[VOTE] Adopt version 1 of Community Bylaws

I really don’t think we need a Turing-complete voting system at TDF. Generally e.g. voting systems at parliaments have only three voting buttons, “yes”, “no”, and “abstain”, and I think that’s for a reason.

Using forum posts as a voting mechanism will of course give voters the opportunity to try slip in conditionals, much like using paper ballots in local elections will give me the opportunity to try to write conditionals there. But that would just result in my vote being discarded.

@webmink could just have done what @nemeth did, that is, give an unambiguous vote combined with a statement.

So I give √-1 on the ongoing silliness and suggest we move on.

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Hi @floeff ,

Of course nobody is asking you to violate rules or regulations - but me and others are obviously puzzled, what those regulations are. If you want to avoid the impression that this is a fairly arbitrary (and seemingly convenient) exclusion of significant dissent, then please be specific, what your personal decision to exclude @webmink is based on.

It is clearly not Germany’s civil code, nor is that regulated in the board’s rules of procedure. Quite obviously, if the rules of procedure would actually be followed, then according to § 11. General Rules, “TDF employees are barred from holding or seeking elected position in TDF” - and then perhaps other votes should not be counted.

Please clarify.

Best, Thorsten

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What’s the problem with that at least? @floeff I mean, the community starts creating statistics about abstaining members… Simon was clearly involved in that vote. :woozy_face:

Dear Florian, dear Trustees,

For your information, the decision is not correct, because the disputed vote of Simon Phipps, our Deputy Chairperson was a clear disapproval. Moreover, not only for me, but must be for the majority of the Board and our supervisory body, the Membership Committee, and our ED, too, according to the following evidence. In a previous vote, my similarly strong disapproval (but with a really conditional NO, i.e. using 3rd conditional tense) was accepted a few weeks ago:

-------- Original Message, redacted text annotated by […] --------
Subject: [DECISION] […]
Date: 2025-12-19 15:30
From: Florian Effenberger […]
To: tdf-directors@lists.documentfoundation.org
Cc: […non-affiliated Membership Committee members…]

[…]

Result of vote:

[…] disapprovals: […] Laszlo

[…]

Statement Laszlo: "I suggest to abort this rushed vote, because […],
and […] Otherwise I agree with […] (and with […] about our fiduciary
duties), and I would have voted with -1.

[…]

Florian

-------------------------- End of Message -------------------------------

Changing this fair practice, and not interpreting a disapproval (or approval), as it was intended, moreover, and not reporting this and the suspected problems in a timely manner puts the integrity of the recent vote at risk. So at the very least, I suggest fixing the decision by following the previous practice or re-voting, if the board majority really does not need consensus on our Community Bylaws. I would note, however, that such harsh treatment of our Deputy Chairperson’s vote may make consensus more desirable than ever.

Best regards,
László

Reopening past votes might not be a good idea.

However, as in yesterday‘s board meeting we learned by surprise that [REDACTED: name of company] is a customer of a board member’s company, which was not revealed at the time of voting, there might be a CoI problem.

I talked to other participants of the meeting and several confirmed they heard the same, so we may have to follow-up on that.

I do confirm that Laszlo clearly stated that he has or had the company of one of the former members of the board of directors, and former trustees, as a customer.

I had indeed to remind him once again of his duty to disclose his affiliations or interests that might influence his decisions.

Laszlo hasn’t yet explained his failure of disclosing a personal interest that might turn into a conflict of interest as the vote was related to the company with which he might have a financial dependency.

I’d be very interested in receiving more information about the matter as I presume also other member of the board are interested in a clarification and evaluation of a potential violation of our Conflict of Interest Policy.

Reopening past votes might not be a good idea.

I tend to agree - and yet the current TDF board does this all the time.
It regularly undoes votes where it thinks it is convenient while not
undoing others that it also claims are/were (partially?) invalid: it’s a
mess.

As I read Laszlo’s mail (and perhaps I’m confused) he showed rather
clearly with examples that your behavior in vote tallying was arbitrary
in this case. So then we have this random distraction conflated that
deserves its own thread:

However, as in yesterday‘s board meeting we learned by surprise that

with some unverified and (I imagine inaccurate) hearsay - casting vague
accusations against an unnamed director, who weirdly then Paolo names as
Laszlo in the next mail. Yet still without a clear accusation that can
be clearly answered - that’s just terrible practice.

We should address and clarify that of course rather than turning it into
yet another ‘truthy’ accusation of badness with no basis in fact.

Either way - lets not get distracted by that. Lets get back to the
topic. It would be nice if votes were impartially and consistently
tallied - do you have a proposal to ensure that they are ? Laszlo’s was
to re-do the vote - that seems unlikely to produce a different result
and is easy to do, so why not ?

Regards,

Michael.

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