Talk:Vote on 3 Policy Labels

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Revision as of 02:15, 26 April 2015 by Lucas (talk | contribs) (→‎Context?)
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For Posterity

Because the email forum can just eat history like a black hole... --Lucas (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pumping-station-one/PArqcIK2WAc

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pumping-station-one/rt9n-EtFzJc

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pumping-station-one/X34cjS32Sd8

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pumping-station-one/9fWRWIp5IGk

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pumping-station-one/Vj57Kv_pqRw

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/pumping-station-one/u6EF2q5VxRw

Context?

Do you have any context for what you posted? I'm tempted to wipe it as noise. --Hef (talk) 20:49, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

Well in the past I have had a hard time finding email threads that have been referenced in the wiki. Making it hard to understand the context. This was just an attempt to keep all this discussion linked together. It it is not wanted it can just be wiped out. --Lucas (talk) 21:15, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

Precedence?

I am curious. Is there any precedent to those policies? In other words, have any other policies ever been enacted by the board with no membership vote? --Lucas (talk) 11:32, 22 April 2015 (CDT)

  • None that I am aware of. The precedent would be for these types of policies to go before the membership and be voted on with an explanation as to why they are needed. --Hef (talk) 09:05, 23 April 2015 (CDT)

Inflamitory Title

The title should be changed to something more neutral, such as Vote on Setting Policies. --Sylphiae (talk) 13:31, 22 April 2015 (CDT)

  • Good call. I probably should have gotten into a more neutral mood before writing the first pass of this proposal. (The title has been changed_ --Hef (talk) 09:05, 23 April 2015 (CDT)

Expiry

I like Joel's suggestion about the policies being in effect until member quorum is met rather than the language here about automatic expiry.

  • Agreed. --Glenn 23 April 2015


"expires 3 weeks after being voted on" does not specify that the board of directors voted on it versus membership voting on it. skm

pointless or dangerous

I think this "auto propose a vote" thing is bad.

It does not do anything good for the space. There is no trade this for that for a net gain. There is a cost (the voting process), there is no gain, so the ROI is negative.


(bare with the 2 levels of voting here. We are voting on how to vote, so the word vote doesn't always reference the same thing.)

There is a 2x2 grid of choices made up of (this proposed vote (A)pass, (B)not pass) x (members (1)agree, (2)disagree) A1, A2, B1, B2.

(A) Assume this proposed vote passes and now the members have to vote on all policies voted on and passed by the BoD.

There are two possible outcomes of such votes: pass or not pass. (not meeting quorum just delays the outcome.) 

(1) If the vote passes, nothing changes.  The existing policy is still in affect.  

(2) If the vote does not pass, the policy is no longer in effect.  This leaves PS1 in an undefined state that is probably bad.  In the case of any of the 3 pseudo policies, PS1 no longer has insurance (or something that is essentially that.)

(B) Proposed vote does not pass 

(1) the board did stuff, the members keep hacking.

(2) Someone doesn't like what the board did.  they propose a vote of something different.  The members vote on it.

B2 is really a subset of our current process: Someone wants something that requires a vote and follows the existing procedure.

A1 - voting paperwork A2 - voting paperwork and possibly undesirable

B1 - no paperwork B2 - voting paperwork and probably desirable but maybe undesirable because evil future members.

My Summary: all this really does is force the membership to vote and pass more things. That is annoying work. There will also be debates on what is and isn't a policy that needs to be voted on, not because anyone want's to over turn it, but we want to follow this rule we put in place. I think the chance of the members revoking a policy is basically 0. If that 0 event happens, we currently don't know what state that will leave things in. I suspect there is a good chance it leaves us in a bad state and PS1 just shot itself in the foot.

We currently have the ability to shot ourselves, so passing this vote dose not give anyone any more abilities.

Opinion that pseudo-policies are not valid is incorrect

I object to the statement in the Background section of the vote "It's my opinion that the following three pseudo policies are invalid because they were not voted on by the general membership...." The Bylaws currently state that:

Bylaws#Issues_Proper_for_a_Vote_of_the_Directors 

   to fulfill any obligations to ensure the health of the organization.

In the case of these three policies, the Board decided to enact them to fulfil contractual and legal obligations to ensure the health of the organization. I can understand that someone might think the Board should not have done what they did. I can understand that someone may think the Bylaws should be changed so that the Board no longer has the power to do what it did. But the Bylaws as they exist today do allow for the actions in question. The policies themselves are valid. --Rdpierce (talk) 01:54, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

  • Setting policy was not necessary: Because those were already contractual obligations that space had taken on, the information on what the space had agreed to needed to be communicated, and a new official policy was not required. A few wiki pages detailing the info and an email out to the mailing list with an explanation would have sufficed. --Hef (talk) 11:48, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • Optionally, a follow up membership vote could have been run to set the policies in stone --Hef (talk) 11:48, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • I'm willing to drop the background info, as it doesn't really have much baring on the vote itself. My larger interest is ensuring that the membership is able to be directly involved and able to ensure sufficient rigor in any policy that the membership is required to agree too. --Hef (talk) 11:48, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

Freedom to Create protected (and constrained) by Adherence to Law

Our space does not operate in a vacuum; there are certain legal, contractual, and life/safety obligations we need to fulfill in order to have the protections that we enjoy, and give us the freedom to create. If the membership have the capability of overruling the actions of the BoD on these type of matters, then we are creating an environment where non-legal activity can occur, especially in the case where a retrospective gap analysis shows that we are not operating within the confines of a contract, and modifications to existing policies need to occur in order to enforce compliance to that contract.

I would recommend wording as follows: "Where there is a gap (or gaps) between existing policies and legal, contractual, or life/safety commitments, the Board of Directors is empowered to act in a proactive manner to bring the Organization into compliance as expediently as possible. It is incumbent upon the Board of Directors to communicate to the Membership the reason for the gap, and the rationale for the compliance-related activities. This communication shall be performed before- or concurrent-with the compliance-related activities." --Bioguy (talk) 07:24, 25 April 2015 (CDT)


  • The membership is not able to vote to do anything unlawful, see Bylaws#Issues_Proper_for_a_Vote_of_the_Membership --Hef (talk) 11:39, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • The thing I am most interested in is that the membership have the ability to apply our historically stringent process of ensuring the high quality of policies. --Hef (talk) 11:41, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

I agree completely with your point #2. I disagree, however, on point #1, as the act of voting indicates a choice in wishing to meet contractual agreements that have already been put in place. I think we can vote to renegotiate our insurance policy, but we can't vote on whether or not we will comply with it once it has been signed, as that breaks the contract and nullifies our insurance policy.

Another point: we need definitions of what a Policy is. These three "policies" seem to me to be more like "House Rules." --Bioguy (talk) 11:55, 25 April 2015 (CDT)

Mistaken in thinking we had to pass policies

I've been talking this over with Carl and now I question that we needed to vote policies. Perhaps we just needed to post announcements that we've seen violations of of our insurance coverage and that

  • people are not allowed to bring non service animals in to the space
  • people are not allowed to drink between these times

And in addition, our insurance agent let us know that we need per-event coverage for events that xyz.

And if we want we could have reported back with the research Ryan did about how much it would be to get coverage for each of the above.

With all the conversations over the past few days I'm thinking that we didn't need to vote on and declare new policies.

We only needed to vote about whether we'd extend coverage for what we did and to vote not to add coverage for the other things. Then, if members want the other things they could vote to spend however much for new coverage. - skm


  • AGREE!!! 100 MILLION PERCENT! --Bioguy (talk) 11:55, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • Skm, I agree with your analysis. --Hef (talk) 13:10, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • The thing about having policies (however those come to be) that are in line with the requirements of our insurance coverage is that it makes it very easy to point at how we're complying with those requirements. This may not be a big deal, but it does seem like something to consider to me. --Dbever (talk) 20:02, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
    • Putting up something on the wiki (or website) is probably a good idea, especially since we would have something to point to. I'd rather it not get the "policy" label until it's a membership vote, but I don't have a problem with something being posted immediately to indicate compliance. --Hef (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • but it will be ludicrous if we have to make policies for every item. we haven't made a policy to ban parkour or pyrotechnics but we'd need special coverage for those which we don't have right now --Skm (talk) 20:10, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • Skay, I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that we need a policy for every single item that may break the law? I think that was the slippery slope argument Sparr tried to use on the list. As for making announcements without having policies, it's sort of a distinction without a difference, I think? De facto instead of de jure, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we wouldn't have gotten the same backlash that we did. --Sylphiae (talk) 20:13, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
  • Sylphiae, I was replying to Derek about whether having policies that we can point to to show that we comply would be helpful. we have a lot of exclusions other than the 2 we listed. I didn't mean to make a slippery slope argument but I did huh. --Skm (talk) 20:17, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
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