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Re: Social Committee proposal text (diff)



On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 11:38:12AM +0100, Alexander Schmehl wrote:
> * Josip Rodin <joy@entuzijast.net> [070212 03:32]:
> 
> > +  <li>During the following month, any Developer may nominate
> > +  themselves as a candidate member of the Social Committee.
> > +  Every such nomination must be seconded by one other developer.</li>
> 
> Any specific reason for having a full month as nomination period?

Think of scale - right now we need 16 people to 'win' the election, and
the seats last twice as long as the leadership seat. It made sense to me -
please say if it doesn't to you.

> > +  <li>The next two weeks are the polling period during which
> > +  Developers may cast their votes.  Votes in social committee elections
> > +  are made public after the election is finished.</li>
> 
> And why shall votes become public?  What's voting about, if not done in
> secret?

The secrecy is not the point - the point is that we make a cross-section of
society, a sample of people who are at least vaguely representative.

I don't see any reason against disclosure.

> > +  <li>At least one third of all elected candidates should have been
> > +  members of the project for at least Y/2 years, where Y is the age
> > +  of the Project in years. If fewer than one third of candidates meet
> > +  this requirement, the election process is repeated.</li>
> 
> An native english speaker may corect me, but "should" is normaly used in
> a kind of "would be very fine if, but not strictly necessary" meaning,
> isn't it?  So why first using "should" and later "if not, then we do it
> again"?

Well, it's just a matter of wording. (This is not an RFC, BTW.)
Many other sentences just use 'is', and I think that's a bit strange :)
But I should probably make it consistent, you're right.

> And why that rule?  I would think in a social ctte, fresh blood is very
> welcome, because they (probalbly) haven't taken part in any flamewar and
> therefore are the best to choice for a ctte, that should be as objective
> and neutral as possible?

Yes, and they can very well occupy the other 66% of the committee :)

And I disagree that someone like that is inherently a best choice, because
they might also not have any experience. Experience is generally a good
thing.

> > +  <li>
> > +    <p>Public discussion and decision-making.</p>
> > +
> > +    <p>Discussion, draft resolutions and amendments, and votes by
> > +    members of the committee, are made public on the Social Committee
> > +    public discussion list.
> > +    There is no separate secretary for the Committee.</p>
> > +  </li>
> 
> So a member of the social ctte may not talk to an other member of the
> social ctte about topics of the social ctte?  Even if they meet in
> person?
> 
> An other point, where I fail to see the reason for it.  AFAIK the tech
> ctte has private list for discussion,

Umm, no. This is copy & paste from the Technical Committee section.
Their discussion list is (also) public.

> and I would think that social problems / discussions should be considered
> even more private.

I disagree - if a problem is severe enough to get brought before soc-ctte,
it's out in the open already, and needs to be dealt with transparently.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.



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