Committee vote: Increase 2020 committee from 9 members to 10

At our October committee meeting we made a tentative decision to have 9 members in the 2020 committee, and hold an election to choose among our nominated candidates if there were more than 9 nominations.

9 is a somewhat arbitrary number that we agreed on temporarily while we waited for the results of the nominations. Now that we know we have 10 nominations I’d like to propose that we expand the number of 2020 committee members from 9 to 10.

This would have the benefits of not holding an election to exclude a single nominee from membership, and also of not needing to do the administrative work of holding an election this year.

Some drawbacks (in my opinion, minor) would be that we would now have an even number of committee members, which makes it possible for an evenly split vote, and that 10 is still a fairly large group.

Active @Directors members for 2019 only: please vote using the poll below.

  • Yes - Expand the 2020 committee from 9 members to 10 members. All current nominees will be on the 2020 committee.
  • No - Leave the 2020 commitee at 9 members. Hold an election to select 9 of the 10 nominees as 2020 committee members.

0 voters

6 Likes

Sorry, I accidentally voted and can’t seem to take it back. Even numbers promote stalemates.

2 Likes

Better to have an uneven number.

1 Like

Ooops me too. Sorry.

2 Likes

I think everyone has voted, I missed the bolded text at first too :wink:

1 Like

Really? Shows 7 voters; that’s everyone?

1 Like

It’s almost like making it bold also makes it invisible :stuck_out_tongue:

6 Likes

“Everyone” was an exaggeration. I know there are more than 7 people in the community and committee, and I haven’t cast my vote yet.

It was more meant that even those not on the current committee have voted, and with this type of poll there is no way to remove your vote (from what I recall).

1 Like

I think it did actually! Oh well :man_shrugging: :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I’m blaming it on the fact that the words “committee” and “community” are so similar…

What bold text?! :laughing:

2 Likes

Poll’s closed, see discussion below.

This was raised in discussion, however:

  • This assumes that everyone shows up to every meeting.
  • If we find ourselves having a lot of 5 to 4 votes, then we already have a split in the committee and it would arguably be better to have that split reflected as an even vote.
  • I’d rather risk some tied votes than hold an election to exclude 1 nominee.

I wish we had a voting tool that would let us split the results between active committee members and the community, because we need a smaller group to make and execute decisions, but it’s still useful feedback to know if those decisions are aligned with the community. We’ll have to build this separately, and for now we can count votes manually when the poll closes :wink:

3 Likes

I do see your point, though that leaves me wondering why have elections at all. I’d be happier to step down from nomination than to change the process midstream.

1 Like

As far as an existing process, or a concrete and definitive agreement to have 9 spots on the committee there really wasn’t one at any point. Keep in mind this is the first time ClassicPress has chosen a new committee. From the October meeting transcript:

So we planned for the possibility of having more nominations than spots. If we had (for example) 12 nominations and a tentative agreement to have 9 spots, then we’d still need to have elections and I wouldn’t have made this post.

I’ve also been thinking that it’s a good idea to reduce the number of committee members down from our initial 12, as that has seemed a bit unmanageable over the past year. I am fine with a small reduction down to 10, and we can change this again in a year if it doesn’t end up working out well.

3 Likes

…or, would it be bumped to 12 to avoid excluding the other 3? As a first vote, it does set some precedent.

3 Likes

This is my concern, and why I have held off casting my own vote on the above poll because I haven’t really been convinced either way.

If this year we bump it 10, even though I think most of the community thought it was 9 (I may be wrong, but that was my understanding, and it is in the blog posts we have posted). We set a precedent of, well if it is close we will just bump the # to make sure we don’t upset anyone.

Plus, honestly, not holding an election to test our theory of “being democratic is the right approach” seems counter intuitive to the whole thing we are trying to achieve.

Edit: don’t mind all the edits, I am just fighting with Discourse regarding the quoted text from the above post.

3 Likes

I personally don’t think this does have to set a precedent because it is, after all, a learning experience and rules can be put in place for next year to govern what happens in cases such as this.

This election is basically a trial and, as @james says, the number 9 was also quite arbitrary and was to be reviewed after nominations were submitted - and that’s exactly what’s happening now.

What if only 8 had applied? We’d probably still be in a similar position except in that case, the committee would be discussing whether to drop the number down from 9 to 8.

Just my tuppence worth fwiw.

4 Likes

Even vote can occur anytime, no matter how many committee members we have. A solution in this case may be to address the decision to the community, level 2 or level 3.

4 Likes

Just a note: this is an issue that potentially gives the committee members almost unlimited terms of being in charge. Technically, they can simply increase the committee size each time they face the lack of vacancies. And since they are the only voters, they have the majority automatically.

I never mean it happens this time or with the current members)) Everything goes absolutely right in the current situation. Rejection of just a 1 person by a vote can look unfriendly, kinda ostracism :slight_smile: So, adding vacancy is a good solution for now. Simple, positive and benefitial.

But I also see a future vulnerability here due to the small logical issue. The probable solution is to make such votes open for the whole community (level 2 or somehow else) to avoid the “loop of authority”.

And for sure this additional vacancy should not increase the normal size of the Committee for the next years. Otherwise we can face a recurring growth) Today it’s 9+1, next time it can appear 10+1, and next year 11+1. Logically there is no straight border. So it should be limited formally. 9+1 is affordable to avoid ostracism, but 9+1+1 should turn it back to just 9 vacancies and the normal voting process.

P.S. No, I’m not a great fan of the bureaucracy :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I still don’t see what the problem is tbh. It was the committee itself that made the decision to reduce the number of members from 12 to 9, so surely that same committee can subsequently decide if 9 is still appropriate - especially as it was also agreed at the same time that 9 is non-binding. The committee could just have easily agreed that there should be 10 members, or 6, or to leave it at 12.

I believe the committee, as with all committees everywhere, has to have a fair degree of autonomy otherwise nothing will ever get done.

:neutral_face:

1 Like

The community has been under the impression for weeks that there would be 9, an odd number that aims to prevent stalemates. Changing the terms midstream is what is problematic.

PS, I do agree about a level of autonomy.

2 Likes