John Plocher wrote: > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Jim Grisanzio <Jim.Grisanzio at sun.com> > wrote: > > Reporting is good, but it alone does not address the problem addressed by > http://wiki.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/OGB_2009/007, which requires > some level of OGB interaction, as one example. > > >>> What responsibilities are these? The nomination of someone to >>> contributor status, the voting by the CC's in a community on that >>> nomination, the communication of that vote to the secretary, and the >>> secretary's ratification of that vote. >>> >> Ratification of the vote? I don`t see that in the Constitution. Did the >> process change? >> > Help me find the right word for verifying that indeed a community vote > for this C or CC has taken place according to the constitution and > ensuring that policies (like 2009/007) have been followed. I chose > "ratification" because it seemed to me to capture this task, but I am > not at all wedded to the term. > > >>> The first of these (nomination, community voting, communication) are >>> things that a well functioning community should be doing by itself - >>> but not all communities are well functioning. >>> >> If a CG is not well functioning, the OGB can step in since the OGB quite >> literally approves all CGs. >> > > And how does the OGB determine this?
It's easy. Get out and mix among the CGs. Presumable, all OGB members are subscribed to all the CG lists and the Facilitator list, and active conversations are taking place about governance. Since the OGB creates CGs, it would make sense that the OGB would be familiar with those CGs at least to a superficial level, right? Also, I see Michelle interacting on the CG lists and with the Facilitators on governance issues. In fact, she's done more in this area than all the OGBs combined on this project. The OGB can simply follow her lead. > After the fact when someone > floods the membership rolls with dead people from Chicago? Do you have any examples of the most trusted members of this community doing anything like that? > After the > fact when someone realizes that the foo group simply rubber stamps > everyone on their mailing list without verifying that they have > contributed anything at all? > First, do you have any evidence to suggest that the Core Contributors in this community have been acting in such an obviously irresponsible way? Second, in terms of verifying contributions and making those value judgments, that's not an OGB issue. That's a decision for the CCs to make inside their CGs. I think the OGB has the right to make sure that the constitutional processes are being followed, but that's a clerical task of paperwork verification for record keeping not a value judgment of one's contribution. And third, the OGB members could easily pick up on potential fraud by simply being involved in the community (meaning being on all the CG lists to answer questions, help with governance issues, etc). For instance, I've been doing the Advocacy Facilitation, and whenever we add a new OSUG or Project I subscribe to the list. We have 150 or so now. Occasionally, I have conversations with groups, I read the threads to see if I am needed in any way, I send OGB info to them, etc. It's easy. And more importantly, I take it as my responsibility. The OGB should be doing that (or something like that) for all the CGs on the site. There are, what, 40 or so CGs? Split that up and the task is tiny. > With no tools in place to help the secretary monitor what is > happening, we are simply asking for disaster. I disagree with the notion of an impending disaster. I just don't see the evidence to support such a statement. > Generating a monthly > report is a good thing to do, but it is a bit like closing the barn > door after the horses have escaped... > Do we have any examples of wild things like that happening in the community now? >>> The last step >>> (ratification) is just as important, and should not be ignored or >>> swept under the rug. >>> >>> >> What is getting swept under the rug? CCs in CGs make the decisions as to who >> gets to be a CC. Not the OGB Secretary. >> > > In your proposed workflow, it is one CC (the facilitator) who makes > the decision, without any oversight. > No. The /decision/ is made by the CCs in the CGs. The CCs are making the value judgment about who gets to be a new CC, not the OGB Secretary and not the Facilitator. The Facilitator then has a clerical task of pinging ogb-discuss, where the OGB then makes the CC sign off on the voting statement and enters the name in poll. All I am suggesting is that that last step be done by the Facilitators to make it easier on the OGB. That's it. It's very simple. > Add the oversight by inserting the secretary into the approval > sequence and I'm happy. I think its fine that the OGB verify that the constitutional processes were followed. The OGB should be doing that now, actually. It's easily done right now by having the OGB members on all the CG lists (or different members assigned to different lists). But another easy option is that when Facilitators ping ogb-discuss they should simply say something like this: "We in the XXX CG voted to make ABC person a CC and here is our approval thread [insert link to mailman]." Some already do this, actually. Then all the OGB has to do is verify that, yes, these guys took a vote, etc, and that this guy agrees to vote with his CC status. Done. Very simple. But again, the OGB is doing a paperwork check in this example, it's not making a value judgment. The "oversight" is lightweight, in other words. That's the distinction I am trying to make. > Bonus points for making it possible for the > secretary to indicate things like "the foo group gets > auto-rubber-stamped because they have shown they can be relied upon to > do things right" and I'm even more happy. > As a Facilitator, I am not at all happy with a perspective like this coming from the OGB. I am more than happy to follow reasonable and lightweight governance processes, but my job is not to make board members happy because I can be relied upon. I have /already demonstrated/ that I can be relied upon because my CG made me a CC, and if there is no evidence to the contrary, that should be recognized. If the board is not recognizing this core concept, then the board does not understand the constitution or the community we are trying to build. Remember, the board serves at the pleasure of the OpenSolaris Membership, not the other way around. >>> Some of the per-collective use cases I envision* are: >>> >>> "everything done by the secretary", >>> >>> >> What do you mean by "everything" in this context? >> > > Like today, where the entire "record a potential contributor as a real > one in the system" process is done by the secretary or an OGB board > member. > > >>> "everything done by the facilitators", >>> >>> >> It`s not everything (if I understand your intent). All I am suggesting is >> this: leave all the governance processes in place but make this one tiny >> little change -- have the Facilitators click on the button to enter a new CC >> in the CG`s Electorate. That`s it. >> > > I believe this is part of a good solution, but it is incomplete, as it > opens up the process to abuse or mistakes that can't be detected until > after the fact. > > I think we have discussed some reasonable safeguards here in this thread. But even currently, we simply don't have an abuse problem in the OpenSolaris community. >>> "hmm, some groups have fantastic facilitators who >>> can do their jobs, but some don't", >>> >>> >> Then replace them. That is the OGB`s responsibility since the OGB appoints >> the Facilitators. >> ... >> No. Replace the Facilitator. The OGB Secretary should not do Facilitation >> for a CG. >> ... >> No. Just replace the Facilitator. Since the constitution says quite clearly >> that the OGB appoints the Facilitators, then why could`t the OGB just >> appoint a new Facilitator? >> > > Much easier said than done. Building a system that won't function at > all in the absence of a trained and proactive facilitator when we know > from experience that groups rarely have them seems shortsighted. > How are we building a system that won't function at all? The OGB appoints Facilitators and those Facilitators are quite literally the OGB's direct hand-picked contacts to all the CGs. You have a standing committee right there. And as far as it being easy or difficult, that doesn't matter. It's the system a previous OGB created, and the community approved. And that very same community rejected an attempt to simplify things, so we have to make the best of the current system. >> My proposal does not address issues the OGB should already be >> dealing with as normal governance operations (such as your list above). >> > > If you are going to introduce mechanisms that touch on governance > operations, you need to make sure that they address the needs of the > OGB, and not only the needs of the website transition team. > We are here discussing it, aren't we? All of the members of the website team have been discussing these issues, in fact, over a very long time (I have documented 46 announcements and/or releases going back to June of 2007). And we even pushed back the implementation schedule recently to accommodate changes for the OGB (changes I disagreed with). Plus, we've had multiple open calls with our website project managers, engineers, and sys admins on the line, we've published detailed plans and documents for many, many months, and we attended an OGB call (which for me was at 1 a.m.). We've made some mistakes here and there, sure, but to suggest that we are not taking the community or the OGB in to account is wrong. Jim
