[IAEP] Preparing for the 2017 SLOB Election

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi Folks…
A few minutes away from "Camp Grandma and Grandpa" to check emails (it's nap time).
This is all well and good, however in the past (when I first joined Sugar Labs) members had to qualify by actually making some tangible "contribution" (not money) to Sugar Labs. This could be development of software or hardware, having a small deployment, hosting Sugar Labs and OLPC events, and the like. We didn't simply say, "Hey, why don't you sign up and be a member?" 
What you are suggesting seems to throw away all criteria for membership, other than a person saying, "Sure, sign me up."
This cheapens both the organization and discounts the efforts of the many, many members who have done so much work in the past.
I do think getting the membership list up-to-date in a timely manner is a great idea and I am glad Dave is volunteering to do the job. The list we were left with for last year's election was a total mess and the names  of many folks, who were long time contributors, were missing. Hopefully we caught all of them by sending numerous emails keeping everyone up-to-date on the progress of the election. Many replied with "Hey, how come I didn't get my ballot yet? 
I urge caution in going forward with this. We should end up with, hopefully, a complete, up-to-date list, with current valid email addresses, of all contributors to Sugar Labs projects (of any kind) who desire to be members. Bigger isn't better in this case. Quantity definitely does not mean quality.
Caryl
Now, off to get my nap! Five-year-olds can be exhausting and if she is napping now, she will go to bed late tonight!
From: dave at lab6.com
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:45:12 -0400
To: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org; samsongoddy at sugarlabs.org; caryl at laptop.org; sebastian at fuentelibre.org
Subject: [IAEP] Preparing for the 2017 SLOB Election


Hi
In today's meeting, Seb mentioned the 2017 SLOB election is coming up fast and should happen in (early) December. 
The election commitee last year was Samson, Caryl, and Sebastian, and Seb invited me to join, which I am happy to :)
I suggest we start making steady progress and update the community at each monthly SLOB meeting for the next 4 meetings that remain this year.
http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_dd38dc6aa11d1a98 says "The top four candidates will serve 2 year terms and the next three will serve 1 year terms" and here's the ordered list:
1. Walter Bender2. Lionel Laské3. Adam Holt4. Sameer Verma5. Claudia Urrea6. Tony Anderson7. Jose Miguel Garcia
Therefore Tony, Jose Miguel, and Claudia's seats will be elected this year.
The first thing I think needs to be done is to get a confirmed list of members. I can take care of it this month. 
Currently the member list is maintained in a Google Docs spreadsheet. Seb confirmed members were not contacted so far this year; the only activity is to add some new members to the sheet this year. Walter suggested a mass email to ask members to confirm/update their member status, and indeed it seems to me that the #1 purpose of the sheet is to have a list of people to email about Sugar Labs business.
So I propose that, since at the last meeting a motion to ask members for dinero passed, and since I have a large list of everyone who ever mailed a SL mailing list, everyone who every made a wiki account, and this members spreadsheet, I will mail all these people once to ask if they want to be 'members,' which I propose to define as having an email registed on a sugarlabs-annouce mailing list. This way there is no ambiguity that only paying members are members; instead it can be clear anyone on that mailing list is a member, and no payment is needed. I think it would be good to promise not to mail this announce list more than once a calendar month, and to configure the list as a public list where joining is moderated and so is emailing the list (ie, it can only be made by authorized persons.) Seb supported this idea.
For people who are not on the list, it seems there is already a procedure defined for how to deal with them. https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members#Currency_assurance_policy says, "In order to ensure that the Sugar Labs Membership list is reflective of the current status of the project and its participants, once a year members will be asked to confirm that they still wish to be a Sugar Labs Member. If this request bounces, or if a request has not been replied to after it has been a) resent, b) checked for a more current email address, and c) six months have passed, the member will be sent a removal notice with an invitation to reapply." Therefore 6 months after this email, I can send a known-good list of accounts to remove from the wiki and we'll have a definitive active members list. 
So, I volunteer to do the following before the next SLOB meeting:
- I will ask Sam C to set up a new sugar-announce at lists.sugarlabs.org mailing list with himself, myself, samson, caryl and seb as list admins. 
- I will complete the review of all accounts on the wiki to mark the ones that look like spammers
- I will make a final 'all possible members' email list
- I will draft the email that asks people to join the announce list and explains why I am asking them to do this, and a motion to approve the election email, and share it on the IAEP list for community review
- I will ask SLOBs to post and second the motion
Then in early September I can send the email, and prepare a report with the new list of members and similarly to before another draft email soliciting board applications for SLOB to review and approve in the October meeting.
Then in early October I can send that email, perhaps also with the donation request, and then prepare a final email calling for votes that SLOB can review and approve in the November meeting.
Then in early November the call for votes can go out, votes can come in, and in early December the results can be announced. 

Cheers
Dave


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