[ogb-discuss] ENOQUORUM responses?

[Garrett D'Amore]

John Beck wrote:
> Plocher> 3) We choose to move ahead anyways - "if the rules get in the way
> Plocher> of doing what is right, do what is right, and fix the rules later."
> Plocher> Treat the election as valid, put the new board in place, and continue
> Plocher> on, with a bunch of work to do.
>
> Plocher> I assert that, if we don't get to quorum, choice 3 is the only viable
> Plocher> one for us as a community.  As it stands now, we have ~80 people
> Plocher> who care enough about the community to actually participate in its
> Plocher> operation.  This implies we have a community structure that is out
> Plocher> of whack with the community itself, and the first thing the new OGB
> Plocher> (along with the 80 or so members who have indicated that they wish to
> Plocher> be involved) needs to do is figure out a better structure, play test
> Plocher> it for a year, adjust things as needed, write down what works, and
> Plocher> forge *that* document into a constitution to be voted upon next year.
>
> General agreement.  I think the current quorum rule, though sort of OK in
> theory, is a little silly in practice.  Something more sensible to me would
> be "1/3 of the CCs needs to 'sign in', then once we have a quorum, we can
> 'disband' and have our election", rather than having to have 1/3 of the CCs
> all there at once.  But fundamentally I agree with you that finding something
> that works in practice is more important than trying to follow to the letter
> a nascent process which still clearly has several kinks to be worked out.
>   

Most public companies allow for proxy voting to meet their quorum needs 
at shareholder meetings.  A proxy sort of scenario, via e-mail or web 
app, is likely to make it much easier to achieve quorum.  Frankly, a lot 
of Members may either be shy, or be unfamiliar with IRC, enough so that 
the barrier to entry is too high.  (One can try to derive conclusions 
about the "importance" of community participation that such 
participation indicates...)

A long time ago, I raised concerns about how it seemed that some 
communities gave CC status far too easily, without much regard to 
whether said participants had any interest in participating in 
governance.  (And similarly, the problem that "CC" status has when it 
serves dual roles of honoring a members contributions as well as the 
governance role it plays.)

Some may recall that I (unintentionally) offended certain community 
members with these concerns.

Unfortunately, it looks like this situation we are in comes about 
directly as a result of too many members, with little interest in 
governance (and perhaps little interest in the larger OpenSolaris 
community beyond their particular area of contribution -- which might 
itself be large).

I think the time has come to draft a constitution amendment limiting the 
number of CC's that each CG can nominate, thereby ensuring that no one 
CG (or small group of CGs) can effectively stymie the governance 
process.  (Or for that matter, take an unfair majority in any electoral 
process involving the full membership.)  I'd also suggest that groups 
which require CC votes for "internal" matters to the CG might want to 
allow non-core Contributors (i.e just C's) for such matters.

Anyway, if anyone else is interested in pursuing this, let me know, and 
I'll file a bugzilla item for it.

    -- Garrett

> -- John
>
> http://blogs.sun.com/jbeck
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