[DECISION] Rules of procedure change

Board Discuss
#12

Hi! IMHO, this would be the best alternative.

Reading the new § 3 I’m afraid that the BoD will spend more time in this new step (deciding the composition of a working group) than with the past approach, adding that suggestion of a non CoI composition.

And, “From time to time” is a quite ambiguos: seems that the moment to decide abot the composition of the working group could be posponed many times for any reasons with no deadline. Different than the BoD members’ public responsabilities from the past approach.

My 2 cents.

1 Like
#13

@guilhem the moderation is a topic we’re looking at yes…
For now, experience shows that such an action helps for some time. But it’s not really ideal indeed.

1 Like
#14

Once again I’m wondering where things are being discussed as moderation is not something I’m seeing discussed in directors’ mailing list.

It is also misleading to state that the changes to the Rules of Procedure have been discussed by the board as the only comments directors exchanged were between myself and Cor where I was pointing out, as other here did, that the proposal is a very bad idea as we can already create committees, it contained major mistakes (some of which are still there) and it goes against the professional advice we received,

The change, that has been pushed despite clear issues and the refusal to have it checked by our legal counsel, creates doubts on the way the board operates as that’s, IMHO, the opposite of what is expected by the community.

I hope that some directors realise that the proposal is creating a lot more issues that those it pretends to solve and that other directors actually read and discuss the merits of the proposal before sending out a +1.

#15

And you write this three minutes after you replied to the topic on the directors list…

#16

And I confirm that there has been no discussion within the board. I demanded for the changes to be checked by our legal counsel and you refused. That’s the extent of the discussions that we have.
Now that you unilaterally decided to change the wiki page it should be clear to anyone that you invented… committees, which we could have created whenever we wanted:

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/index.php?title=TDF/BoD_rules&diff=next&oldid=484033

You once again also ignored clear requests to take conflict of interests in consideration and that, together with other events, could lead some to think that those changes have been pushed with unethical intents in mind.

It is very sad to have this types of discussion spilling over into a public forum but when even the result of professional consultations are not being considered, IMHO, with the due care then it is my duty to oppose changes that could be detrimental to TDF and the community and the community has the right to be informed.

#17

Hi y’all,

some quick answers to a number of postings here - combined with a call to interact positively and welcoming, according to our policies. Thanks!

I’m wondering how removing all the areas and keeping the full
decision responsibility always to the full board will improve the
current progress on open topics and day to day business.

The full decision responsibility has always been with the full board, see the unmodified § 4. With the change of the rules now, we implement a suggestion initially made by Emiliano, that unblocked something the board has struggled with for a larger part of last year.

As such, and knowing the board from the inside, I indeed hope this will continue to have a positive impact.

Sometimes it is simply better, for the sake of being productive and
to quickly deliver, to limit the number of people working on a
specific topic, leveraging the acquired experience on specific
topics of a small number of trusted directors, with those topics
being the ones ascribed to an Area of Oversight - that was the
rationale, IIRC.

Indeed, and the working groups can still deliver that. The old setup was rigid & therefore not simple, and some directors had the tendency to exclude fellow board members from even having an opinion on ‘their areas’. Together, as outlined, this turned out to be more of a roadblock than an advantage.

Reading the new § 3 I’m afraid that the BoD will spend more time in
this new step (deciding the composition of a working group) than
with the past approach, adding that suggestion of a non CoI
composition.

If the past is any guide, then no, I don’t think so (see above). And if CoI is a concern, for working groups the pool of knowledgeable and trusted people will certainly be larger!

And, “From time to time” is a quite ambiguos: seems that the moment
to decide abot the composition of the working group could be
posponed many times for any reasons with no deadline. Different than
the BoD members’ public responsabilities from the past approach.

From time to time is a technical term here, that FWICT is frequently used in more formal English texts, meaning something akin to ‘if needed’. But we can reword it, if you think it is too ambiguous. Responsibility as a whole sits with the full board anyway, now and before the change.

You once again also ignored clear requests to take conflict of
interests in consideration and that, together with other events,
could lead some to think that those changes have been pushed with
unethical intents in mind.

It is worth pointing out that Paolo again engages in slander, after
trying to spread untrue rumours, which followed after he resoundingly
lost a vote in the board, which he is apparently unhappy with.

Overall, I really cannot see how that can possibly be seen as helpful
(or even leading by positive example). It certainly appears to be
putting personal feelings above TDF interests.

Best, Thorsten

#18

Hi Thorsten, hi all,

Am 15.04.23 um 02:50 schrieb Thorsten Behrens via The Document Foundation Community:

\ 45x45 thb
April 15

some quick answers to a number of postings here - combined with a call to interact positively and welcoming, according to our policies. Thanks!

(…)

It is worth pointing out that Paolo again engages in slander, after
trying to spread untrue rumours, which followed after he resoundingly
lost a vote in the board, which he is apparently unhappy with.

you showed here the opposite of your advise at the begin of your posting. You, the chair of the board, abused a member of the board. You accused a board member on engaging in slander without any substantiation of this allegation. It showed that your statement at the begin do not apply to your own postings and behavior.

You seemed to be interested in welcoming and positively interaction only in those cases, community member follow you blindly and have no different opinions or / and discuss them openly.

Overall, I really cannot see how that can possibly be seen as helpful
(or even leading by positive example). It certainly appears to be
putting personal feelings above TDF interests.

This sentence is another proof, that you are not willing to follow your own statement from the begin. You seemed to be a fan of following the concept of ‘illiberal democracy’ at TDF. But that concept is the opposite of a welcoming interaction / environment. It is not compatible with the statutes of TDF. And it conflicts with the with the basic liberties within Germany and many other countries.

That you don’t follow your own statement was confirmed by your silence to the posting from Cor about censoring (he named it moderation) of some users / postings. You didn’t replied to that posting and rejected it, although you are the Chair of the board.

There is this saying: the fish rots from the head down, which seemed to apply here.

Regards,
Andreas

#20

I’ve just removed a post that again contains a part of sensitive internal topics in a setting where we cannot discuss it. It does however create uncertainty and doubt.

#21

Hi Andreas,

I find it sad to see that Thorsten’s post, that is built with clear and accessible explanation, is ignored for the most part. Where he uses ‘slander’ I think the facts from the posts here, speak for themselves. And to help a bit: ‘legal advise being ignored and circumvented, changes pushed with unethical interests in mind.’

#22

No you haven’t. The post is only hidden and the action can be reverted by anyone with same or higher privileges, including the author… Furthermore the post was sent by mail to all subscribers (regardless of access level), who are therefore free to quote it in part or full in their reply.

Rather than playing excalatory ping pong I would suggest to delegate part of the moderation to subscribers and community members. Folks can flag messages to bring them to the moderator’s attention, and only then decide whether to moderate or not. That’s how it’s being done in AskLibO and other category here, and it appears to work well.

3 Likes
#23

I do agree with @guilhem and that’s why I proposed to remove moderation right from board members to avoid unilateral censoring.

I agreed to wait stating “Let’s give it a try and revisit if impartiality and objectivity is not applied.”

It seems like we didn’t have to wait long until someone got displeased with comment that bring some facts that go against the narrative one wanted to set.

#24

How would we flag a message please Guillhem? I do not see any UI element for that?

Thanks

Simon

1 Like
#25

The difficulty with that is the “moderators” are part of the argument so it’s easy for folk to further inflame matters with accusations of a lack of impartiality, and additionally the “moderators” can then presumably see who is flagging posts and potentially target them as well as has happened in the past. Perhaps TDF needs to retain some professional third-party moderators to assist with this?

2 Likes
#26

I’ve edited that post stating more or less the same thing but in a more diplomatic way.

I hope you’ll find the style to be more in line with your taste.

#27

I censored myself a bit even if I don’t think there were sensitive topics that we should have kept secret in my previous message, see if this version suit your taste better.

In reply to this:

It is worth pointing out that if you accuse somebody of slander and to spread untrue rumours you should be ready to support your accusations or, once again, you will demonstrate that you want to attack a fellow member of the board for… “reasons”.

In this thread you have directors and members of the MC telling you that what you support as a chairman is sub-optimal but you want to carry on regardless.

The discussion would have been settled if you would have accepted to have those changes reviewed by our trusted legal counsel and then published as a draft, as a rule you wanted when we published the CoI Policy, but both were denied.

“I really cannot see how that can possibly be seen as helpful (or even leading by positive example)” to have a chairman that accuses other directors of slander or “to spread untrue rumours” when not only he has evidence in his own mailbox of accusing unjustly a fellow board members but when the evidence is also public and in the same thread.

If I stated that you and Cor wanted this badly made change to the RoP to then follow up with creating committees (which is what your reinvented) where you could have imposed external participants that are aligned with what you want to do without worrying about conflict of interests then your could have accused me of spreading unsubstantiated rumours, but I will not state that and I will just wait for the next votes to happen.

One hint that things are not going in the right direction is the vote, that soon will be published, where you replaced myself and Emiliano in the area of oversight for employees, which deals also with the task in question, with two directors one of which is your contractor and conflicted member of the board. That goes against recommendations we received from professional advisers to improve our processes to ensure a level playing field for all.

The fact that I’m against imposing a policy that in all effects wants to stop TDF’s staff from expressing dissenting opinions and that I expressed my strong opinions on how the specific task at hand was previously performed could have influenced Thorsten’s vote to put other members of the board, including a conflicted one, to deal with that task. I suspect the purge of non aligned directors won’t end here.

So it is true I have personal feelings about the way you act as a chairman but I doubt I’m the one that is putting personal interests and animosity above TDF’s interests.

Once again it is really sad to have this discussions in public but when the chairman is accusing me of slander and to spread untrue rumours then he should be ready to waive the board confidentiality, I believe I’ve asked for it twice, to have his statements scrutinised by the community.

Ciao

Paolo

#28

Hi, It depends on your Trust Level, see the table in my answer here:

https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/is-moderation-entirely-left-to-peers-with-sufficient-karma-should-it-be/86149/10?u=sophi

#29

Thanks Sophie. To quote the post you cite:

For this site, you need TL 4 to be able to flag other topics

That means basically no-one who joined when Board Discuss was added will be able to do so. I suggest this is represents a defect in your assertion, @guilhem since this specific community is unable to flag any post…

#30

The sentence you quoted is for the Ask forum, where we changed the settings, I guess for this forum, the BoD didn’t asked to change from the basic settings.

#31

Well, I currently have TL 1 (despite having posts going back years…) and in the defaults apparently that is supposed to enable flagging, but I have no … button under posts so can’t flag anything.

#32

For the AskLibO migration we tried to map AskBot karma to TLs in order to preserve access level and permissions, but there is no such thing for mailing lists so it didn’t occur to me to do the same for this instance. Everyone is therefore starting with a fresh TL. Those who who have been active here for a while (for instance in other categories) might have gained TL >1 meanwhile. Discourse does that automatically.

You’re right though that TL1 were not allowed to flag and I lowered the threshold accordingly.

2 Likes

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.