Re: Voting and Leadership Discussions

Michael Bond wrote:
>
> I apologize for following up a lengthy email with another rather long
> one ...
>
> Jonathan, I know you mean well with the long email below, but I think
> what you are trying to achieve is overkill for our group at this time.


It is a long email because it is a standard practice with organizations
to read or present their bylaws to their members or BOD especially in
situations where a major change is being discussed (and it should be a
standard part of our website).  It is appropriate and in good order to
establish a precedence for the reasons why Morlug requires some sort of
leadership as explained in our bylaws.  After presenting our bylaws I
initiated the discussion to explain to the uninitiated the approach
employed by many highly successful LUGs as well as to demonstrate how it
could apply to MorLUG.  However, I did provide a one sentence summary at
the bottom for those uninterested in reading everything I wrote.
Recently, Ryan mentioned why can't Morlug be more like WPLUG at CMU, if
you look at the links I included to other LUGs bylaws, they happen to be
a group that have bylaws, too.  CMU has a great open door policy to
outsider groups, but perhaps by establishing better formalities our
group can be taken seriously by WVU as well and they can provide us a
meeting place that doesn't conflict with our bylaws that specifies a
regular "predictable" meeting place at a regular time.


> In fact, I would argue that a lot of what you proposed is what killed
> MorFree and I was hoping to stay away from in MorLUG. We don't need a
> well defined mission statement, MorFree demonstrated how drafting  just
> a simple sentence or 2 among a group of people can take weeks  (as
> you'll see below, i've already picked your mission statement  apart at
> the end of this email ;-P ).


Programmers are essentially problem solvers, and as problem solvers,
when programmers encounter bugs they look for real reasons why the bug
exists, not imagined ones, and then they try to provide realistic
solutions.  Morfree sometimes comes out in discussions as the causation
for Morlug's dissolution.  However, if you study the problem closely, it
actually started back at Morlug's first ever meeting at Jay's Daily
Grind on Decemeber 17, 2001.  At that time a decision was made to not
have any leadership or for that matter any formalities.  Afterall, a
group of Free Software users should be able to live together in perfect
harmony like any F/OSS project with meetings occurring on a regular
basis due to the infectious enthusiasm and activism of its members.  How
short lived that experiment was.  By the time David Krovich desired that
Morlug change its name to Morfree, and that we become a political
organization - something that turned many off - we were already far into
our downward spiral.  Ofcourse, if there had been a leader at that time,
he/she could have stepped in and kept our group on track according to
its purposes as suggested in the HOWTO.  I enjoy referring to Rich
Moen's recipe for a successful LUG, because we were very much
contrarians to many of the things he elaborates on.  Study bylaws of
other LUGs, they all have well defined purposes, i.e., mission
statements, and they are doing quite nicely.  Putting together Mission
Statements isn't what kills organizations, but a lacking infrastructure
will accomplish that every time.  Finally, Robert's Rules of Order, or
any order for that matter has been a big problem with Morlug.  With a
BOD, a mission statement could be hashed together very quickly by a
group of devoted individuals, because RRO establishes a climate of
decisiveness amongst selected officers.


> I don't feel that a group of our size needs an executive board of
> directors. What exactly are the issues on hand that need a special
> group of people to make decisions that shouldn't be open to the rest  of
> the group to come to a consensus on?


First see above, in reference to lack of order, and the need for
decisiveness.  Any organization will encounter a variety of issues that
it will need to pass a consensus on.  Based on prior attempts at relying
on our general members to give us a consensus, one of two things
happened.  1).  There was no interest in providing a consensus.  2). It
turned nasty, and unproductive.  This is why I refer to Robert Rules of
Order as a proven solution that does work for convoluted organizations
like ours that have highly intelligent people who are not experts about
social infrastructures, though they are certainly experts in many other
arcane subjects.


> I still feel that we just need one leader position. If a subject  comes
> up that ultimately needs to be discussed let the whole group  discuss
> it. I'm not even sure that a voting system is needed. If a  consensus
> can't be reached by the time that one is needed (in a  meeting or via
> the list) the leader must take all views into account  and make the
> decision for the group.  The leader is someone that has  been voted in
> (I say, by a show of hands or paper in a hat) at the  next meeting and
> then every N months/years afterward (Every june  would work) and should
> therefore have the trust of the group to be  able to make decisions,
> otherwise they should not have that authority  at all and be replaced.


Do you really want just one leader?  This is always a great idea for a
short lived or wavering organization, i.e., the organization will only
be as strong as its one leader.  However, as  a step in the right
direction and if this is what people ultimately indicate in these
discussions, so it will be.  Only one person has expressed interest in
being the President so far anyways, and you have already indicated to me
your lack of interest in being part of the leadership process due to
time commitments, although I'd enjoy having you on a BOD operating as
MorLUG's technical officer.


> And now, i would like to make my POINT:
>
> There is already a disagreement about how things should be run. And  we
> know the view of at least one other member that feels that any  voting
> would be bad for the group (or at least did know his view at  the time
> of his lighting talk). How long is it going to take to  resolve these
> issues so that everyone is happy?


At our next meeting June 29th, this discussion is officially over.
Because there are two interim leaders  (benevolent dictators), Michael
Bond, and Jonathan Rosenbaum, who both agree that leadership in some
form is a necessity, our decisions override anyone who doesn't desire
leadership.  Here are some scenarios, a few members volunteer to be on
the BOD, the BOD becomes a reality, or only one member volunteers to be
leader, and we have one leader who will be on the BOD, but who will have
to talk to himself when making decisions as the ultimate decision maker
for the LUG.   If someone desires a different form of leadership, now is
the time for them to speak up, however, does MorLUG really need to
reinvent the wheel?  I think not.


> How many people are just along for the ride and don't care about the
> outcome at all?
>
> Does the outcome of any debates that result from this really matter  at
> all? Will the group continue in much the same fashion regardless  of
> whether we have a mission statement/BOD/constitution or a single  leader?


See my discussion near the top of the page.


>>     * Walk the walk. (Do the LUG's computing on Linux.)
>
>
> What if i upgraded the server to BSD? Does this mean its no longer
> eligible to run the LUG's website? We've been through this before,  both
> on this list and sitting in the moose. A LUG isn't just about  linux.
> Hurd, bsd, freedos, etc are just as welcome.

What walk the walk means is that a LUG should be utilizing the
technologies it expounds, so using proprietary technologies to build our
website - like cold fusion - is silliness.  Obviously, this bylaw can be
easily altered by the BOD.  There are huge numbers of bylaw examples out
there already provided by established LUGs.

As for the rest of your discussion, the work has already been done for
us by other LUGs.  For instance, WPLUG's purposes are "The purpose of
the group is to provide a forum for the discussion of Linux related
issues; technical assistance to participants by participants; education
about and advocacy for Linux, related operating systems, and open source
software; and opportunities for socializing among WPLUG participants
and/or other Linux/open source users or advocates."

Again, let me summarize everything I've spoken about today in one
sentence:  MorLUG should model itself after other successful LUGs who
utilize strong leadership models that adhere to established and proven
bylaws.

Jonathan


>> Mission Statement (my version):  "To advocate, educate, and support  the
>> community and provide social outlets for the outstanding qualities of
>> Free Software."
>
>
> So we exist to advocate and educate and support the community?
>
> Perhaps you meant, "To advocate, support, and provide education for
> Free Software within the community"
>
> but I still don't agree with that statement.
>
> Advocate, yes, this is one of our jobs/goals.
>
> Support? No, not really. When people think support they think "these
> guys will fix all my computer problems" or "MorLUG == Free tech
> support" ... While providing support in this fashion is one of our
> functions, that is a direct result of who we are. If it was part of  our
> mission statement we'd almost have to advertise it since it is  worded
> as support for the community (especially if we ever get non- profit
> status).


> Educate, No. Again, this is a direct result of who we are and what we
> do. Each meeting exists to provide education but we are not  advertising
> and going out of our way trying to go out and teach  people in the
> community how to use OpenOffice.org in a class setting,  or giving
> seniors weekly classes on using Firefox and the web.
>
> While i don't disagree that providing such classes might be a good
> activity for us once in a while, we don't have the resources to  provide
> that level of education to the community. We don't have a  high speed
> internet connection and a lab of computers at our disposal  to offer
> classes like that (each person would have to have a computer  to sit
> at). Even if we found a lab that we could have regular  meetings in,
> would we have access to Free Software on the machines?  Would we be
> allowed to install it? I seriously doubt any  administrator would allow
> that, unless the software was already on  the machines.
>
> Mike.
> [email protected]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Morlug mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://mailman.morlug.org/mailman/listinfo/morlug

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