Re: [board-discuss] Format of the BoD votes announcement
Hi Norbert, Norbert Thiebaud wrote on 2012-12-21 14:40: 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 -- Florian Effenberger, Chairman of the Board (Vorstandsvorsitzender) Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108 Jabber: flo...@jabber.org | SIP: flo...@iptel.org The Document Foundation, Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details: http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
Re: [board-discuss] Format of the BoD votes announcement
Hi :) 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 :) From: Florian Effenberger flo...@documentfoundation.org To: board-discuss@documentfoundation.org Sent: Wednesday, 2 January 2013, 8:38 Subject: Re: [board-discuss] Format of the BoD votes announcement Hi Norbert, Norbert Thiebaud wrote on 2012-12-21 14:40: 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 -- Florian Effenberger, Chairman of the Board (Vorstandsvorsitzender) Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108 Jabber: flo...@jabber.org | SIP: flo...@iptel.org The Document Foundation, Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details: http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
Re: [board-discuss] Format of the BoD votes announcement
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 4:23 AM, Tom Davies tomdavie...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Hi :) but there are times when a vote needs to be taken anonymously. 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.
Re: [board-discuss] Format of the BoD votes announcement
On 01/02/2013 02:47 AM, Norbert Thiebaud wrote: On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 4:23 AM, Tom Davies tomdavie...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Hi :) but there are times when a vote needs to be taken anonymously. 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
Re: [board-discuss] Format of the BoD votes announcement
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Joel Madero jmadero@gmail.com wrote: 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
