[IAEP] [SLOBS] SL member list/joining criterion

[Sebastian Silva]

Hello Friends, Sugar Labs members, Board,

I would like to remind everyone of the past year's election process, as
I recall, some context:

    - There had been no Election in 2013 (for the 2014 board). There
were three seats, and three candidates, so the board decided to promote
the candidates to board members.
    - There was no election in 2014 (for the 2015 board). As of March,
there were two candidates, and three seats, and no election comittee.
Laura volunteered to be a third candidate, and asked for elections to be
held. She was told by Walter that new candidates would be solicited for
December [1].
    - With no membership committee to reply for membership requests or
hold election (and some vocal critics), I stepped forward and went thru
a long process to be appointed delegate for Election Committee,
described in our Governance wiki page. The board decided to also appoint
Caryl and Samson ("for diversity").
    - The caduced board members from 2014 were allowed to remain board
members in 2015.
    - I set up a virtual machine with Lime Survey and uploaded the
members list to it (the one at [2] and also at [3], which is the same
document).
    - The google docs list which we took over from Luke and that Walter,
Samson, Caryl, Bernie, Luke and I have write access, is still regarded
as the most up to date list of inactive+active members.
    - I designed a very simple yes/no survey and sent it over to each
member.
    - As of Dec 15th 79 people replied to it (more than had voted in the
past elections of 2012). The list is at [4].
    - While Caryl says she got complaints, she and Samson can review
their emails, there was no email to members at sugarlabs with complaints of
no survey.
    - I wanted to use the same survey system to vote, but refused to
implement condorcet counting myself, proposing to the election committee
to use range voting instead. The committee (Caryl and Samson) decided to
instead use the same voting mechanism as was used in 2012 [5].
    - Caryl then took over the election process using CIVS system (I did
not participate further in this).
    - Results [6] were publised to the list and sent to every voting
member [7].

In my mind, the list at [4] is the more current list, but the committee
has continued to use the list at [2][3]. We could do another survey and
see if more dormant members wake up.

[1] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2015-March/017275.html
[2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members/List
[3]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1bgJ6Z8gHpxIwpNSD8qf8B5n1ZQRA1r0AAdCDcMVeZEs/edit?usp=sharing_eid
[4] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members/Survey2015
[5] http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/
[6] http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_dd38dc6aa11d1a98
[7] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2016-February/017686.html

Now to your specific questions:

On May 14, 2016 10:26 PM, "Walter Bender" <walter.bender at gmail.com
<mailto:walter.bender at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>                 > what is the harm in keeping them on the list? (Our
>                 membership list has never been well-correlated with
>                 the active contributors in any case.)
>
On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 10:51 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com
<mailto:dave at lab6.com>> wrote:
>
>                 The harm is two fold. Initially that the list says it
>                 is a list of active contributors, so having it not be
>                 that is problematic because it is confusing: we either
>                 ought to redefine it accurately, or prune it. On a
>                 deeper level it means referenda are a mirage, since it
>                 is impossible to get replies from people completely
>                 disengaged, and it means that SL appears to be a large
>                 and complex entity when it is not.
>
Walter asked the same question in a board meeting in 2015 and I
responded the same as Dave did. Active members are important because
they can propose and hold referenda. Perhaps we should practice this
once. Not to be taken lightly, they can also remove board members.

>             El 14/05/16 a las 23:04, Adam Holt escribió:
>
> On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 11:55 PM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>
>     In any case, with about 4 months having have passed since
January's election, can the Sugar Labs' legal board of directors please
now get access to the verified-current-membership list of eligible
voters that was used in this election, that Samson Goddy indicates is at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1bgJ6Z8gHpxIwpNSD8qf8B5n1ZQRA1r0AAdCDcMVeZEs/edit
?

Samson is wrong, the list at [4] was used, with some people added
manually by Caryl, but not listed there. Caryl could you please either
update that list or share a list of people who got a ballot in last
election?

Adam, you keep referring to a private list, but there isn't one. There
is no personal information for past members except their emails.

>
>     FWIW / for the record
https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members#Currency_assurance_policy
currently states "The most recent currency review was in January 2016"
and "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."
>

That currency policy is the reason a survey was sent in the first place.
However, it was sent in October, not six months before the election.

El 14/05/16 a las 21:22, Caryl Bigenho escribió:
>
> Sebastian had done a lot of work on the list, sending out a survey via
Lime Survey to determine who wanted to remain on the list.  There was
just one problem… several long time contributors did not, for some
reason, reply. They said they did not receive the survey (went to
Spam?). Sebastian assumed that no reply meant they no longer wanted to
be members. For many, this was not the case.

They should've mailed members at sugarlabs.org - Walter, Bernie, Caryl,
Samson and I get email from this alias.

11/05/16 a las 14:44, Adam Holt escribió:
>
> Caryl, Sebastian, Samson & All,
>
> 1) Can you provide all a link to a current (or post-election) SL
membership list, verified to be reasonably current?

The most up to date that I have access to is [4]. Caryl should have what
was actually used in CIVS. I found notable that some slobs and
candidates did not reply to the survey, but Caryl took their candidacy
as affirmation of membership.

>
> 2) How many active and nonactive/lapsed members does SL have exactly,
and what info do we retain on each, in case they choose to donate/rejoin
etc?

Many questions in one. Active members as per prior question. Non-active
= List at [2] minus (members at [4] minus new members in 2016 minus the
people that Caryl might've manually added to vote).

I did not find the question but I think it was asked what the criterion
is to accept members. Pretty much only that they send a short
explanation of their reason to join (as even users are happily
accepted). Never has anyone been rejected, during our delegacy, or, to
my knowledge, before.

Non active / lapsed members would be of course welcome to become
elegible to vote again. Their lapsed / removed status has not been
affirmed by removal emails, so they in effect have become de-facto
non-voting members, not exactly non-members because of this missing last
step.

I hope to have answered to your satisfaction the current status of Sugar
Labs membership committee.
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