2015-02-22 14:08 GMT+01:00 Magdalen Berns <m.be...@thismagpie.com>: > Again, a brilliant question. On the face of it this seems to be purely about > reducing paper work for the membership committee (i.e. fewer applications > means less work for them). However there are clearly some implications which > affect our democratic processes. The question of whether we have a > justifiable reason to take steps like this to deny this group of people a > vote or not on the basis we worry they might not use it, is an important one > because that does not objectively make sense. Clearly, the extra paper work > shouldn't be a factor in decisions like this.
The Membership Committee actions are unequivocally oriented to the benefit of the GNOME Foundation. I've been chairing the Committee since five years now and this is honestly the first time ever someone arises a controversial point on the policy and procedures we follow when processing new or renewal applications. The following thread started by Sriram with the pure scope of enhancing the membership application experience it diverged into a crescendum of accusations to the Membership Committee which clearly state the fact you are missing the point of being a GNOME Foundation Member. From your point of view being a Foundation member strictly relates to having made a non-trivial amount of contributions (which is totally correct as per Bylaws) but there's one more action the applicant should perform in order for the application to be processed. This action juridically speaking is an act of will. The person by browsing [1] and filling in all the fields acknowledge its intent to apply for Foundation Membership. Applying for membership is not an obligation of any kind and you aren't required to submit an application if you don't have a real interest in doing so. The following announcement [2] (which seems to have caused so much confusion between interns) is misleading in many ways and seems to suggest interns they should apply - not because they believe in the GNOME Foundation and the values it pursues - but for the mere reason to keep a blog aggregated to Planet GNOME. If I was an intern myself reading such an announcement and without having a knowledge of what Foundation membership is about I could definitely started seeing the membership itself as a way for my blog to stay aggregated on Planet GNOME. There's no single reference of what Foundation membership is about, what the duties are and what we are trying to accomplish in terms of building a membership base made of people who really believe in our mission, participate to the community discussions, vote on the yearly elections. Many interns probably applied for Membership after reading that announcement having in mind the fact having keeping their public visibility through their blog was only possible if they requested membership. This totally goes against what Foundation membership is about. Our mission - as the Membership Committee - is to make sure a strong and consistent membership base is created in terms of contributors who want to step forward and join the Foundation because they believe doing so can definitely strengthen their relationship with the project and bring it to the next level. As stated on my previous e-mail [3] we've seen a lot of interns dropping their contributions to zero right after the internship ended so while they contributed in a non-trivial way to the Foundation why would they even decide to apply afterwards? they are NOT obliged to apply for membership and they probably wouldn't apply if they knew that being a member is not only receiving a bunch of benefits but also being an active part of the community participating to discussions and voting at every year's elections. The rationale behind an extended period for interns isn't there because we don't believe interns have contributed enough or because of their gender (yeah, you even managed to accuse the Committee to apply blanket rules depending on the gender of the applicant [4]) but just to find out whether there was a strong and real interest in joining the GNOME Foundation going beyond having a blog aggregated on Planet GNOME. While this thread (not how it started but how it diverged) is full of accusations I don't recall hearing a single intern reaching out the Committee complaining about her application being rejected. Not a single case out of hundreds I personally processed since 2009. We value our members and we always make sure to use our discretionary power to further the goals of the GNOME Foundation, this in many ways: 1. by introducing Emeritus [5] 2. by supporting former members who have decreased the number of contributions to re-apply and be accepted trying to encourage them keeping up their valuable contributions over the project without leaving We aren't scared about having more paper work in place and we never neglected to call for help in case we needed it. [6] [7] The Membership Committee - as I see it - is here to make the Foundation a welcoming place for every single contributor willing to join (and not being forced to do so for a specific benefit to be kept) and having a real, strong, durable interest in the Foundation and the values it pursues. That's all we care about. [1] https://www.gnome.org/foundation/membership/apply [2] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-soc-list/2014-August/msg00000.html [3] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2015-February/msg00087.html [4] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2015-February/msg00123.html [5] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2012-May/msg00015.html [6] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2012-March/msg00046.html [7] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2014-April/msg00045.html -- Cheers, Andrea Debian Developer, Fedora / EPEL packager, GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator, GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary, GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/~av _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list