[Council] Referendum 2015
 

on the roles of Community Council and Maemo e.V.

DearCommunity,

inorder to finalize our move from Hildon Foundation to the MaemoCommunity e.V. (MC eV), a referendum is called, which is supposed tofix deficiencies in the Council Election Rules as well as in theArticles of Association of MC eV. There will be two options:

-Yes, I accept MC eV Association Rules as our Community Council'sRules and I endorse the amendment of MC eV Articles of Association asdescribed below.

-No, I do want Council rules to stay outside of MC eV and its rulesetand have them as originally described. I’m aware that Council thenwill have no say in any MC eV or maemo.org matters.

Inother words...

…youvote option YES:

Rulesaround Maemo Community Council are adopted in order to fullyincorporate Council as a body of MC eV.

…youvote NO on the referendum:

Theoriginal Council election rules will remain as is. Council then willbe an interest grouping outside MC eV without a purpose, sincethere'll be nobody to (officially) adress anymore. Council then willbe suspended from MC eV bylaws.

Eitherway, the referendum means a change of MC eV Articles of Associationas well as Association Rules, which can only be done by GA. Thereferendum basically is an avowal for MC eV, an approval of itsbylaws and a mandate for MC eV to change them accordingly.

Forthose who did not follow the process,here’s a short explanation in two parts (together with the affectedrules, bylaws paragraphs):





Part1 - History & Council election rules:

Backin Nokia times, the purpose of Council was to give the community avoice towards Nokia representatives (Community Manager, whatever…).Then Nokia abandoned Maemo, donated servers and sold the rights tomaemo.org and Maemo(TM) to Hildon Foundation, a maemo communitydriven organisation. In the process of this we learned that an USbased organisation has itsdrawbacks/challenges and it was decided to form an entitybased in Europe which is a German Registered Association now known asMaemo Community e.V. - instead of having a board assigned to managethe organization, only the association is now accepting regularmembers which have the final say in any matter. The association'sboard does handle day to day tasks like minor community requests,funds, buy hardware for our infrastructure, basically pay the billsand do minor steering only. That said, the associations regularmembers having the final say in any matter, this also applies torules and regulations and their changes, including but not limited tothe Council Election Rules. During the MC eV founding meeting, theexisting (unified Maemo Community/HiFo) Council was nominated for theCouncil of MC eV. The MC eV members voted unanimously "yes"for all existing councilors who accepted the vote. By doing so,Council effectively accepted MC eV Council election rules (and allother other regulations) which were publicized earlier. To have thissanctioned by all of you, we need this referendum.

MCeV Council election rulesdifferto originalCouncil election rulesin the following points:





AssociationRules § 4.1 (Council Elections)

(6)Nominees with a professional interest in Maemo, such as working forNokia- or any otheracompanyinvolved in Maemo-related software development - must declare theirinterest when advertising their nomination. Failureto do so may result in the NokiaCommunity ManagerBoardof Directors,or the outgoing Council, declaring their nomination invalid and sobar them from standing in the current election."

(9)The election datemust be publicised at least 1month4weeksin advance of the election.

(11)If there are less than 4 candidates when the nominations close, theelection can’t be held.

a)The nominationperiod will be extended by 1month4weeksandthe election postponed similarly.

b)If, after 1month4weeks'sdelay, there are still fewer than 4 candidates; the outgoing councilwill decide- in conjunction with HildonFoundationBoard of Directors - about how to proceed. The preferred solution isto encourage more members of the maemo.org community to participateand re-run the election,but all options are open.

(12)Changesto any of the above rules must be approvedby aresolution of the Passive Members' Meeting (communityreferendum)orGeneral Assembly.*

a)Voting in such,will be open to anyone eligible to vote in the respectivemeeting.

b)The referendum options must be debated for a minimum of 1month4weekspriorto the referendum.

c)Referendum voting will be open for the same length of time as thecouncil elections.

*community referendum (aka resolution of the Passive Members' Meeting)is already granted by Articles of Association § 10 and AssociationRules § 1.1

Nowin order to grant sovereignty over Council election rules tocommunity, the following changes to MC eV Association Rules shall beintroduced:

AssociationRules § 1.1 (Amendments)

(1)These association rules can be changed or dismissed by the GeneralAssembly.

(2)§ 4.1 (Councilelection rules) ofthese association rules can be changed or dismissed with a referendumby the Passive Members' Meeting.Changesto theseelectionrulesby the GeneralAssembly must be confirmed by aresolutionof the passive membersmeeting (referendum). Should the amendment be rejected by the passivemembersmeeting, the proposed amendment can be revised and brought again tothe vote.

(2)§ 4.1 (Vorstandsratswahlen) dieser Vereinsordnung kann durch einReferendum der passiven Mitgliederversammlung geändertoder aufgehoben werden.Änderungendieser Wahlordnung durch die aktiveMitgliederversammlungmüssen durchBeschlussder passiven Mitgliederversammlung bestätigt werden (Referendum).Sollte die Änderung von der passiven Mitgliederversammlung abgelehntwerden, kann der Änderungsvorschlag überarbeitet und erneut zurAbstimmung gebracht werden.

(pleasesee MCeV Orga-chartfor who can actuallychangewhat)





Part2 - Council role & MC eV Bylaws:

MCeV Articles of Association have a drawback which lies within the factthat councils responsibility is not adequately described so far,Council may contradict GA resolutions or even try to “force”Board into anything. Therefore, the following changes to MC eVArticles of Association shall be introduced:

§7 (Board of directors)

(5)TheBoard of Directors executescarriesouttheresolutionsof the General Assembly and of the Council insofaras this decision jurisdiction is delegatedtoCouncil according to the statutes.

(5)DerVorstand führt die Beschlüsse der aktiven Mitgliederversammlung undder des Vorstandsrats aus, sofernihmdiese Entscheidungshoheit laut Satzung oder Vereinsordnung eingeräumtwird.

§8 (Council)

(4)Thecouncil has the duty to execute elections of all kinds.Thecouncil's duties, rules to announce council meetings, theirproceedings and executions of votes are regulated by the AssociationRules.

(4)DerVorstandsrat ist insbesondere für die Durchführung aller Wahlenzuständig.Aufgabendes Vorstandsrats sowieRegelungen zur dessenArbeit inklusive der Einberufungvon Vorstandsratssitzungen, deren Ablauf und die Durchführung vonAbstimmungen, wirddurch diesindin der Vereinsordnunggeregeltfestgelegt.

Thisoutsources the definition of Council responsibility from Articles ofAssociation to Association Rules (which might be altered without theneed to register those changes at court, avoiding hassle and fees).Accordingly, a new paragraph will be added to the Association Rules:

§3.2 Vorstandsrat (council)

(8)Tasks and competences of the Council are as follows:

(a)Representation of the associated members (garage account) and theirinterests.

(b)Counseling of the Board of directors in general matters

c)Council is responsible to execute all elections

(8)Aufgaben und Zuständigkeiten des Vorstandsrats sind wie folgt:

(a)Vertretung der assoziierten Mitglieder und ihrer Interessen

(b)Beratung des Vorstands in allgemeinen Belangen

c)Der Vorstandsrat ist für die Durchführung aller Wahlen zuständig

Pleasenote that according to Articles of Association, General Assembly candecide on literally anything, as of

§9 (General Assembly)

1. The General Assembly as the superior decision-making body of the association is by default responsible for all tasks unless certain tasks are delegated to other bodies of the association in accordance with these articles of incorporation.
   

Coincidenceor not, the last paragraph somewhat closes a circle… everybody canhave his share of power by simply becoming a member. Get involvedyourself instead of just electing representatives (Council).

Soin one month the voting booth will open and you can decide on abovementioned changes and if Council will be recognized as a group withinthe Maemo Community e.V. or not.



Link: Original article.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Reserved ...

Special BIG thanks to Win7Mac for his tremendous work during the finding of that referendum text.

Added zipped referendum document(s).

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Please proofread (and edit) the opening post of this thread. Plenty of missing word spacing and some typos to correct.

Thanks

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Sorry. Conversion takes place automatically and post needs to be moderated (no council member can do that).

Meanwhile just read the original article linked above.

But having a look I found also a few (erm lot) missing word spacing. But no typos. You know a text you read a thousand times you cannot correct anymore. If you find typos please point them out.

--
Furthermore in OP you should read the red text as striked through. So I really propose to read it here or within the attached documents.
(also sent out to mailing list 'maemo-community')

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Here on tmo, this works...

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

We (the council) would like to invite you (the community) to discuss this topic here on TMO. And of course also in the IRC channel #maemo-meeting every Tuesday 20:00UTC, https://webchat.freenode.net/

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Even it was discussed already I expected a bit more activity.

So, bumping...

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

I gots my crap tagetha' [finally :D]
be there tomorrow at 1pm [my time ...I'm guessing]

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

And another bump ...

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Hmm...

I have read the first post. I have read the email (which, as far as I can figure out, is identical to the first post anyway). And I still have no clue WTF it is all about. So sorry, but no amount of bumping is going to help. Unless someone can explain it to me in less than 10 words, "shrug" is about as much involvement as you will ever get from me.

The sad thing is I am in the about 1% that actually care about this community. I doubt most members would exert as much as a shred of effort .

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Forget post #1 here, the original formatting got lost.

To review the Referendum, please see the Blog post.

tl;dr:

• …you vote YES:
  Rules around Maemo Community Council are adopted in order to fully incorporate Council as a body of MC eV.
  
• …you vote NO:
  The original Council election rules will remain as is. Council then will be an interest grouping outside MC eV without a purpose, since there'll be nobody to (officially) adress anymore. Council then will be suspended from MC eV bylaws.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

As time goes by and it seems we missed to publish date when we want to held the voting for this referendum (you would know if you followed IRC #maemo-meeting ;)):
Our goal was/is to held this referendum together with the new council election Q2/2015. But as we needed to postpone that -due to too low candidates- we also postponed this referendum for 4 weeks.

So new time line would be voting from 06.09.until 12.09.2015 according to council election timetable.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

The mail to vote yes/no came in.
Unfortunately, no options were to chose from and my vote became blank LOL

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

In the mail I received it was pointing for the details of the referendum to this URL:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=[#####]
(i.e. mail was sent before filling the t= field with proper value)

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Yep

Same here

Seems needs redo....

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

For some reason the current referendum is FUBAR in the maemo voting engine.
I have had to redo the bloody thing from start 3 times, and I just noticed the choices are still missing from the selection list :eek:

I am really sorry for this, I am trying to fix it but I need to spam everybody each time I try the fix...

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Dont worry. No blames, other than you do a really good job :)

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Never received it...

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

OK, now it looks the fourth attempt was successiful.
There's one hitch though; as it was problematic to create this referendum as a single-vote type for some reason, it has 2 choises, "Yes" and "No", and it is possible to select either one or both of them, just laike in an election; The top one is the one that counts.

So, please select only one option, and if you select more than one just the top one (number "1.") is counted for you.


The tokens are mailed in batches of 40 each, and mailing is done once per 5 minutes.
This is done to spread out the mailing to not appear to be spamming.
There are 5522 tokens to be mailed, which means it takes 5522/40*5 = 690 minutes = about 11.5 hours for all tokens to be mailed.
You will get yours in due time. :)

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

;) i suppose i need new token, as i voted nothing hehe

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Ahaaa!
Welly-well-well now..
good.
It isn't me or the obtuse system...
what we really need to decide things...
is a marmot, or a lemming, or gecko ...
make a big ceremony out of the process..
and if the beastie eats it's own tail...
or sumthin'...
another joyous year of maemoan prosperity!
Simple and easy.

Works for us Canucks...
we got Wiarton Willie [the famous groundhog]
who for so so so so sooooo long now [I think he is a mystical groundhog since he never seems to age..] has announced through his prognostications the early or late arrival of spring in Canada...
I've even seen Willie on a few spring occasions when the ceremony is held...[he lives in Wiarton about 30 min 45 min from the family] ...cool guy

The U.S. has an upstart named Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby who invariably is wrong so don't listen to him...

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Yes, there are brand new shiny tokens in the mails that are currently being sent out :D

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

All voting tokens for the election have been mailed now.
If you have not received the token, please contact me or the Council and we will sort it out.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Vote submitted :)

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

vote submitted

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

...aaaand?

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Do you have to be special to vote ?

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Yes, of course!
Special in the meaning of having a garage.maemo.org account with a karma value of at least 10 points.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Of course, everybody here is very special! ;)
Even more so those with a Karma of at least 10 that have linked their talk.m.o account with maemo.org profile...

In your case, with 257 posts and 197 thanks on t.m.o, that's more than enough... Link your profiles and contact juiceme, he can then send you the tokens.
Same applies to all others who haven't linked profiles yet, ofc.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

I see that you indeed have a maemo.org account too; http://maemo.org/profile/view/tommo/
Because you have not linked your TMO and maemo.org accounts your Karma on maemo.org shows up only as 3 points from Group Activities.
When you link your accounts you will have also have 16 points from TMO posts and 119 points from TMO thanks, yielding a total Karma of 138

You need to do as win7mac advises; link your accounts together.
Doing it will update your Karma the next time it is calculated by the Midgard scripts.

However; since it will probably be over a week until the Karma update will be run on your account we need to do something about it now.

If you tell me your registration email address (so I can verify that the accounts http://maemo.org/profile/view/tommo and http://talk.maemo.org/member.php?u=49240 both really belong to you) then I can add your Karma to the database manually and generate your voting tokens.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Final reminder! There's less than half-a-day to vote in the Referendum!
The voting closes today at 23:59:59 UTC

http://maemo.org/vote/vote.php?election_id=44

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

The referendum vote has been calculated, and the resolution is "Yes"

See the results on the voting page: http://maemo.org/vote/results.php?election_id=44

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

okayyy... having created MC e.V. for the most part, it somewhat saddens me that 9 people voted no (and 3 "abstained"). :(
I really would like to hear the reasons and arguments of the nay-sayers. Since I don't expect everyone to carry out their disapproval here, my first action as new councilor: I put up this webpad where you can post anonymously. :cool:

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

I was one such vote. I did so because I've seen what trying to integrate Council into a legal body can do from my experience with HiFo. I still believe that nothing good can come from mingling a legal entity with a non-legal entity. Council has a non-authenticated membership which can hold no legal liability, and integrating them legally is frankly a bad idea.

Had the vote gone "no" Council would still exist, and would make it's rumblings known to the e.V. in the same way it did to Nokia, with about the same legal power. The difference being that the e.V. would at least publicly respond to such things and may even try to address and fix things brought up by Council from the community.

Since I'm not part of the e.V., nor an EU citizen, all I can do is wish you well at this point. I never again wish to be involved in a legal establishment with elements that have no legal liability for their poor choices.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Hm, then it wasn't made clear enough, I guess.
The referendum is to fix exactly the concern you raised. It is explained in "Part 2 - Council role & MC eV Bylaws" of the announcement:

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

I've seen that, but I'm still not seeing where Council can take on responsibility for things they demand done. There are plenty of things that are legal to do that can still have consequences. For example: Forcing a decision on renewing trademarks. Either path is legal, but consequences each way are different, and land on the e.V., not Council.

Sorry, but my opinion is unchanged. Mingling legal entities and non-legal entities in a legal frame work is, IMHO, a bad decision. The resolution has passed, so anything I say has little relevance on the process. I'm simply stating why I chose the option I did.

It's OK to disagree. I'm slightly indifferent because I'm not the one in the cross hairs this time. I wish you all well and hope I'm wrong this time. If not, the community may simply have to re-learn this painful lesson again.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

Woody, we discussed it in the other thread and we agree on the concern.
But, in MC e.V., Council is not a legal entity, it's a committee. And their domain/responsibility/competence now is clearly defined as Representation of the community, Counseling of the Board and to execute all elections.
So from my view, they aren't able to force other things (like TM renewal) since they're not entitled to.

If you still think there's a flaw, please tell me via email.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

I voted no.

in short my view is the council adds UN-nessary compilations and is no longer needed, we are just keeping it for historical reasons

if you want to influence the legal body (MCeV), you should join it.

for those who wish to stay anonymous but still have control:
legal responsibility and anonymity do not go together its either one or the other. giving control without responsibility is plain stupid.
but feel free to clearly voice your reasoning - most people here seem reasonable, and will take your view into due consideration.

but in saying that strictly, and clearly defining what the council can do should keep the situation manageable, its just not my preferred solution.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

That's funny, I voted "yes" for exactly the same reason. Maybe I missunderstood something. Now you got me worried.

Re: [Council] Referendum 2015
 

I agree with almost everything you said chainsawbike ...
except that 1st bit...
Determining the relevancy of the council ...
well ...
from the varied reasons people have given for yea and nay to it...
and all of them voicing the conviction of the validity of their stances ...
quoting or calling upon varied regulation, law, etc.
and all of them having very sound arguments for yea and nay...
and after reading everything pertaining to those backed quotes...
In small part ...I do agree with your view ..council is kept for historical reasons.
Myself...I see nothing wrong in that.
Having a visible past and seeing the progression from it and where one is in the present..means one can navigate more easily ..get ones bearings and see the direction for the future more easily..
Erasing the past ..means there is no anchor, no rudder, nothing behind you to mark where you have been and to keep your direction true ahead of you..
It may seem a poor metaphor...
But here in North America we see it everyday...
the goal [excepting some places] is to tear down the old buildings and landmarks and build the new directly on top...
This wasn't always the norm..but as the philo. took hold and gained ...to the point that ...now we have a society here in N.A. who's intent is simply to build the next thing...From my view it is a meaningless growth ...like a cancer...a tower of Babel of epic proportions...

I'm all in favour of keeping our History and building with it.
Not razing it to the ground and building on the ashes.
Hell come to think of it..
Our whole site is historical ..hehe..
and all our devices and our os's and pretty much all our software...
Android, Iphone, WP, and all the rest ...they have the latest...they have their sites, and their forums too.
But they don't have a lovely old home like ours. And I adore our home. Who burns out a closet, a room or an entire floor of their home when it isn't useful anymore?

What the council may accomplish ...I see that as a wide open vista of possibility ...
So I differ slightly on that topic...
otherwise ...
I agree with the fact people should join the MCeV.
and
I agree ...
anonymous responsibility?
Forget it...
When we have unaccountable [in every possible meaning of the term..] boards, councils, or groups of anonymous shadowy members making important decisions...
Just give me the heads up when that becomes acceptable...
so I can get a head-start on work in my studio for timely carving out the funerary monument ...the tombstone... for this place and all of us.