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→distinction between member and board member
== Nomenclature ==
I generally like where you're going with the taxonomy of policy at PS:One. I like the ring of 'Member Created Policy' more for things that exist to satisfy outside agents - there's less colloquial connotation. Can we use that phrase in the language of this vote? --[[User:Dbever|Dbever]] ([[User talk:Dbever|talk]]) 08:08, 14 July 2015 (CDT)
=== Nomenclature adjusted ===
Sounds good to me. --[[User:Hef|Hef]] ([[User talk:Hef|talk]]) 08:48, 19 July 2015 (CDT)
== For Posterity ==
== For Posterity ==
Because the email forum can just eat history like a black hole... --[[User:Lucas|Lucas]] ([[User talk:Lucas|talk]]) 20:44, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
Because the email forum can just eat history like a black hole... --[[User:Lucas|Lucas]] ([[User talk:Lucas|talk]]) 20:44, 25 April 2015 (CDT)
* Jason: He wanted to talk to me, but we managed to miss each other. Seems interested in no one making polices that are summarized as "we will obey the law"
* Jason: He wanted to talk to me, but we managed to miss each other. Seems interested in no one making polices that are summarized as "we will obey the law"
* Elizabeth: I havn't talked to her in person, but she seems interested in no one accusing the board of wrongdoing.
* Elizabeth: I havn't talked to her in person, but she seems interested in no one accusing the board of wrongdoing.
**I appreciate that you've been trying to understand where people are coming from. My concern isn't that no one accuse the board. I think it's healthy for the membership to make sure that the Board, Area Hosts, people holding volunteer positions, etc. are acting in the best interest of the space. However, I would like to see this happen without people falling into an us vs. them mentality. I believe that member animosity leads to board burnout, which leads to fewer people wanting to be on the board, and therefore a less sustainable space. I would like there to be empathy for different points of view on *all* sides, and a recognition that these are all human beings who are writing and working on these policies, votes, etc. I would like PS:One to have the necessary legal, insurance, and contractual structure to sustain a space with ~400 members, and I would like the membership to step up to provide the vision and "doing" of our do-ocracy. I would like this "middle ground" reality of PS:One recognized and celebrated in how we talk about ourselves.
** I appreciate that you've been trying to understand where people are coming from. My concern isn't that no one accuse the board. I think it's healthy for the membership to make sure that the Board, Area Hosts, people holding volunteer positions, etc. are acting in the best interest of the space. However, I would like to see this happen without people falling into an us vs. them mentality. I believe that member animosity leads to board burnout, which leads to fewer people wanting to be on the board, and therefore a less sustainable space. I would like there to be empathy for different points of view on *all* sides, and a recognition that these are all human beings who are writing and working on these policies, votes, etc. I would like PS:One to have the necessary legal, insurance, and contractual structure to sustain a space with ~400 members, and I would like the membership to step up to provide the vision and "doing" of our do-ocracy. I would like this "middle ground" reality of PS:One recognized and celebrated in how we talk about ourselves.
The people I haven't talked to that I should before addressing a larger audience:
The people I haven't talked to that I should before addressing a larger audience:
--[[User:Hef|Hef]] ([[User talk:Hef|talk]]) 00:49, 13 May 2015 (CDT)
--[[User:Hef|Hef]] ([[User talk:Hef|talk]]) 00:49, 13 May 2015 (CDT)
== Confused by current language ==
Does the current language only propose that the "board policy" wiki pages be renamed? [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 17:47, 20 July 2015 (CDT)
I talked to Hef a bit to clarify my confusion. From what I understand, the intent of the vote is to make the policies not binding as votes, but still in place as policies that are created by and able to be curated by members. The language doesn't communicate that to me. I don't have a good suggestion for replacement language. [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 11:01, 21 July 2015 (CDT)
The term "member curated policies" is not defined in the Bylaws. No official document defines the term or grants authority to individual members to make or curate policies. And I question how it could possibly work in practice if multiple members end up "curating" policy via a wiki edit war, which is very possible if just 2 out of nearly 400 members disagree on what the policy should say. This term only appears in Hef's "handy-dandy guide" but Hef's document was never approved by vote by either the membership or the Board, and it cannot be considered official. If this vote passes as written and the three policies in question change status and become "member curated policies" instead of Board-voted policies, then I can only conclude that they would all become null and void. It is questionable if the Board could enforce them. These policies were designed to prevent PS:One's exposure to uninsured liability, which would leave the organization and the Board personally liable to defend against a lawsuit that our insurance won't defend, as well as to prevent members from taking actions that would jeopardize 501(c)(3) status for the organization. If an incident happened, the organization and directors would need to assert these policies as defenses. But if they are not valid as policies, they will not serve this purpose. If this vote passes as currently written, it would dangerously expose the organization and the directors personally to legal liability. --[[User:Rdpierce|Rdpierce]] ([[User talk:Rdpierce|talk]]) 08:11, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:Curation is not defined, and one way to address that could be to review and reuse applicable Wikipedia policies for editing articles such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability Verifiability]. [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 08:25, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
::And if the objection to curation is that someone will vandalize a page, then my comment on vandalism being a violation of member agreement should cover that objection? [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 08:28, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:I think wiki vandalism is a violation of the membership agreement. and we can review and reuse the Wikipedia[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism Vandalism] page for help in deciding what falls under vandalism. [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 08:25, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:::Vandalism implies ill will. Two members could have a legitimate disagreement over a matter of policy. I don't see how this could be resolved definitively without resorting to a board or member vote. JFDI is not appropriate to set policy that actually needs to be enforced or which the organization needs to rely upon for a legal defense. It has no official standing, so it would need a vote to delegate this authority, and to define procedures to govern conflict resolution, otherwise any JFDI Policy is invalid. It sounds like this would give any one of four hundred members the power to bind the other 399. --[[User:Rdpierce|Rdpierce]] ([[User talk:Rdpierce|talk]]) 10:04, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:::: If members are confused, then they will work to gather consensus. If they cannot gather consensus, and if someone resorts to bad behavior, then it is vandalism and covered under membership agreement. [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 10:12, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:It seems to me that this would be a fairly normal, easy, and generally acceptable practice. We start with using so-called member curated policies. And I think most of the time people are okay with those and willing to follow them. If there is general disagreement about the policy, then we should move up to a member vote to clarify the issue. These member curated policies can be enacted quickly without any need to wait for bureaucracy to work it out, and they can also be modified quickly when we need to. I don't think the discussion about vandalism on the wiki is really relevant. Nobody really expects the wiki to be the end-all be-all of policy for PS:1. Every policy relies on enforcement from actual real people to work. No one will accept that the policy has somehow changed just because someone went in to the wiki and edited the policy to say "No one may use auto-focus on the laser, '''except John Doe.''' Really, people just aren't that dumb. As it is, I can already go and edit any policy or bylaws page (it is a wiki after all). But that wouldn't change what the policy is, it would just make that wiki page wrong (and the change would soon be reverted by those who watch the changelog pretty closely). The same is true for member curated polices, which may not even have a wiki page. They might just be a sign in the shop that says "Don't do X." Changing the wiki page (if it exists) doesn't change the member curated policy. It only changes when the majority of people agree to the change and know about it. [[User:Justin|Justin]] ([[User talk:Justin|talk]]) 10:42, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
== distinction between member and board member ==
The background language has "I have never seen the membership and the board as two distinct groups." but non-board members do not have the same liabilities. I don't know if you want to change this language or not. It is your vote, and "I ..." is accurate since it describes belief. But I want to point out that a lot of the controversy about this vote does come down to the board members being liable for things that non-board members are not liable for. [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 11:01, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:I think one important point that maybe has been missed is that even though the board may have more liabilities than other members, those liabilities do not grant additional rights to board members above and beyond the rights of any other member. That may be a bit hard to swallow for anyone who is currently a board member, but it is true. While I, personally, certainly support doing things to help protect our board members from bad things happening, changing policy to protect board members is not something that can be considered "for the health of the organization" (as stated in the bylaws as votes proper for the board of the directors) so much as it is "for the health of the board members". I think it's important to keep that distinction in mind. Thinking about it this way, however, does not make the board powerless to protect themselves in my opinion. They have the same power as any other member of the organization to work to make things better, and we want to keep that amount of power to change things for the better strong. For everybody. [[User:Justin|Justin]] ([[User talk:Justin|talk]]) 11:10, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
::Yeah, speaking as a board member, I didn't realize I had extra liability until after the board member orientation. (ignorance on my part about corporations and boards, no one's fault). After all the discussion that happened after the board vote, I realized that if members decide to do soemthing and I can't bear the liability, that I have the freedom to quit. I'm not sure this is the best attitude for me to have -- this means that people who find risk acceptable have more privilege -- so it means people who are vulnerable will not be board members. I don't like it. I'm relatively privileged since I am a middle class person, but I have a chronic medical condition and so I need a steady income and a reliable source of insurance. People who are more vulnerable than me would have even more problems. If only white middle-class or upper-class people can deal with liability risks then we have a stupid space. ... this is all just stupid brainstorming on my part. at first I thought only eccentric rich people would continue to be on a board like this but someone pointed out to me that rich people have more to lose. maybe they'd have to be very eccentric. maybe this is all a big brain fart. sorry! [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 11:30, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:::Actually skay, I think part of the point is that being on the board does not grant you additional privileges above any other member. So someone who is less privileged (i.e. they can at least afford to be a full member, but maybe not much more than that) would be able to have just as much impact in the organization as someone who can handle the liabilities that come along with being on the board. Historically speaking, I haven't seen board members suffering financially (at least not because they were on the board, there were definitely some members early on who contributed extra money to the space to help us make rent, but we're not really in that situation anymore), so I think it's mostly a moot point. It's more fantastical legal boogeymen than it is a real threat. And I'm not a huge fan of being governed by fictions. [[User:Justin|Justin]] ([[User talk:Justin|talk]]) 16:27, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
::::I meant privilege in terms of social inequality not in terms of what someone gets from an office. but I agree with you about not being governed by fictions. I think it's unlikely that everyone will decide to do something so stupid as to be damaging to the existence of the organization.
::Justin, what you posted was highly offensive. Suggesting that the Board is acting solely to save their own skin is completely fallacious. In the case of a lawsuit not covered by insurance where the directors are sued personally, the organization also gets sued and has to defend itself. If this bankrupts the directors, it also probably bankrupts the organization. The directors' desire to reduce the organization's exposure to uninsured liability is, first and foremost, an attempt to keep PS:One from being sued into bankruptcy. --[[User:Rdpierce|Rdpierce]] ([[User talk:Rdpierce|talk]]) 12:08, 28 July 2015 (CDT)
:::I don't think he meant to be offensive. I just think he is taking a radical stance, similar to the stance of eviljoel on the mailing list. If a majority of the members feel this way, then so be it. [[User:Skm|Skm]] ([[User talk:Skm|talk]]) 12:10, 28 July 2015 (CDT)