[Foundation-l] Provisional Volunteer Council - proposal sent to the Board

[Ray Saintonge]

Milos Rancic wrote:
> My opinion is that the discussion list of PVC should be this list,
> foundation-l. PVC should take care about preparing documents for
> talking here and for summarizing them. Everything between should be
> discussed here. (Maybe PVC should define a couple of its own
> meta-rules without public and to present it; but I am not sure about
> that. I see non-public talks of PVC only as a possibility for talking
> without noise because of productivity. All *important* things should
> be solved publicly.)
>   
A closed mailing list, and closed wiki will still be essential to the 
functionality of both the provisional and operational Councils.  If the 
discussions of the VC become too open there is a strong risk that every 
attempt by individual members at consensus building will be publicly 
interpreted as a hard position of the entire Council.  In reality all 
that the member may be suggesting is a word that could better express an 
idea. 

There is also the likelihood that Council members will be exposed to 
personal information.  This could happen when a new person is nominated 
for membership, and a member may have specific and serious doubts about 
that candidate.  I don't think that it is at all helpful to discuss that 
kind of thing in public when so much of the comments are speculative, or 
others are making a show of their personal dislike of some individual.

The margins of the public and the private will need to be developed.  
Clearly we need to take direction from the communities about the general 
issues, and when proposals have been drafted the communities need to 
have a time to react before the proposals are enacted.  If the outcry is 
serious the Council will often need to reconsider its decisions.  When 
proposals have been presented at a generally accessible and well 
advertised site, and no responses are received at all, Council should be 
safe to conclude that there is consent.
> At this phase, we need people who are able to spend some time and
> organize talk here. So, yes, we need Lodewijk, but I am not sure how
> many people are needed now for representation. While we will talk
> (here) about a (more or less) real representative body, we (PVC) are
> not a representative body. But, it is true that we represent different
> ideas of organization.
>
> Because of that, I would call all people who are interested in this
> issue to watch this list and to participate whenever they think that
> they have to say something. I am sure that we will consider every
> constructive input.
Yes, but the Council members will still need to build techniques for 
improved communication with the general editorship.

Ec