Hi Britt It's good to hear from you. :) Everyone start with zero -- I think the point is we could see what do you think. Thanks for want to made pubic as timely and reasonable.
Thanks again for running the board. Max * Philip Chimento: 2019/6/4 * Christel Dahlskjaer: 2019/6/4 * Benjamin Berg: 2019/6/4 * Allan Day: 2019/6/4 * Tristan Van Berkom: 2019/6/4 * Carlos Soriano: 2019/6/4 * Robert McQueen: 2019/6/5 * Niels De Graef: 2019/6/5 * Britt Yazel: 2019/6/6 * Federico Mena Quintero * Christopher Davis On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 12:44 AM Britt Yazel <bwya...@gnome.org> wrote: > Hi Max, > > Sorry for my late response, however as I have never held a board seat > before I do not have the experience to comment either way on the timing of > the release of board meeting minutes. > > With that said and after reading the prior responses, my personal > preference is to be as quick as is possible in releasing the minutes while > the conversations and points are fresh in our minds. I have found that the > longer things sit, the more likely they are to fall by the wayside, and the > Foundation members deserve to have a timely and transparent board of > directors. > > I hesitate to promise anything as far as a time table commitment, as it > would not be up to me alone when the minutes are released, and without > having personally experienced these board meeting structure, promising > anything of the sort would, in my opinion, be irresponsible. I can say that > the best of my ability I will see that the meeting minutes are made public > as timely and efficiently as is reasonable. I am also happy to revisit the > conversation once the board is elected to see if as a team we can agree on > a reasonable timetable. > > Thanks, > > -Britt Yazel > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 4:13 AM Max via foundation-list < > foundation-list@gnome.org> wrote: > >> Hi Robert >> >> Thanks for reply my question again. >> We could have many information when we see the reply. >> Just like my last mail -- the list could be "Answer" or "Not Answer", >> "Date" or "None" >> >> I just check the foundation-list@gnome.org mail list last year( 2018 ). >> " There is no question to board candidates " >> At 2017, only 1 question to board candidates. >> >> I just explain why I do that -- If there is no reply from candidates -- >> We just have their bio :p >> >> >> Max >> >> On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 6:48 PM Robert McQueen <ra...@gnome.org> wrote: >> >>> Hi Max, >>> >>> On Wed, 2019-06-05 at 09:26 +0800, Max via foundation-list wrote: >>> >>> We are all volunteer live in different time zone, we have real job and >>> life. So we will do community task at rest time of real life. >>> It's good to do community task in reasonable time. >>> I think ask question to candidates during the election time -- we might >>> be see how busy they are in real life. >>> To guess how much time the candidates could spend on community tasks. >>> If someone is real great but he / she is 100% or 90% busy in real life, >>> she / he might be have no time to help. >>> >>> >>> Serving on the board is a form of volunteering your time to help the >>> GNOME community. It comes with specific and quite predictable time >>> commitments in terms of the board meetings, e-mails, etc that being a board >>> member entails - usually around 2 hours a week, and usually at the same >>> time each week. As Carlos points out, these are rarely urgent. The board >>> has actually been trying to take a more "hands off" role - focusing on >>> oversight, strategy, etc rather than day to day or urgent decisions. The >>> Foundation now has 7 full-time staff and they should be able to dedicate >>> far more time and be more responsive. >>> >>> So - provided the board candidate is able to dedicate these specific >>> times, I don't think response time or availability to volunteer for >>> additional things should necessarily be considered while assessing board >>> candidates for election - if someone isn't available to volunteer for >>> community tasks that doesn't mean they will be a bad board member. I hope >>> in my case the opposite is true - I am very busy in my personal and >>> professional life because I am on the leadership team of Endless, a company >>> that works with GNOME - but this means I have experience as a >>> director/executive which I think I can use to help the Foundation board set >>> a good strategy and sensible policies, manage it's resources well, manage >>> the ED, etc. Whether a board member takes on additional >>> community/volunteering tasks (eg organising a conference, joining a >>> committee, being an officer like secretary or treasurer, etc) is a separate >>> decision. (I personally don't have a lot /more/ time to give, but when I do >>> I choose to spend it on Flatpak/Flathub because I think the app ecosystem >>> is a blocker to the Linux desktop's overall growth and impact.) >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Rob >>> >>> >>> The date is for UTC +08:00 in my local time. >>> >>> * Philip Chimento: 2019/6/4 >>> * Christel Dahlskjaer: 2019/6/4 >>> * Benjamin Berg: 2019/6/4 >>> * Allan Day: 2019/6/4 >>> * Tristan Van Berkom: 2019/6/4 >>> * Carlos Soriano: 2019/6/4 >>> * Robert McQueen: 2019/6/5 >>> >>> * Britt Yazel >>> * Niels De Graef >>> * Federico Mena Quintero >>> * Christopher Davis >>> >>> On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 4:55 AM Robert McQueen <ra...@gnome.org> wrote: >>> >>> Hi Max, >>> >>> For what it's worth - I agree very strongly with Carlos here. The >>> community seems very "latched on" to minutes as the only/best way to hear >>> from or understand the board. I believe that on the whole Philip and >>> Federico as Secretary and Vice-Secretary have been doing as good a job as >>> could reasonably be expected of them, in terms of keeping the process >>> running and making sure the minutes happen and are published within weeks >>> rather than months. It's certainly as good or as close to as good as I've >>> seen it during the past few years, and as a time-starved collection of >>> volunteers, I don't think it's feasible for an incoming director to promise >>> that the preparation of minutes will change significantly. >>> >>> That said; we hear the concerns about timeliness and transparency but >>> really - poring over summarised board minutes looking for decisions (or >>> conspiriacies) and second-guessing justifications/motivations is not a good >>> way to build trust and transparency. Communication should be more >>> intentional and directed, ideally the board should be more accessible. This >>> is why I blogged about the key topics and things we were aiming to do from >>> our hackfest last year. >>> >>> I think that Carlos' GitLab and Discourse suggestions are great, and >>> maybe there are some other things we could consider - some round table / >>> AMA things - so that the board is in discussion with the membership more >>> frequently than the big Q&A "meet the new board" at GUADEC. At this exact >>> time, the new board don't really know what they're doing (or about to do) - >>> at least I certainly didn't - so you might get intentions/aspirations but >>> very little insight into what is actually ongoing and why. >>> >>> (As a side point, I am also not used to the concept that a board or >>> other panel would /not/ periodically approve it's previous minutes - but I >>> would also not expect a board to ordinarily meet every two weeks. We've >>> moved from weekly to bi-weekly meetings during this board term, which is >>> great, but ideally as we build trust/process/oversight in the ED and staff, >>> the board should ideally have to meet less often.) >>> >>> As the staff team grows, more of the "stuff the foundation does" should >>> move away from the board making micro-decisions, and more towards "business >>> as usual" for the staff. Then the reporting and transparency requirement >>> moves from the board to the staff - especially as they are (by their very >>> existence) consuming donor funds. So I feel this transparency is also very >>> important. As the ED line manager, I think we've made some progress during >>> this term and have converted some of Neil's reporting to the board into eg >>> a blog post visible to the community, but clearer and more frequent updates >>> on "what is the foundation doing" particularly through the activities of >>> staff is something I would hope to be able to continue working on with Neil >>> and his team over the coming year. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Rob >>> >>> On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 22:22 +0200, Carlos Soriano wrote: >>> >>> Hi Max, >>> >>> Thanks for your question. You raise a very good point, I agree with you >>> that we need to improve participation of the community on board topics, and >>> it's specially difficult if the information is delayed for too long. >>> >>> This is indeed a difficult situation. Some topics that the board >>> discusses are quite sensible, and sometimes we are in doubt whether parts >>> of it are private or not, so that requires consensus and therefore delays >>> happen. As you can imagine, we rely on volunteer time to discuss and >>> process them, and the availability of each director and secretaries is >>> limited. In all honesty, while this can always be improved with our current >>> processes, I think Philip Chimento and Federico made an excellent job with >>> minutes. >>> >>> However, let me comment about the lack of participation. I think one of >>> the reasons is that minutes are simply not the best tool for this. Minutes >>> feel to me too much of a one way communication, and on top of that they are >>> over email, which is not the most encouraging tool to manage and track >>> discussions. They are good for keeping a record, but not so good for much >>> else. Improving this situation was one of the reasons we moved our key >>> conversations to GitLab issues, so community members could closely follow >>> them and chime in directly if wanted. >>> >>> My vision to encourage more participation would be around using more >>> tooling such as GitLab and Discourse for board discussions, and on top of >>> that, keep pushing on our goal to put as early as possible key initiatives >>> there to allow members to actually participate. I believe we have a big >>> room to improve, specially with initiatives that are not time sensible. >>> >>> Lastly, an interesting idea I think we could do is a round of questions >>> to the membership to know what topics they were interested in and that we >>> could have done better with their minutes. Although I believe the board is >>> always open to feedback, I personally look forward to know about those. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Carlos Soriano >>> >>> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019 at 02:43, Max via foundation-list < >>> foundation-list@gnome.org> wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> Thanks for running for the board. >>> >>> Thanks everyone who want take times to make GNOME better. >>> Just a simple question about Minutes of the board meeting. >>> >>> Data and information might be different. >>> For me - a GNOME foundation member >>> >>> Data - Get "Minutes of the board meeting" after 1 month or 2 weeks after. >>> ---- Because maybe the event is already close or over. >>> >>> Information - Get "Minutes of the board meeting" in 1 week or 10 days. >>> ---- Because something might be happening and everyone could discuss >>> with board and reply. >>> >>> ==== Here is the question ==== >>> >>> Could you promise to think a way --- Everyone get "Minutes of the board >>> meeting" in a very close time? >>> >>> Here is my suggestion. >>> Maybe there will be a table to record the "Minutes of the board meeting" >>> announcement time and does it announce in short time? >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> | board meeting | Minutes | in 10 days ? >>> | >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> | 2019/4/29 | 2019/5/22 | No >>> | >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> | 2019/4/8 | 2019/5/15 | No >>> | >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> | 2019/3/13 | 2019/5/15 | No >>> | >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> Maybe it could be a record in GNOME annual report？ >>> ---- There are ? % for Minutes of the board meeting on time to announce. >>> >>> I want to say --- It not just secretary task, It's the information we >>> want to get from all GNOME Board member. >>> >>> Thanks again for all who take time to running the board >>> >>> >>> Max >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> foundation-list mailing list >>> foundation-list@gnome.org >>> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> >>> foundation-list mailing list >>> >>> foundation-list@gnome.org >>> >>> >>> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> >>> foundation-list mailing list >>> >>> foundation-list@gnome.org >>> >>> >>> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> foundation-list mailing list >> foundation-list@gnome.org >> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list >> >
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