Gov. Cmte Meeting General Discussion Regarding Procedure

It's not clear to me whether general forum members who are not part of the Governance Committee are welcome to participate in these discussions. Speaking as a member of this committee (rather than as facilitator), I think the discussion should be open to all who are interested, at least until we've established our formal procedures in Item 1.2.

Here are some posts on this topic from an earlier thread.



Speaking now as facilitator, if anyone would like to put forth a motion regarding participation of non-voting non-Committee Members in these threads for the time being, I'll add a poll to this thread.

Something like:

someone from the committee says we need to decide on following questions:
- How should the future site be administered?
- how the expenses are gonna be paid?
- should kerowo be pink?
- How the non-controversial decisions are gonna be made?
.
.
.
Then a short discussion (max 1 week) is opened where anyone from this committee can suggest any options (separate thread for every question?) where hopefully a number of options will be suggested like:

- The tech committee should make a proposal for the administration of the site
- XYZ should be the single admin with access to everything
- We should have three/four/five admins each responsible for a certain part
- We should make a poll in the community with all different options

Then greg opens the poll and we vote on the poll and hopefully achieve the voting condition that makes it a valid decision.

Or?

Do I miss something? Do I see it too simple?

Is there anything that needs to be put in place by the governance committee in time for the site launch? If so, I think we should establish a time-table.

That's a good idea. Coordinating with the tech committee to ensure we're ready to go also is pretty important.

I'll suggest that this is already implied by the online nature here, combined with the very concept of a committee. We can't say something like "all those who showed up here tonight" have vote. I'd also suggest that we've pretty much been doing this already, as the number 23, and the associated list of screen names, have been referenced several times. I'll second if we feel we need to formalize this issue.

ETA: my understanding is our charter allows us the option of a simple up/down vote to decide this kinda issue. That would mean we could decide this issue, if we feel the need to, without waiting for the result of agenda item 1.1.

I vote yes on wookie's motion to formally limit voting to committee members.

Ya know, my previous employer was a huge company with all processes and everything formalized and in place. For every smallest question you had to start something similar like what is going on here right now.  That resulted in me sitting first 6 weeks of my job without computer and trying to fend-of boredom with my phone.

My current employer is a smallish company that gave me a computer with admin rights on my first day. They just trusted that I am a sensible human being. That resulted in 99% reduced frustration and 1000% increased efficiency.

I have a motion:

we stop all that nonsense and do something real: a thread with all questions that need really to be decided on. Everyone makes a suggestion for questions there and Mr.Wookie and zan can totally make suggestion like: What is the decision process to make a decision? (Just a remark: it is incredibly poor question!). Then a thread for every question from this list. Everyone makes suggestions for 3 days. Then we make a poll out of this suggestions and vote on that. Poll is opened for 48 hours. With more than 15 votes the voting quorum is achieved. Whatever option has majority has won. If two options have the same number of votes second poll with only this two options is opened.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am right now so ambivalent. I feel such an urge to start to troll here. Really really really. The only thing that allows me to control it, is that I still believe in good intentions of everyone involved.

New thread about this exiledpolitics.freeforums.net/thread/145/gcm-1-voting-participating-proceedings

I don't really understand the frustration regarding the process being so slow. I pretty much assumed due to the nature of it that it would proceed at a relatively slow pace. Setting limits on how long it can be discussed for will obviously help. I think also as has been mentioned a timetable would be pretty beneficial.

Totally understandable Gregorio. I think we need to find a less time consuming simpler process or we will have a lot of people in the same position.

Wow, have we imploded??

Two high-level comments first:
1. I am willing to volunteer to be committee facilitator
2. Maybe gregorio stepping away should be a wake-up call to us all?

The current process of setting up a process to make committee decisions has not been conducive to actually making decisions (taking actions), at least not in a "timely" manner. I wish I had a better analogy but it is like herding cats. We just don't have the critical mass necessary to have productive discussions on these "meta" issues. In lieu of productive discussions, we have gone down the path of taking votes which have not really accomplished anything except for taking a lot of time. I hope that our current machinations pay off in the long run to help the forum thrive months or years down the road. But right now it is hard to see evidence of that eventuality.

If we continue down this path, I heartily hope and pray that we streamline the process so that we get to what really needs to be accomplished as soon as we can. Ownership is probably number one priority. I think we need a small group of people to hash out issues pertaining to ownership (perhaps in consultation with members of the tech committee) and come back with a recommendation. I may be wrong but I don't think it wise to migrate to a new home until ownership is nailed down. Other issues are important too such as posting rules and moderation. The sooner we tackle these issues the better.

My recommendation is to convene these "sub-committees" as soon as practicable. I am not sure if that means in parallel with the current discussions on process but that is definitely one way to proceed.

I will step aside now then so as to not create any confusion