Re: Alternative proposal: focus on term limits rather than turnover

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Josh Triplett writes ("Re: Alternative proposal: focus on term limits rather than turnover"):
> As a transitional measure, the terms of any members of the Technical
> Committee that already exceed the limit shall instead expire every 6
> months in descending order of seniority, starting one month from now.

I agree with the point made by several other people, that the current
situation with the TC should not be seen as a one-off.  Therefore,
whatever rule we use to deal with the current situation needs to apply
in the future too.

If I may suggest a version that handles this in the general case:

  6. Whenever it becomes the case that
      (i) the most senior member has been on the committee
          for at least 6 years; and
      (ii) it has been at least 4 months since it happened that the
           at-that-time most senior member left the committee;
     then the most senior member's term immediately comes to an end.
     The most senior member is the one who was least recently not
     a member.  Any current members' period(s) of non-membership of
     less than 11 months are disregarded (including, retrospectively,
     for the purposes of (ii)).

This provides a term limit, directly limits the rate of churn, and
provides space for self-replacement.

With a full committee of 9, a 6-year limit means 1.5 replacements per
year.  The number in (ii) therefore needs to be less than 8 months for
the usual case to be set by the term limit rather than the churn rate
limit.  I have chosen 4 because it producese twice the required
steady-state replacement rate and because 4 months is probably long
enough to appoint a new member.

I chose `11' in the end because that avoids odd edge effects if the TC
tries to do things annually.

Ian.