Re: Restructuring Debian

[Nikhil Nair <nn201@cus.cam.ac.uk>]

Ian,

I don't remember seeing your nomination seconded - if that's the case, it
has been now :-).

On Thu, 5 Dec 1996, Ian Jackson wrote:

> Brian White:
> > (I've made the suggested changed and thought I would repost this.)
> 
> You've forgotten to say how and when the board of directors is
> elected.  I propose:
> 
>  Elections to the Board:
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  * The board will be elected by the developers; a developer may
>    nominate another person or themselves for election, and each
>    nomination must be seconded by another developer.
> 
>  * Elections to the board, if contested, will be by secret ballot by
>    email, using the Single Transferrable Vote system.  The first
>    candidate to be elected under this system in the election becomes
>    the chairman.

I'm not sure about the last point.  Plenty of people would make good Board
members without necessarily making good Chairmen.  May I suggest that the
Board chooses its Chairman, and in the case of a tie the first *of those
tied* will be the Chairman.  Note that I consider this better than Brian's
suggestion, as we still have no guarantee that the first elected would be
a good Chairman.

>
>  * The outgoing Secretary must appoint a returning officer, who must
>    not be one of the candidates.  The returning officer is responsible
>    for organising the election and declaring the result.
> 
>  * The board will serve for one calendar year.  An election for the
>    new board must be held within 1 month of the end of their term of
>    office.

That tends to sharpen the minds of those who want to keep their spot :-). 
I should know, I'm chairing an Extraordinary General Meeting of the
British blind football (soccer) governing committee on Saturday - we've
got to re-elect the whole committee because the Treasurer resigned ... 

>  * The board appoints the secretary from amongst its number.

That could work as for the Chairman, see above.

> 
> You mention the board chairman's casting vote.  This is not necessary,
> and will merely confuse: does the chairman get a casting vote _in
> addition_ to their normal vote ?

Yes, they do.  I think you've slightly misunderstood:

> 
> I propose that you replace:
>  * The board is limited to at most 5 people.  In the case of a tie vote,
>    the chair has the casting vote.
> with
>  * The board is limited to at most 7 people.  The chairman is
>    responsible for managing discussions amongst the board, and has
>    only a casting vote (to be used in case of tied votes).

OK, say one person (not the Chairman) abstains.  Before the Chairman's
vote the score is then 3-2.  In your scheme, even if the Chairman is on
the side of the 2, the 3 would win!  Under Brian's scheme (and in my
experience the normal one - certainly the case in British Blind Sport) the
Chairman would first vote as an ordinary individual, which would take it
to 3-3, and then have the casting vote as the vote was tied.

I think the Chairman's casting vote is important and wouldn't like to see
it removed.  I know I've been close to needing it a few times! :-)

Cheers,

Nikhil.

--
Nikhil Nair
Trinity College, Cambridge, England
Tel.: +44 1223 368353
Email: nn201@cus.cam.ac.uk
       nnair@debian.org




--
Please respect the confidentiality of material on the debian-private list.
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-private-REQUEST@lists.debian.org . Trouble? e-mail to Bruce@Pixar.com