For myself I have been here for many years until I joined. Even after joining I know I have in my odd way helped (and probably hindered equally well) new members and the community...and I'm most certainly one of the "horde" ...heck I don't think I qualify even for a vote.


For what my voice is worth...
I would like to say both marxian and chemist both have very good insights I agree with.
I take both and would say...the positives of both can be kept and the negatives shucked.
Marxian has it right...the fairness of : 1 voice = 1 vote is as pure as it gets to the truth of democracy proposed by the greeks.
Thereby the will of the people is truly enforced.
Sadly the after effect of having additional laws to tweak and fine tune the process end up usually destroying it.
The question is why? and how?
Frankly this is where as well I think chemist is near to being dead on the money.
1 voice = 1 vote doesn't work...yes. Why?
chemist is heading in the right direction...
1 voice =1 vote should work...marxian is correct ...it is the civil and fair way...proper way...but it essentially created a mess...why?

Here is the why and how.
and it has been stated...it's the people that get the votes that get into the positions of authority.
Some do a great job....some do nothing...some do worse.
But they were voted in.
Frankly I do believe in a pure democracy...tempered with good judgement.

Socrates believed that 1 voice = 1 vote was a recipe for disaster.
He believed that it makes no sense to hold a general vote for say ...the community dentist....or doctor...or fireman...or what ever specialist. But that is exactly what the ancient greeks did...
they voted in people who were not fit for the positions ...based purely upon votes...and always such open ended voting is coloured with personal feeling...how friendly....social ....easily swayed...corrupt....whether they were a friend...a family member...an enemy.....whatever.
Big mess.

The community should pick the best person for the job according to their talents at that job.
I understand that the karma meter here in a way acts as an automatic method of determining the most favourable candidates...
but I don't think it goes far enough.
The process isn't discriminating enough.
Hence we get some individuals in who are not what is required for the positions. Problems will always ensue.

I'm good at what I do...I would not for a second believe that I would make a good politician, lawyer or neuro-surgeon simply because I had enough votes.

To conclude ....yes I believe in 1 voice = 1 vote ....1 voice = 1 vote for the most compelling candidates whom everyone is aware that they can and will do the job competently and properly.

I'm not saying junk any part of any process that exists here.
But unless core issues are addressed all the gentle tweaking of process trying to fine tune a problem that at it's core IS the initial voting process and how candidates are chosen...it will remain a problem this community will have.

I don't see any "equality" problems with General Members, as long as e.V is obliged to accept everyone who want to become one (and pays monthly donation). Conspiracy theories aside, please.

I would be *very* happy, if we could get rid of eternal conflict between e.V and Council. The problem with it is that e.V is actually legally responsible (and blamed, in case of failure) for stuff, while Council can push most idiotic ideas without any risk of legal consequences. But, the Council feel strong mandate due to being elected (again, paired with complete lack of real responsibility for anything, unlike e.V people), so the push their ideas. Always.

Such situation is unnacceptable in long term:

"Low" mandate + high responsibility on one side (Board)
vs.
perceived strong mandate (after all, they've got their part of the awesome number of ~80 people voting...) + 0 legal responsibility

...must lead to conflicts. Otherwise situation would be against nature

/Estel

Council will be kept where it is, a voice for the community. They represent the general mass of maemo - ok, the elections do not look like we are still alive but hey...

Only interested people of the group "general mass" will join the eV, I doubt anyone will just join for being listed and getting spammed once or twice a year...


Scenario with the MCeV in case of a dumb idea:
Council decides to go for it, it will cost an awesome amount of time, money and serverpower and will not be compensated by the project itself.
Board rejects the idea, as it might bring down maemo.org, the community funds and limited resources.
Council still thinks it is a good idea and we need to go for it, Council calls for a general meeting with "dumb idea" as action item.
Board explains why it is impossible to do atm, and General Meeting approves the idea anyway but only with limited access to current community resources. A work group "make the dumb idea possible with less resources" is born. In the meantime, council elections took place. New council has a dumb idea too, game on, again.

I did not write about a good idea, with no issues, as that is nothing the board will reject. But imagine what it would be about if there was no general meeting above board or council... 8 people would decide everything and could never be said wrong by anyone from the active members.

I think, though, that after few years, we're going to have high percentage of people that were interested once, then lost interest and haven't opted out. Those "dead souls" would still be counted towards percentage of 2/3 voices in case General Assembly need to decide something - which, practically, would paralyze General Assembly's role.

BTW, why 2/3 votes should be required for General Assembly to push something, if it's said to be most low-level governing body? 50% +1 vote seems more reasonable for such role. 2/3 sounds like bad copy&paste from some non-direct, "representative" democracies.

/Estel

@estel in Denmark, if You are 3 persons, you are a "forening" foundation.
The general assembly will agree on the foundation rules and regulations, which is decided by a general majority (>50%).
Since, basically only 3 people could be presented at the general assembly, the majority would then have to be 2/3.
If less than 3 people are represented, you are per definition not a foundation, and as such you cant set the foundation regulations.

I suggest everone reads the German regulations (BGR) for founding an eV
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/index.html

So, for doing any decision, General Assembly will have to travel to meeting conference for voting anything? Or we could do it via on-line voting system?

If it's the latter, then I'm not sure how you're going to determine % of General Members present during voting. If it's the former, I'm *absolutely* sure, that we're going to get awesome number of voters In fact, your example about 3 people present may be just spot-on.

/Estel

@estel,
Yes, there are hurdles to evercome still, this is for sure.
Practically, it is assumed 'normal' that active members are physicalky present, in our case, well not so practical. However, if the board (and council) members show up, that would be ok - not perfect.
If online (I believe thats how it will be) we have to figure out how to count active members.
It will be hard work either way, and very likely we wont make every member happy.
I do see some good benefits in actually becoming a community of active members with stronger regulations. At the end I believe, if we succeed, we will become a strong community which will also be heard better by for example vendors.

I absolutely agree here, thus the point (and pressure) on ensuring, that general assembly is keep clean of inactive people, while still being completely open and welcoming for anyone willing to be part of it, from any place in world.

Monthly token donation requiment would work here, I think - although, if you (Board/Council) have better ideas, then even better. Looking forward to discuss them

/Estel

Meetings will be online, this reminds me that we need to add the requirement for a registered freenode account to apply. If the general assembly is not able to vote on things it could be pushed to our voting engine, I have to re-read bylaws on that - could be that we need to change something to have a 2/3 need to be able to vote and active vote needs to be a 2/3 majority. With the voting engine that would mean 100% are able to vote but if only 30 people vote, 20 "aye"s could be enough.

There is one simple problem with this approach: Those involved in the e.V. (like those in HiFo) take on legal liability. Where do you propose to find people willing to take on legal liability, while having no voice in that discussion? You won't, which is why we have, as Estel puts it:

Reality is before HiFo, the diagram was more like this:

Community > Council | NOKIA

You'll note that Nokia didn't see Council as its controller or its equal. It did what it legally needed to as a company, and paid just enough attention to keep the fire-ants from swarming. The e.V. needs to exist in a similar fashion. It should, of course, listen to and try to do what the community desires. But at times it must take actions to keep itself (and in as much, the community) healthy. (Including things like negotiating contract terms for taking on trademark licenses...) It also must uphold the legal responsibilities (and liabilities) it needs to take on to keep the lights on for the community.

If you have a direct control mechanism, where Council can say "do X now", where X is damaging or legally risky to those legally responsible, who would take such a position? That is, in fact the major reason I left. I felt that others were preparing to take actions that HiFo Board members could be held legally culpable for and did not want to wind up fined or in jail.

Agreed. In fact, I've agreed with every post you've made so far in this thread, which frightens the hell out of me. When we both agree on something, it's a rare and dangerous thing. FWIW: That death is not quite as slow, or as far away, as you may think it is.

Agreed. There needs to be a time-out mechanism. This is the reason many e.V. (and non-profits) that have a membership have an annual dues.

I propose another option: To enlist, one must contribute a small amount (say 1€). The host (e.V.) must hold a poll or election at least twice per year, announced at least a month ahead of time, and lasting at least one week. Non-participation in 2 consecutive polls/elections knocks you out of the general electorate. One may buy their way back in via another contribution. This allays any concern about those lacking funds, allows 1 person 1 vote, and still gives a way to shed inactive members.

I'm sure we could incorporate something like that into the rules, if we word it correctly. Right now though, we need to get things setup and transferred so the legal entity can move forward. The proposed method isn't perfect, but as noted it is how many German groups already operate. It's far easier in this case to tweak things post-setup than it is to demand perfection from the start.

Just my 2 cents...