and have no interest in trying to persuade others to change their mind, so intend to say no more on the subject.

3 - To me, a much more urgent matter than having several Chairs is to have one Treasurer. I don't think it is fair to leave this with an ex-member who wishes to have a clean break from the group.
PLEASE, will someone volunteer for this task.

4 - I am away from any computers next Monday for three weeks; would anyone care to volunteer to be deputy chair for that period?
User avatar
Josef Templ
Posts: 2047
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 6:50 am

Re: Many Chairs

Post by Josef Templ »

I agree that nominating a treasurer is more important than other things now.
Since we are paying our Edis bill in EURO, it would give sense to have someone
in the EURO space with a EURO PayPal account doing the job.

I would like to nominate Helmut for that.

@Helmut: it is easy to set up a PayPal account for that and to reconfigure the
Edis settings etc. for that. I only need to send you the required login data.
Most things can be automated. A periodic check of the financial state
and the yearly payment of the domain is all that remains.

- Josef
Post Reply