[steering-discuss] freezing membership applications

Hello,

sorry for this much spam today. :wink:

Duty of the newly elected BoD is to decide whether we should freeze membership applications, or whether we should simply not allow members new during the MC election period to vote.

election period, and freeze applications until the new MC is in place This will prevent confusion who is eligible to vote and who isn't, and will also prevent any possible conflict of interest, since it would be the existing MC, from which some members might run for elections, to decide on these applications.

So, +1 from my side for freezing membership applications during the election period (see André's timeline for details).

Florian

I do not see the conflict.
Either way these MC members running for re-election can approve new
member before the freeze-date
Either way these MC members cannot benefit from approving membership
after the freeze (they cannot stuff the ballot since anyone approved
post freeze would not be eligible for that election)

The confusion is minimal since any membership approval is timestamped:
The date of the MC session that validated the membership. The only
confusion would be if the MC were to hold a session on the date of the
freeze, otherwise it is clear an un-arguable.

On the other hand, freezing completely the membership process during
election is not very nice for new potential members, as it would mean
extending by 1 to 2 month the 'waiting period' of the one that picked
a bad date to start contributing :slight_smile:

Norbert

Norbert Thiebaud wrote:

On the other hand, freezing completely the membership process during
election is not very nice for new potential members, as it would mean
extending by 1 to 2 month the 'waiting period' of the one that picked
a bad date to start contributing :slight_smile:

Not really - it's 3 weeks from candidate introduction to end of
election, compared to 2 weeks for the usual MC meeting cadence.

I agree that there are no strong, hard arguments for or against
either procedure, I just have the impression it appears much cleaner
to suspend MC work during election.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Hi all,

Not really - it's 3 weeks from candidate introduction to end of
election, compared to 2 weeks for the usual MC meeting cadence.

I agree that there are no strong, hard arguments for or against
either procedure, I just have the impression it appears much cleaner
to suspend MC work during election.

I agree with Thorsten.

Waiting 3 weeks, in the worst case, for your membership to be approved
because there are elections, is not that much. Many other
organizations take longer under normal circumstances. And then you get
one year membership as everybody else so, in fact, if you don't
collaborate anymore, you win 3 weeks for free :wink:

I don't consider the membership freezing a big deal.

Except we just had another election that also froze the membership :wink:
did we re-open that in between & approve any more members ? if so,
perhaps there are fewer problems - but I for one don't like this "shut
for business" attitude. The timestamps mean there is no problem wrt.
working out who the electorate are - surely ...

  ATB,

    Michael.

Hi,

I do not see the conflict.
Either way these MC members running for re-election can approve new
member before the freeze-date
Either way these MC members cannot benefit from approving membership
after the freeze (they cannot stuff the ballot since anyone approved
post freeze would not be eligible for that election)

that is true, indeed... however, there still might be assumptions like "member XYZ" was approved/disapproved to get a better voting result. I agree, it's only in a very complicated theory. :wink:

Otherwise, it's mostly a logistic issue. If we can ensure that those becming members after the freeze date cannot vote, I am fine with leaving the application open, even if I consider closing it down "cleaner". But then, Michael has a point, that it's the second shutdown already.

Florian

Hi,

-------- Original-Nachricht --------

Datum: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:35:20 +0000
Von: Michael Meeks <michael.meeks@suse.com>

> Not really - it's 3 weeks from candidate introduction to end of
> election, compared to 2 weeks for the usual MC meeting cadence.

  Except we just had another election that also froze the membership :wink:
did we re-open that in between & approve any more members ? if so,
perhaps there are fewer problems ...

MC is going to have a meeting this evening (frindly reminder to all MC
members :wink: ) where we process outstanding applications (and it will be
the first time to process renewals btw.)

... - but I for one don't like this "shut
for business" attitude. The timestamps mean there is no problem wrt.
working out who the electorate are - surely ...

as written in my mail for the proposed schedule:

In any case the MC should have a spezial meeting to process
applications one or two days before the date when the process is
frozen (or snapshot is taken).

So - we would very likely skip just one MC meeting, meaning a delay
of additional two weeks. What is not a big problem (imho), but (again
imho) it's not a big problem to continue MC's operation, as there
is no distrust in the current MC.

After all - what is more important is a decision *if* we actually will
have elections before the foundations inauguration or if we schedule
this for next year, starting with an appointed MC. Given that the
propsed schedule starts on Nov. 4th, this is quite urgent.

I'll suggest, we (MC) use the today's MC meeting to come up with a
proposal for Thorsten's sucessor and two deputies. We then send our
proposal to the board list and the board can decide how to proceed.

Best,

André