[IAEP] [SLOBS] [Sugar-devel] A Better Idea...

[Dave Crossland]

Hi Tony

On 1 July 2016 at 00:46, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>
> Your motion has never been presented to the Board.

I feel very frustrated with your proposition that members can not
present motions to the board.

You see, of the 6 motions that have passed since I joined the project,
one of them was presented to the board by me, via email, Walter simply
added it to the agenda for the upcoming SLOBs meeting:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
Date: 2 May 2016 at 09:43
Subject: Re: [IAEP] laboratoriosazucar.org domain renewal ($)
To: Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com>, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com>
Cc: systems <systems at lists.sugarlabs.org>, "OLPC para usuarios,
docentes, voluntarios y administradores" <olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>,
SLOBs <slobs at lists.sugarlabs.org>, sugar-sur at lists.sugarlabs.org, iaep
<iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>


I will add this to the agenda for Friday. It has my support, FWIW.

-walter

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:19 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If there are funds, I support the idea.
>
> Any domain name registration should go through the SFC, who are set up to renew & protect them.
>
> If the name has expired, the SFC could register it directly with their existing provider.
>
> Probably the best thing to do is to have it point to sl.o and if we ever have a Spanish version, to that variant.
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 12:45 AM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi
>>
>> I'd like to submit a motions to SLOBs:
>>
>> 1. I propose SLOBs approve a motion to pay back the $34.34 cost of renewing for 2 years the laboratoriosazucar.org domain that will be made out of pocket by a member this month.
>>
>> (Sugar's most popular language of use is Spanish and having a spanish domain name seems like a great idea and it would be a pity to lose the registration to spammers.)
>>
>> --
>> Cheers
>> Dave
---------- End of Forwarded message ----------


Similarly, this motion was written by me, Walter posted it exactly to
the SLOBs and IEAP lists, and it was seconded by a board member, José
Miguel - http://www.mail-archive.com/iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg16767.html
- yet no public votes were posted.

I've presented several other motions, including the motion you claim
was never presented, by posting them to the SLOBS list and the IAEP
list.

I did so following the lead of long-time members such as Caryl and
Sebastian and Laura, who have also been presenting their own motions -
apparently also unaware that members could not do so.

You've claimed last month that members can not present motions to the
board, and when I have countered this claim, you have ignored me.

Making the claim and counter claim again, you've been unable so far to
provide me with any actual documentation of your claim.

I can present two pieces of documentation in addition to my anecdotal
evidence above:

1. For the last 7 years
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/Minutes has had an open
solicitation for anyone to email the SLOBs list with topics has been
open:

"Email slobs at lists dot sugarlabs dot org to propose a topic queue
to be brought up."

In the March 2016 SLOB meeting there was a motion to restrict email
voting to 1 week from the date the motion is posted and this requires
Board members' email votes to arrive within 168 hours of an original
motion being posted, but it does not mention that the email posting
the motion must be from SLOB members only.

Therefore I think it is reasonable for any member to assume that
emailing the SLOBs list is a valid presentation of a motion.

Checkin the history of that wiki page, it seems that this open
solicitation of motions began on July 11 2010 when Mel Chua edited the
SLOB Minutes wiki page to add the text "Email slobs at lists dot
sugarlabs dot org to propose a time, if you want the topic queue to be
brought up." (https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/index.php?title=Oversight_Board%2FMinutes&type=revision&diff=54205&oldid=53687)

Before that, Aleksey Lim edit the same page on December 1 2010 to
"Make proposing new questions for an upcoming meeting less strict"
(https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/index.php?title=Oversight_Board%2FMinutes&type=revision&diff=59838&oldid=59835)
which I believe also clarifies the intent of the SLOB to allow members
to post motions.

2. With https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/index.php?title=Oversight_Board%2FNext_meeting&type=revision&diff=99130&oldid=99129
I see that on the agenda for the board meeting later today is a new
motion, which has not been posted to the IEAP list:

"to have motions submitted by oversight board members"

Given that this motion is only now being posted, I think an assumption
that until that motion passes, members are allowed to post motions, is
reasonable. Otherwise, why is this motion needed?


So, of the 7 board members, only you have asserted that members can
not present motions, and one board member, Walter, has been adding
motions posted by members to the board's agenda, and you have
sometimes been voting on such motions.

Still, I am willing to accept that this is the case. I expect this
secret motion, drafted in private without community consultation, will
be passed, making it perfectly clear that members should not attempt
to present motions directly to the board, and should instead approach
a board member to present a motion on a topic they care about.

Therefore, since providing the membership with 7 links to 7 emails on
a public mailing list for each motion is currently impossible until
the board passes a motion requiring votes
to be emailed to the IAEP and SLOB lists in order to be counted as
valid, I ask you again if you would be willing to post such a motion
to improve the operation of the project?

>> Your record of decisions includes many items that have never become before
>> the Board. You annoy many of us by
>> your continual accusations that we are 'hiding' actions from the members
>> of the Sugar Labs community.

I do not understand how you can show me the evidence that votes are
posted privately and then claim these votes are available to the
public.

>> From my point of view, the SLOBs list can be made public. Any necessary
>> private communications can be made by private email.
>> With seven members, this is not so burdensome.

I agree, that would also be a good way to provide the membership with
7 links to 7 emails on a public mailing list for each motion. Would
you be willing to post such a motion, setting the SLOB list to be
public, and asking Conservancy to email the SLOB team directly for
matters that ought to stay private?

-- 
Cheers
Dave