[gentoo-dev] Policy regarding the inactive members

[Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org>]

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Hello folks,

Looking through the Council project page, the policy regarding the inactive 
council members doesn't look optimal to me

"To ensure that the council stays active, the chosen metastructure model says 
that if a council member (or their appointed proxy) fails to show up for two 
consecutive meetings, they are marked as a slacker."

So the attendance to council meetings  is enough to prove that a member is 
active? 0_o

How about the participation to the discussions which took place every day on 
our mailing lists or in IRC? I guess not since we need to explicitly bring 
each issue to the meeting so council can talk about it. So it is ok to discuss 
and decide on a topic without knowning all the previous discussion which took 
place on the mailing list. Because I really doubt that *all* council members 
are reading the mailing list in daily basis so they get to know everything 
that is going on to Gentoo.

The role of the council is the following one:

"The elected Gentoo Council decides on global issues and policies that affect 
multiple projects in Gentoo" 

I am not sure that everybody is aware of the councils' role.  The only council 
members who look active to me are Petteri and Denis. We miss 5 more people but 
I am pretty sure they will be present to the next meeting hence they will be 
considered as "active members". This is why the current policy looks wrong to 
me.

A stricter rule should apply and clearly define when a council members is 
slacking and hence it has to be substituted immediately. Council is the core 
project of Gentoo ( at least it should be ) and it cannot afford inactive 
members.

And because talk is cheap and we already burned our keyboards out the last few 
days here is my proposal:

A council member is inactive when:

1) He is inactive in critical discussions ( such as the whole Phoenix 
discussion ) for a certain period of time
2) Fails to accomplish his role by supervising the Gentoo projects. Remember 
we have plenty of Gentoo projects nearly dead and there is no way for us to 
participate since contacting the project leaders is a no-go. Indirect 
question: Is the council aware of the status of all projects? Shouldn't it be 
since he is responsible for them? 
3) Fails to attend the meetings. But this should be the last proof of their 
activity
4) ...

If a council member is declared "inactive" then it will be substituted by the 
next non-elected member.


Please, tell me exactly what does the "global issues and policies that affect 
multiple projects in Gentoo" means.  What is your current role and ? It seems 
quite abstract to me so I am requesting  you to elaborate. 

I feel sorry to admit that the current council failed to become a good leader 
for Gentoo and his inactivity demotivates both users and developers[1][2] [ 
etc etc ]

[1] https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-822041.html
[2] http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-
dev/msg_bc884b5ec61a159a6c15323b2a67965c.xml

-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org

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