board77

People, I’ve tried to put all the eligibility options in choosable form. Please do not start sending in ballots yet. Look over the ballot and make sure it contains all the options that we have discussed. If something is missing, please call my attention to it in this thread.

The vote after this one will be on ¶3: Selection of Administrators, and that will cover how administrators are put into the pool, approved by members, selected from the pool for term of office, etc.

Because some members of this committee do not seem to be here every day, I will leave this ballot up for your review and correction until Friday. At noon, GMT, on Friday you can begin pasting the ballot into your posts and voting in this thread.

BALLOT
for Article 2: ¶2: Eligibility of Members to Serve as Administrators

Question 1:
To serve as an administrator a member should be eighteen years of age,

Select:
#1= Yes
#2= No

Question 2:
A. have been a member for six months with a post count of 250
B. have been a member for six months with a post count of 500
C. have been a member for one year with a post count of 250
D. have been a member for one year with a post count of 500
E. have been a member for six months while maintaining a continuous, visible, and contributory presence on the board
F. have been a member for one year while maintaining a continuous, visible, contributory presence on the board

Please Rank your preferences, with #1 being the most preferred:
#1=
#2=
#3=
#4=
#5=
#6=

Question 3:
and have spent enough time on the experimental board to demonstrate an ability to perform the routine functions of administration.

Select:
#1= Yes
#2= No

Question 4:
A. The same person may serve as administrator more than once, but not in two consecutive terms

B. The same person may serve as administrator more than once, but not twice in a twelve month period

Select:
#1 = A
#2 = B

Question 5:
A member may not begin a term of office while participating in any capacity in an Arbitration involving a current Administrator or a Hearing on a Ban.

Select:
#1 = Yes
#2 = No

Question 6:
Registered members as of March 12, 2005 are eligible to serve as administrators providing they have spent enough time on the experimental board to demonstrate an ability to perform the routine functions of administration and are not participating in any capacity in an Arbitration involving a current Administrator or a Hearing on a Ban.

Select:
#1 =Yes
#2 = No

Sounds excellent!

One question, though:
Question 6, it seems, only makes sense if the rules are meant to differentiate between current members and newer members?

I mean, if I vote "must have been a member for six months", normally I couldn't vote "yes" on question six. So I can only understand it being there if voting "yes" there means: "must have been a member for six months, except current members who are all eligible regardless of how long they have been here (provided they have shown the necessary ability on the experimental board)"?

I think it is TH, because now the clause of six months is not yet appliable (anwendbar....), so for the transition period, all those who have been member on march 12th 2005 can be admins.

Quote:

Question 4:
A. The same person may serve as administrator more than once, but not in two consecutive terms

B. The same person may serve as administrator more than once, but not twice in a twelve month period

I see a problem here. If we agree that there needs to be continuity from one admin term to another then it may sometimes be necessary to have an admin serve 2 consecutive terms. If the Admin terms are staggered that isn't an issue, but we haven't yet voted on that and I don't want to end up in a situation where we vote for one reason or another to have uniform Admin terms and are preculded from allowing continuity.

Can we include the length of Admin Terms in this ballot and whether or not they will be staggered?

Alatar

Alantar: continuity does not have to imply the resigning person has to have admin powers. All it means really for continuity to take place (hand-over period really) is for that outgoing Admin member to be available for advise should the new admin member need it (which does not necessarily happen as there will always be one more experienced Admin in the team). This can easily take place through either PMs or IM contact.

Looks good to me but I won't be available to vote. Plain leaves Friday at 13.ooh GMT

_______________
Resident witch

Well, that sucks. Can Alandriel email her vote to someone or something early?

Alatar,

Staggered terms were voted on by the membership at large before the committee convened. Things that were already voted on and are consistent with the other decisions that we are making here I am putting straight into the document without making us vote on them again.

If you look at the "Document So far" thread, I moved those sections over last night - they're part of the paragraph on terms of office. I had a note about this in one of the first three posts in the Admin powers thread, but I erased it once I moved the text.

It's not clear to me how much power we have to override what the members at large decided, but I think we should be conservative about it. Something like voting on each individual admin ... we're changing the entire system that goes with that, so I haven't prevented that from being overturned, but things like whether a term begins in January or February, I am honoring the prior decision of the members and sparing us work we don't need.

TH - yes, when I went through the thread double-checking everything last night I also pulled my own suggestion that there be a special provision for members who are already here so that we have a large enough pool to draw from. Question #6 would make those here by March 12 an exception to the rule. They could serve as admins whenever this part of the charter goes into effect and don't have to wait until September or next March.

Jn

Jn, I think we can safely take out the 300 option. I know I suggested it, but at the time I hadn't done my homework, apparently. Wheps! Since I suggested 300, I recommend removing it and getting rid of some of the ballot clutter. I don't think we need an option between 250 and 500 --- I could live with either one of those, to be honest.

Ok.

Jn

So how would continuous, visible, contributory presence on the board be enforced?

I like the sound of that option, but it seems there is a huge part of that option that is yet unstated, at least in the ballot. What does it mean, exactly, and how it would be enforced? Who would decide if someone had a continuous, contributory presence on the board?

Faramond - I'll ask Truehobbit to elaborate on that and make it more specific if necessary. It was her idea that there should be a qualitative approach rather than a quantitative approach.

Jn

I wonder if the language about "continuous, contributory presence" would be better in some kind of guideline for voting on batches of admins--telling the voting board members what they should look for in an admin? It's qualitative, but I do see its importance.

In other words, it may be too vague to use as a strict criterion of eligibility, but not too vague to be one of the factors a voter takes into consideration.

In the agenda I've added a category of 'guidelines' where we might consider text to the effect of avoiding a situation where all the admins are in the same time zone. That might be a good place for qualitative statements such as this one.

I'm not sure exactly where this consideration would take place though. Time zone considerations occur when pulling people out of the pool and into a term of office. General competency evaluation has to occur before they go into the pool. Unless there are just several 'guidelines' (as opposed to rule) that apply to different stages of the process.

Jn

Well, I was thinking it might fit into the general question "Is there any reason any one of these people should not be an admin?"--which is what people ought to be asking themselves as they vote. "Contributory" might make people reflect on the quality as well as the quantity of a person's posts.

Thanks Nin and Jny for answering my question - d'uh, yes, if everybody has to be there for six months none of us could be an admin (no one told me you'd need basic maths for this committee)!
Though I guess that also means we can't really vote "no" for No. 6, doesn't it?

Faramond, yes, Prim explained it very well already, the idea was that this has to go together with a vote or the possibility for people to object to a volunteer.
If someone volunteers, then the other members would have to judge whether that person has been around enough to be able to understand the boards, which would be seen by a fairly constant visible presence (i.e. the person would need to post occasionally, the hope being that an occasional high-quality post would leave a bigger impression than frequent spammy posts).
So, if someone volunteers who no one has ever seen on the boards, or not seen enough or never with a good post, you'd vote "no" on their suitability.

It would also not debar someone who you know to be a constant intelligent participant, but who just doesn't post enough to have reached 500 posts, for example.

Now, most people here reach fairly high post-counts in a short time, so I can't really imagine someone who is here regularly ending up with less than 250 posts after six months (if this were the winning option). But the idea is also that I don't want to reward posting a lot, without regard to quality, by automatic eligibility for being an admin.

So, my problem with the other options was: if we have a high postcount limit, we might debar a lot of intelligent people who just aren't very chatty. If we have a low postcount limit, people become eligible automatically very soon, irrespective of the quality of their contributions.
My version tried to get around that problem somehow - whether it's feasible that way or whether such an inexact definition leads to unfairness we'd need to discuss, but as it's put in Prim's statement above, I think it sounds fair. (And I wonder why I can't express myself so succinctly! )

th--

And I agree. The board will set its own standards, and those may change as time goes by.

TH,

So, would you like me to remove it from the list of strict requirements and put it back on the agenda under guidelines? Or perhaps in the part where we discuss how to vote on the suitability of prospective admins?

Jn

Jny, I think I prefer it as a "requirement" to the ones that give a certain postcount number, because it's the only option under which you don't become eligible automatically.
I'm not entirely sure what "putting it under guidelines" entails, too.
As I said, I'm not sure about how well it would work, but I'd like to leave that to the group to decide, it's just something I don't know myself on my own. We could discuss it, of course, but it seems easier to just leave it as an option, so if other people think it doesn't work they'll just not vote for this option. Does this make sense?

Btw, would voting be done at all if we have automatic eligibility by postcount/time as a member here (i.e. under any of the options A to D)?

Ok. I'll leave it in this vote. If it doesn't win, we can reconsider it as a guideline.

Jn

Thanks! ('Cos you're doing such an awesome job! )