response 25 of 56:

Dec 17 23:37 UTC 1997

Was that carson?  I think I just had a heart attack.

response 27 of 56:

Dec 17 23:43 UTC 1997

Yep, I'm just a'sittin' here waitin' for a proposal.

(Story of my life, eh?  >8)

response 29 of 56:

Dec 18 00:32 UTC 1997

Hmmm...

None of the people I voted for were elected, except one.  And it wasn't me.
Still, I'm happy enough to do the work.  

response 31 of 56:

Dec 18 11:09 UTC 1997

There are basically 3 problems with recruiting people to a position of
"trust" in a small organization, such as grex:
 (1) the person has to be interested in doing the work.
 (2) the person has to be capable of doing the work.
 (3) other people have to know, and trust, that person.
A lack of any one of these abilities spells disaster for the
organization.  Someone who isn't interested obviously isn't going to do
any work.  Someone incompetent is obviously only going to botch it up.
These problems are simple, but the last problem is more complex.
Because people are selected by other people, if nobody knows that
person, nobody is in a position to evaluate whether that person is
really interested or capable of doing the work.  It is also possible
that the candidate is known to other people, and known *not* to be
interested or capable.  Trust is where things get really complicated,
because trust has so many different angles.  For instance, if we had a
person on grex who was capable, interested, but also power-hungry, and
known to be power-hungry, then it is very probable that other people on
grex would not trust that person.  (This is not true of all
organizations, but it *is* true of grex.) There is one more element of
trust that bears mentioning: trust is not *just* a
selection/representation issue, trust is an integral job duty of the
board.  Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the treasurer; the
guy who receives *your* mail and pays grex bills with it.  If people did
*not* trust this person with their money, grex would die in no time at
all.  (Some of m-net's current financial troubles are due directly to
user distrust of past treasurers.)  It is not just a question of whether
people trust the board members - it is also necessary that board members
trust other people.  For instance, if grex staff tell the board that
some certain thing needs to be bought for grex, it's necessary that the
board be able to trust the judgement of staff.

Unfortunately, a fundemental problem of small organizations, such as
grex, is that there are simply not *enough* qualified people.  Some of
this is simple economics.  I'm sure if we paid our board members, there
would be more people interested.  Some of this is a simple matter of
apathy.  In this past election, around 50% of the members didn't even
bother to vote.  That means, right off, half of the people eligible to
serve on the board almost certainly fail qualification (1) - being
*interested*.  One of the most important duties of the board is to work
with the users of the system to make good decisions.  Some of the
candidates who ran for this election entered detailed campaign
statements in the vote program, and answered questions here in coop.
Other candidates did not.  The candidates who did so also did much
better in the election.  This is a good example of problem (3)
"candidates should be known/trusted" in action.  Since it's important
for the board to be able to communicate with users, it's also reasonable
to suppose that the people who did well in the election are also likely
to do better at (2) "capable of doing the work".

Now let us look at Richard's proposals.  In #5, Richard says
"they...elected...because more people with [sic] familiar with them."
In fact, this is point (3) - people *have* to be familiar with the
candidates to know if they're capable of doing the job, and worthy of
being trusted.  If we rephrase Richard's question in terms of #3,
richard is asking us to elect people who are *not* well known, and may
well not be trustworthy, in preference to people who are better known,
and known to be trustworthy.

Richard is correct in supposing that it is important to have *some*
turnover on the board.  Bad things do in fact happen to small
organizations that don't have any turnover.  The people in place can
burn out over responsiblities, it is easy to end up with a "generation
gap" between the board members, and any potential new blood, and all
sorts of bad stuff can happen.  *HOWEVER*, bad things can *also* happen
if there is *too much* turnover.  It is easy to lose information when
there is turnover.  Note that here, aruba credits a lot of his success
to danr.  This is the way things *should* happen.  If we look back at
M-net, we can find fairly good rumours, at least, of past treasurers who
weren't able to do their duties, because they weren't given *any*
information on how to do it, or even the raw materials (ie, the
financial records such as they were) to do a good job of faking it.
Student organizations usually have a lot of turnover.  It can be
particularly fascinating to talk to the treasurer of a student
organization, because they almost always can tell real horror tales of
mismanaged turnovers.

So, in #21 and #24, we see Richard exploring several different
possibilities of how to *change* grex's current turnover system (which
does exist, and was referenced by Remmers in #3).  In both of those
proposals, Richard invents a kind of seat that can only be filled by a
newcomer.  What this would do, in essence, is to invent a kind of
"choke-point" after that first election run, that would tend to
discriminate against newcomers after their first election.  By
discriminating for freshmen, we'd be discriminating against sophomores.
This is almost *exactly* what we should *not* want to do, if we want
people to think that (in Richard's words), Grex is "inclusive and not
exclusive".  In #24, Richard further asks that we expand the board.
This is a problem, because it starts to stretch the available pool of
candidates.  (For instance, if the # of candidates is exactly equal to
the # of open seats, the election produces almost *no* information on
voter choice.) Having an operating board that much larger would also
complicate it operationally.  It is already somewhat difficult for the
board to find a convenient meeting time for enough of its members to
make quorum.

response 33 of 56:

Dec 18 16:52 UTC 1997

Besides, in each of the next two elections, multiple seats will hit the sunset
clause.

response 35 of 56:

Dec 18 17:52 UTC 1997

Why not say that those who cannot run because they've hit the "sunset" 
clause, must sit out a full term (two years), not just a year, before 
they can run again.

"Any board member who has served two consecutive terms, may not run 
again for the equivalent of a full term or two years"

This would at least incrementally increase turnover.  I'm afraid that 
down the road some of grex's current core group will leave or move on, 
and it will be much more difficult for new people to take their places 
because this place has been fairly exclusive for some time.  If you 
arent used to bringing in new people, you lose the ability to *trust* 
new people.

response 37 of 56:

Dec 18 23:20 UTC 1997

well grex isonly five years old so notthat many people are going to 
be affected yet.  But since certain people (i.e. Valerie for instance) are
on theboard now and were on the first grex board five years ago, they
must have served two terms, satout a term, and then runagain.

response 39 of 56:

Dec 19 03:03 UTC 1997

I hit the sunset clause a year ago and left the board. The year I spent as
a non-board member convinced me that I did not need to return. There are
others who can do a good job, and I have too many frying pans in the fire.

response 41 of 56:

Dec 19 12:04 UTC 1997

i think we should have an amendment which forbids current board
members from entering more than ten responses in co-op in a week.
this is the only way we can guarantee that the incumbents don't
monopolize the conference, and let new people get noticed here
so they can be elected.

response 43 of 56:

Dec 19 14:41 UTC 1997

Do you think that's humor? GOD!!! what place on Earth am I living?

response 45 of 56:

Dec 19 22:10 UTC 1997

Heh.  I'll agree to abide by that one if Richard will.

response 47 of 56:

Dec 20 01:19 UTC 1997

join coop
talk
ok
done
chat