On Aug 25, 2008, at 23:44, Nicholas Solter wrote: > I'm failing to understand why you need the "vouch for" step if > someone's > already a contributor in their "collective." What does it add? I > tend to > agree with John that it's redundant with being previously granted > contributor status in the collective, because presumably the person > was > already "vouched for" at that point.
Not really. We want the step from "Participant" to "Contributor" to be a really easy step to take, without the implication that taking is is also a nomination to Electorate Member. If we over-load the Contributor status we risk chilling the community. The "Vouching" that the Leader is doing here is not that a peson is a Contributor; it is that the Contributor is in fact a person whose contributions are "Substantial" to the level the Membership Committee asserts is necessary for Electorate Membership. At present we reserve that status only for Core Contributors, and by taking the simplification steps discussed here we are opening the Electorate to many more people to participate. Asserting that the benchmark for Electorate Member is "Substantial Contribution" places a useful value on that status. > I particularly don't see how it > does anything about the problem of each collective doing what it > pleases > in terms of granting contributor status. Can't each collective leader > still do what he/she pleases in vouching for nominees for member > status? While your question is actually answered above, it's also worth noting that the Membership Committee can and should "sample" the judgement of the various Leaders performing these confirmation steps. I'd envisage they could opt to suspend automatic acceptance in the case of Leaders with "low standards" and treat the applications as if they had used the "two existing Members" option. S.
