Call for comments on IRCC nominees

[Alan Pope]

Hi Joseph,

Here are some answers formulated by myself. To be clear and
unambiguous I speak only for myself not the entire CC. Other members
of the CC may have similar or differing opionions which they may or
may not share with you, the IRCC or me.

I hope these answer your questions, and I'm sure you'll tell me if they don't.

2009/12/16 Joseph Price <pricechild at gmail.com>:
> Great, so as a summary of the 6 points I have raised...
>
> From: IrcCouncilChanges: Delegation, Contact & Disputes:
>
> 1. Link to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncil/Delegation if you
> expect the IRCC to be held by it.
>        - No CC response.
>

Maybe. MOTU is the only team page which links to that currently in its
header, none of the others do. I class this as "minor" as I'd expect
the people we choose/elect to be on a council to have some semblence
of clue about these kinds of things. If someone wants to add a similar
boilerplate to the top of the IRC Council page I don't think that
would be unreasonable.

> 2. A (silly) request to change the wording of best contact, to better
> reflect that we are talking about IRC.
>        - No CC response.
>

You said.

""IRC Council members should be accessible by and responsive to the IRC
community (i.e. through a dedicated mailing list)."

I find it amusing that it suggests our most rampant irc'ers would be
most accessible and responsive on email. Just to humour me, could we
please change the example to something like "(i.e. in a dedicated irc
channel)". It seems a lot more appropriate to me."

I disagree. I am still of the opinion (as I was when we very first met
in person at UDS Sevilla) that the IRCC should have at least _some_
representation from someone who is _not_ an IRC Op, indeed I'd go
further and to say it should have representation from someone for whom
IRC is not their primary means of contact. This was roundly
pooh-poohed by all of you in the room (most of whom became the IRCC
[Fancy that]). It is _still_ my opinion that the IRCC should contain
people with a not-intense-IRC background.

So, your assertion that the IRCC contains only "rampant irc'ers" does
not match with my opinion, so I disagree with this point you have
raised. I also think it's unhealthy for _all_ IRCC communication to
happen in IRC.

> 3. Questions about the intent of the line: "Ops are welcome to apply
> for a role on the council and retain their Op status, but they are
> also informed that in the interests of having a separation of power,
> they also have the opportunity to step down as an Op temporarily."
>        - No CC response.
>

We (CC) discussed internally the option of _forcing_ members of the
IRCC to lose their IRC op powers when they are on the IRCC. This was
considered controversial and unworkable, so it was toned down to what
you see above.

> ---
>
> From IrcCouncilChanges: Decision making & coverage.
>
> 4. Suggestion that the previous rules on voting are broken and the
> wording in the charter should be fixed.
>        - pleia responded agreeing to this change.
>        - No changes yet made to IrcCouncil document or feedback from CC.
>

Observe that Liz _is_ a member of the CC. So "pleia responded" and "No
... feedback from CC" are incompatible. Recall in my last mail:-

"It's possible for us to accept comments and take those on board as we
revise the governance structure without every CC member replying
"+1/-1" to every point raised."

I have no problem with this waiting until the IRCC is chosen. I have
been on councils where the members are flexible about voting, in that
they will allow deferred voting by absentee members via (for example)
an email subsequent to the meeting - or indeed before it if they are
known to be unable to attend in person. That depends on the people on
the council though - which - we don't know yet.

Whilst we could nail down that wording, I don't see it's a major
issue, and I'm highly confident that a new IRCC will be happy to work
with us on the feedback we have received.

> 5. Request for clarification on Scope of the IRC Council.
>        - pleia responded, adequately displaying that she does not
> understand how our group registration form with freenode works.
>        - I assume no other CC members understood this either?
>        - I've done my best to explain the current GRF, and ask how we
> should define the scope. No response from CC since this.
>

You had multiple responses on that subject, and I still fail to see
why this needs nailing down before we have the IRCC in place. I'm
envisioning a new IRCC which feels it can collaborate with the CC on
issues such as this to reach a set of governance standards which meet
the requirements of the Ubuntu project, individual project teams and
Freenode.

> From this email trail.
>
> 6. Request to finish the IrcCouncil charter, before an IRCC is elected.
>        - CC Response: "complete discussion on any final lingering
> issues once the new IRCC is in place".
>
> ---
>

Which I still maintain is the case.

> I think that point 6 is the most important. I DO NOT AGREE that these
> 'final lingering issues' should wait. I think that issues 1. 3. & 5.
> need to be fixed as soon as possible. I believe that at least 5. needs
> to be resolved before the IRCC moves forward with anything more.
>

We disagree then.

> Would I be ok to go ahead with changing the wording with respect to
> point 4. above?
>

See above answer to 4.

Cheers,
Al.