Re: PostgreSQL Europe statutes : recap

On Wednesday 23 January 2008 10:53:25 Koen Martens wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 06:03:17PM +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 05:53:56AM +0100, damien clochard wrote:
> > > 3- Quorum ?
> > > a : Keep the statutes as they are
> > > b : Lower the quorum
> > > c : Drop the quorum
> >
> > Having a quorum is a nice thing, especially if you discuss and decide
> > "hot" topics. In this case a quorum makes sense. For everything else we
> > have the fallback with a second meeting without quorum.
> > So why dropping or lowering he quorum?
>
> Because it is very likely that you don't get a quorum _ever_ on GA's. As
> explained, I expect that you will have such a second GA where the quorum
> is dropped most of the times anyway, so it is more practical to drop it.
>
> Obviously, for 'hot' topics ('shall we dismantle') the quorum should be
> there, yes.
>
> Again, it is just my experience with how these kind of international
> organisations work out in reality. Maybe PGEU is different, and you will
> have all those members show up at the GA. I really doubt it though.
>

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".

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.

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com