IrcCouncilChanges: Decision making & coverage.

[Terence Simpson]

Joseph Price wrote:
> It seems my previous email was truncated... odd... but thanks pleia
> for getting back to me & being ok with suggestions from the community.
>
>
> I'd like to start off with two quotes from the governance document
> that I think are badly in need of a change.
>
> ---
>
> "Decisions will be made by a majority of voting IRC Council members
> when at least three and more than half of the total members have
> voted."
>
> This caused several issues whilst I sat on the council. I would
> propose that all decisions require approval by at least half the total
> members on the council. ie if only 3 members are present, then all 3
> would have to '+1' the decision. Two +1's and one abstaining would not
> suffice.
> This would avoid situations where 3 members attend a meeting, and a
> motion is passed with approval by 2 of those. The absent 2 may then be
> found to be against this decision.
>
> ---
>   
That makes sense, if there are only 3 members present then the vote must
be unanimous for it to pass.
But, I would like clarification on what happens when 3 members are
present but one of those has the casting vote, will/can that member use
the casting vote in that situation, or only when all members are present?
> "The Ubuntu IRC Council (''IRCC'') is the team governance council for
> the the Ubuntu IRC channels on the freenode network. " & "The IRC
> Council is the group that is ultimately responsible for the governing
> the IRC channels and interfacing between IRC and the rest of the
> Ubuntu community and governance systems."
> I don't think that these two sentences are define the scope of the
> IRCC well enough.
>
> Examination of http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml would be a
> good start to understand how projects work on freenode. Does the IRCC
> look after xubuntu's irc community, mythbuntu's, fluxbuntu's,
> randombuntu's? I think that a limit has to be set here in order for
> the group's governance to be effective. Of course future projects
> could be added when needed. Projects should want to use the ubuntu
> namespace in order to gain the benefits that being part of the Ubuntu
> IRC Community brings.
>
> Comments please! :-)
>
>   
The way I see it the term "Ubuntu IRC channels" refers to the channels
relating to the Ubuntu project/brand, not necessarily the OS. So any
Ubuntu project channels, in the core namespace (broadly #*buntu-*),
are/should be under the governance of the Ubuntu IRC Council. So Ubuntu,
Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, etc... are all part of the "Ubuntu project",
the IRC channels of which fall under the scope of the IRC Council.
However, the wording should be made more explicit to minimize
misunderstandings.

Terence Simpson
(tsimpson)