[Osmf-talk] Community vote (was: AoA Discussion)

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 07/19/11 01:19, Henk Hoff wrote:
>     Like Jonathan said, it will most likely have not influence on any
>     poll. And allowing corporate members makes the legal framework more
>     complicated.
>
> It only makes it more complicated if you want it to be.

I don't know what the current status is regarding OSMF having to know 
who their members are. If I am not mistaken then we are currently 
running the gauntlet re. the UK Companies Act because we don't 
necessarily have real names or addresses for our members. It is very 
well possible that we would legally have to ask corporate members for 
something that documents their legal "personhood" (after all, unless 
this changes in the future, proper membership also carries 
responsibilities) and this can quickly become complicated, esp. when 
done internationally.

> This raises another question: can everyone become member? Should there
> be reasons to deny membership?

Most associations have a clause where it says that people cannot simply 
"sign up" but they can only "apply for membership" and the board then 
decides whether their application is granted. In practice, this is 
implemented in a rubberstamping fashion, i.e. everyone who fills out the 
form becomes a member and the board doesn't even look at it, but if 
there is something fishy about the application then the board can reject it.

Other associations have rules that allow a member to be kicked out if 
they are seen to be damaging the stated goals of the association. Often 
it requires an AGM decision to do that (board can provisionally eject 
but AGM has to agree).

On the Wiki page you mention both, board either rejecting or ejecting 
members.

I'm not sure if we need any of that; maybe it unnecessarily complicates 
things, and may give rise to the suspicion that the evil OSMF wants to 
keep out dissenters.

> Back to the community-vote. Why should we give people who do not want to
> become member of OSMF give the power of vote? Shouldn't we not try and
> get more people member of OSMF instead of designing all kinds of
> loopholes to give them decision rights?

I agree. On the other hand I recall with horror the plans that were 
circulated here a few years ago about how OSMF should strive to grow by 
several thousand members each year and soon reach the 5-digit 
membership. I don't know how this fits with other plans and 
deliberations but sometimes, the more members an organisation has, the 
more conservative and static it becomes. For example, if the board 
really fucks up, you can often call an EGM and force them to change ways 
or kick them out. Or you can force the board to at least distribute your 
message to other members or so. Such actions usually require a certain 
percentage of members to agree. Currently, if something goes really 
really wrong, I could conceivably look at the members list, call 30 of 
them on the phone, convince them to share my concern, and voila, I'd 
have 10% of members on my side. (Needless to say I would need a good 
reason that convinces them but it is conceivable.) - If we had 3000 
members instead of 300, that would become near impossible; the board 
would become ever more unassailable.

So this is something to keep in mind - larger organisation always means 
a weaker position for the members.

> All in all: please make a clear (!) proposal. That would help this
> discussion.

Regarding corporate membership, my proposal would be to not do it (only 
allow natural persons to become a proper member), and introduce some 
sort of special sponsoring relationship that is open to corporate 
entities and carries none of the usual membership rights.

Regarding community vote, I think it is not necessary. There may be very 
few people who feel excluded from OSMF because they cannot afford the 
membership fee (£15 may be a lot in some countries); let us simply 
introduce a paragraph that says "the membership fee can be waived by the 
board on request", and then let us say that if someone is a community 
member in good standing with some edits to their name and they request 
free membership it will usually be granted at the discretion of the board.

Regarding board members with a commercial background, I am not convinced 
that the membership will be able to make an informed decision; most 
people seem to say "let's not make any rules, members can decide for 
themselves whom they want on the board".

I acknowledge that I seem to be in the minority about this but *if* we 
don't make any rules about who can stand, then I would at least propose 
that we require an elaborate declaration by anyone who stands for 
election, one that answers questions like:

* are they involved in any commercial organisation that deals with OSM, 
either as an employee or as an owner/stockholder;
* what interests does the organisation have with regard to OSM;
* can the applicant think of any potential conflict of interest, i.e. 
any decision that comes before the board where his corporate background 
might favour one decision over another;
* will their contribution to OSMF be entirely their private business or 
is their employer likely to allow them to use paid work time, a company 
expense account, or other company resources to aid in OSMF work
* can the applicant promise that they will do their OSMF job totally 
independent of any chain of command in the organisation

If we as OSMF do not require people to make such disclosure it would be 
up to (potential) competitors in the election to bring these issues to 
the table which would make competitors look like they wanted to smear 
each other.

Bye
Frederik