[Foundation-l] thoughts on leakages

Fri Jan 11 22:55:42 UTC 2008

Florence Devouard wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>   
>> On 1/11/08, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>>>       
>>>> I am sorry, but the minutes of the meeting do not square with what you
>>>> say there. According to the minutes - while there may not have been
>>>> consensus - there was a clear majority vote in favour of setting a
>>>> symmetrical 6 month exlusion period for transitions both board -> staff
>>>> and staff -> board.
>>>>         
>>> Actually, my memory of the discussion was that Jan-Bart was more in
>>> favor of a 12 months waiting period... but the minutes report 6
>>> months... which means at least 2 members were not fully happy. And
>>> Jimbo's opinion was missing.
>>> In any cases, we tend to try to reach consensus when it is seems best
>>> to. There was a weak consensus or a slight disagreement.
>>>       
>> Okay, just out of curiosity here, maybe I am dredging out something you
>> might not want to revisit, but I recall Angela resigning from the board,
>> because she was disillusioned with the way the board was in fact quite
>> decidedly steered away from consensus driven decision making.
>>
>> Can we now construe this statement by you, Florence Devouard, that
>> steering away from consensus driven decision making on the board was
>> a mistake?
>>     
> I have always been a supporter of decisions taken by consensus rather 
> than votes. You may remember heated discussions on this matter in the past.
> I must also admit that consensus is not always the best choice, when 
> decisions drag forever. In a legal organization, we can not always drag 
> forever. We have to move on.
>   
Was it really ONLY about the length of the waiting period?  If four 
wanted six months, and two wanted twelve months, did no-one have enough 
imagination to propose eight months?  That situation is like refusing to 
buy a horse because his curly tail suggests that there was a pig in his 
ancestry. Consensus on the principle needs to be accompanied by 
compromise on the details.  Demanding unanimity at every step of the way 
will drive consensus into failure.
> This said, I already stated to Angela that I was sorry of what lead her 
> to resign.
>   
I'm not touching that.
>>> I have vague memories. I think Mike recommanded to have it a bylaws
>>> update.Yes Note that voting a resolution can be real quick and
>>> straightforward. Bylaws update is a little bit more demanding.
>>>       
>> Well, this is very not clear, as you can well imagine. Maybe in addition
>> of minutes, you should make private notes, so your memories are not
>> so vague. The order of events here is very important, and quite decidedly
>> obfuscated in the preceding paragraph.
>>     
> In october 2007, I was the chair of this organization. Not its 
> secretary. It is not very easy to chair a two days meetings, be involved 
> in the discussion as well AND take notes. I beg your pardon, but I think 
> this is exactly why there are two positions, secretary and chair.
>   
Absolutely.  "Private" notes should be nothing more than aide-mémoire 
for your own personal reference in the future. The inference that the 
minutes may not be accurate boggles the mind.  If there were doubts 
about the accuracy of the minutes would this not have come up at the 
subsequent meeting when the minutes came up for adoption?

I don't think that it's absolutely essential to have such a resolution 
in the by-laws; if it proves itself workable it can always be moved to 
the by-laws later.  I agree that the possibility is there that a Board 
of the future could too easily repeal an ordinary resolution if a 
favourite candidate is ill served, but I will assume enough good faith 
to believe that such a board will have the political common sense to not 
go there without the broad support of the community.
>> I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board
>> would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't implicit
>> what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in
>> the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could
>> not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board
>> to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary custom.
>>     
> ok
>   
> I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil constitution...
To clarify, I don't take any position yet about whether the Council 
should propose by-laws and the Board ratify, or vice-versa.  I simply 
proposed joint responsibility over the by-laws.  It would be premature 
to establish this kind of detailed mechanism before such a Council is 
even set up. The most that I can legitimately propose around this is 
that it be a priority item for its agenda when it first meets.

Ec