Re: PostgreSQL Europe statutes : recap

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On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 01:28:34PM +0100, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 01:08:20PM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> >
> > Maybe we can use a practical example to figure out how that quorum thing
> > works...
> >
> > Let's imagine a GA meeting where only 10% of the members are present or
> > represented . Theses 10% are very stupid guys . They want to use all the
> > money of the association to buy something useless ( a billion of human-size
> > plush elephants ). One of them proposes the stupid and useless idea , the GA
> > votes and says "yes".
>
> Now, human-size plush elephants sounds like a great idea. But if we can
> afford a billion of them, let's buy Sun instead ;-)

Nah, let's have the elephants.

> > 1/ What if no quorum is needed ? Well the decision is set in stone. We cannot
> > go back. As the GA is the most powerful entity of the association, the board
> > of directors will have to obey and execute the GA decision. The Association
> > buys a billion of plush elephants and we're broke.
> >
> > 2/ What if a quorum of 30% is needed ? the GA took a decision but the quorum
> > has not been reached. The decision is not valid yet and Board of Directors
> > doesn't have to execute it. An e-mail is sent to every members explaining
> > what decision the GA wanted to vote . Another GA is proposed at least 7 days
> > after and within 30 days. This second GA will have no quorum required of
> > course, but it will leaves us some time to discuss and prepare the second
> > voting. This second GA can happen over IRC and/or e-mail voting can be
> > allowed so that every members can participate. The majority of the members
> > refuse the decision. Billion of human-size plush elephants go elsewhere.
> >
> > In the first case, a minority can easily takeover the association, in the
> > other we all have a few days ( between 7 and 30 ) to wake up and block the
> > stupid and useless decisions.
> >
> > To me this quorum thing only implies that we need a second GA, which is just
> > some kind of a simple validation of the first one.

Well, the board can always resign if they don't want to carry out the result of
the vote, but that's a bit drastic.

In the example, you say there's only stupid people. You prevent that by having
proper announcement to all your members and not choose a location for the GA
that is at a far-off corner of the region the members are from.

If the members do not agree with what has been decided at the GA (a quorumless one),
they can always call for a GA to reverse the decision (if that is in the statutes, that
members can call for a GA).

> It does make sense. As long as there is the fallback so that we don't have
> to keep calling new GAs over and over and over again. If it's just a
> one-step fallback, that's fine.
>
> OTOH, it pretty much makes it *impossible* for an in-person GA to ever make
> a decision - it will always fallback to a secondary one, and that one is
> not likely to be in-person but online instead. But that's probably not
> entirely unreasonable.

In that case, that 'it pretty much makes it *impossible* for an in-person GA to ever
make a decision', why have that first meeting at all? Sounds like a convoluted procedure
to get things done. Plus, it doesn't really motivate people to attend a GA, knowing that
(or learning that) it isn't valid and a second one is needed. I'd feel screwed.

Thinking along that line: if you want to maintain the quorum you have no choice but to
have electronic GA's (or just votes). I'm curious how we would solve all the problems
inherent to electronic voting and identity verification though.

Anyway, I think i will let this rest. It is clear i'm a minority thinking that we will
always have two GA's because you will never get a quorum. Or to put it better: i'm in a
minority thinking this is a problem.

Perhaps i'm thinking along the wrong lines here. I was thinking the association could be
big, maybe 1000 or more members. But if you limit it to the 'in-crowd' i'm sure attendance
figures of a GA will be much better and a quorum won't be such a problem.

(ps: 30% of 1000 is 300, so you'd have to get 300 people at the GA to be able to make
a decision.. quite a lot..)

I'll just not show up on the first one, because i can be sure a second one will
follow :) I'm not rich or anything, so i have to choose in these things. I can't
just go to any happening i'd like to visit.

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
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