On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 4:16 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Currently the Fedora board is made of 9 members with 4 of them being >> appointed. What are the benefits of this arrangement, and is there a >> path where the Board could move to being completely elected? > > Appointments allow for the selection of > individuals/leaders/experts/liasons in areas which are anticipated to > be emerging/critical/focal/overlooked in the upcoming year or to > otherwise balance out the composition of the Board to broaden the > board's onboard experience pool. Curious no one on the board suggested this as a benefit during the meeting but I can certainly accept it as one. > In my experience, the appointments are effectively done by Board > consensus based on FPL proposals. If of the _elected_ members of the > board gave push back about a specific appointment that was proposed by > the FPL, I would expect it to result in some review and most likely > another choice. > > I think there is value continuing that practise, and perhaps > formalizing the role the sitting Board members play in accepting the > FPL proposals for appointments. But there is certainly room to reduce > the number of appointed seats down from four to three or two. I would > keep two appointed seats around. While the reasons I gave during the meeting, things that I and others view as negative impacts from the current arrangement, have been omitted from the discussion here I do want to say that I'm not against 4 appointed seats in the abstract. The issues I identified flow more from the concentration of appointment power than from the appointments themselves. While I doubt they would want to, if FESCo and FAmSCo each appointed someone they felt would bring value to board and the FPL appointed the other two that would go a long way toward alleviating the problems as well. (I'm not suggesting this, just making a point.) > But instead of moving some appointed seats to elected seats.. what if > you just chop off one or two seats completely and drop the Board down > to 7 official members plus the FPL. I'm really not sure our elections > process can really handle more elected seats. I'd much rather see an > elections process that can sustain up to at least twice the number > candidates than their are seats. Adding more seats does not mean we > get more high quality candidates standing up for election. This had a lot of initial appeal to me when I first read it but the downside is that it would remove opportunities for newer folks to participate. There does seem to be a fair number of one and done board members (folks joining the board only to leave after a single term). My impression from the ones who have spoken in public about their reasons is that being on the board is a fair amount of work and involves a fair amount of frustration. I'm curious if they would offer an opinion on whether they think the board would function better if it had fewer people? John _______________________________________________ advisory-board mailing list advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board
