Format of the BoD votes announcement

I'd like to suggest that the summary of the BoD vote as exemplified
below be slightly changed to included nominative informations relative
the the vote.

In a representative democratic system, like it is the case here, where
the BoD represent the Board of Trustee, It is important that the
represented body can evaluate how it is being represented by each
candidate it designated to do so, in order to be able to make and
educated decision during the following election.

Certainly today such information is mostly available in the ML by
parsing the individual +1, or by listeneing to the recording of the
Bod meeting and again extracting the vote from there... but that is
quite a time consuming an error prone process, and surely we want the
acces to information to the Board of Trustee to be as low as possible,
so that the Board of Trustee can make the most informed decision as
possible.

So I would recommend that future summary recorded Vote by the BoD
include the name associated with the vote. I edited the example below
with fictional names as an example.
This is just an example, and I'll be satisfied with any variations one
may prefer that fulfill the goal : nominative voting record :slight_smile:

Hello,

The Board of Directors at the time of voting consists of 7 seat holders
without deputies. In order to be quorate, the vote needs to have 1/2 of the
Board of Directors members, which gives 4.

The Following Board of directors member have participated in the vote:

John, Phillip, Robert (representing Jean) and Caroline.

For a total of 4 member: The vote is Quorate

A quorum could be reached with a simple majority of 3 votes.

Result of vote:

3 approvals: John, Robert, Caroline
0 neutral
1 disapprovals. Phillip

Decision: The request has been accepted.

Note: if the decision is unanimous one can have

Result of the vote: unanimous approval/disapprovals

To avoid re-naming everyone participating in the vote.

Norbert

PS: 'private decisions', if any, should be the object of the same
summary vote and posted in the BoD private list as the decision is
made, and forwarded to the BoD-disucss list as soon as the rational
for the 'private' status become moot.

Hi Norbert,

I'd like to suggest that the summary of the BoD vote as exemplified
below be slightly changed to included nominative informations relative
the the vote.

[..]

Result of vote:
  3 approvals: John, Robert, Caroline
  0 neutral
  1 disapprovals. Phillip

it makes sense to me, and from my side, we can start by doing so with the very first minutes in 2013. It also helps in counting votes properly, if we need to explicitly state the names of the voters.

Maybe we can even add the opinions of those who are participating, but not formally allowed to vote (e.g. the audience or deputies not representing anyone). It helps giving an impression of the overall opinion.

Any thoughts from someone else?

Florian

Hi :slight_smile:
I think just the vote count is fine. If people want more info they can look through the appropriate thread. I do quite like the idea of a list of names as a way of people checking they were counted correctly but there are times when a vote needs to be taken anonymously. So, on balance i’m quite happy without names.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Can you give a concrete example of such time ? I mean for a BoD vote.
note: there is a distinction between private deliberation, temporarily
non-public and 'anonymous' BoD vote.
I can think of cases where the 2 former are justified or necessary,
for privacy concern or legal reasons... but I can't think of a case
where the later would be justified.

Norbert.

I'm wondering if this would cause a "group think" mentality within the BoD. I know that if a name is public, being the only dissenter might dissuade a current or future BoD from dissenting. Ultimately I'm wondering how much adding names helps the project move forward. I know that we adhere to a very open policy but with voting, sometimes anonymous really encourages the best deliberation.

Best Regards,
Joel

I'm wondering if this would cause a "group think" mentality within the BoD.
I know that if a name is public, being the only dissenter might dissuade a
current or future BoD from dissenting.

Dissenting are usually not expressed at the vote level, but usually
during the discussion prior to the vote.
more often than not the vote reflect the consensus...

Ultimately I'm wondering how much
adding names helps the project move forward.

As I said earlier. in a representative system the 'representee' need
to have a way to make an educated decision to choose the ones
representing them.
The voting record of an incumbent candidate is an important piece of
information with that regard.

I know that we adhere to a very
open policy but with voting, sometimes anonymous really encourages the best
deliberation.

Not withstanding the fact that our statute call for public BoD
meeting, except for limited cases, in any case voting _is_ public.
The information is already mostly there... just not in a form that is
easy for the membership to process.
Some vote occurs online, some other occurs on public conference
call... on rare occasion there can be vote during in-person meeting of
the BoD
in any case the result of such vote are posted on the ML. The only
proposed difference is that these 'result' be a bit more complete as
to allow the membership
to get a better picture of what their representatives are doing... and
since they do vote for individual and not a 'group', the voting record
of each BoD member is important.

Beside adding the name would also provide a easier, less error prone,
for each BoD member and interested observer, to make sure that the
'minutes' are correct, at least wrt the voting record. (it is easier
to detect that your name is in the wrong column, rather than deduce
that based on the Yeah/Nay count)

And yes... the vast majority of votes are unanimous... that is
expected since most of the votes are not controversial in nature, and
a well functioning BoD would search for a consensus before getting to
a vote... iow function primarily as a consensus based entity not a
'majority rule' entity.
But if that good pattern where to be disrupted in the future, the
Board of Trustee (the members) will have to try to remedy things at
the following election, and again, the voting record in this scenario
would be a useful tool to make an educated decision.

It is better/easier to establish 'good practice' and 'precedent' while
we have well functioning institutions.

Norbert

All questions answered :slight_smile: Sounds good.

Best Regards,
Joel

Hi,

practically spoken, I've just added that topic to the next call's agenda. [1] If there are no severe objections, we can already draft the minutes like you proposed.

Florian

[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/BoD_Meetings#Agenda

Sounds good to me - next board meeting is tomorrow :slight_smile: I have no
problem with recording the voting record (as long as it's easy enough to
do), but ~all decisions so far I've seen were by consensus; perhaps
someone will refresh my memory of a case where a resolution was passed
un-modified without consensus ? I guess we could record that 'consensus'
and move on (?) - attendees are recorded in the minutes & checked at top
& bottom of the meeting.

  ATB,

    Michael.