Elections, Accountability, and Education

[inode0]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 5:42 PM, John Poelstra <poelstra at redhat.com> wrote:
> inode0 said the following on 03/13/2009 07:14 AM Pacific Time:
>
> <cut>
>
> Disclaimer: I take the notes for the board meetings.  I am not a board
> member and I do not participate in the discussions.
>
>> Comparing these 40 minutes with the information I receive by reading
>> the minutes of the private board meetings I'd like to make two
>> observations. First, John does a great job summarizing the discussion
>> that took place in the minutes but that summary rarely includes who
>> said what. That is still quite valuable and helps educate the reader
>> of the minutes about the nuances of the issue and the board's
>> collective thinking about the problem. Accountability isn't something
>> we can hold the board collectively responsible for though since we
>> don't vote for the board collectively. Who said what is critical to
>> our understanding of each individual member of the board and to our
>> ability to hold them accountable in subsequent elections. (In case
>> this "accountability" theme sounds negative I want to be clear
>> everyone understands that it isn't negative. It is more likely by
>> increasing my awareness of the individual participation of board
>> members that I will say this member is great, I want to vote *for* him
>> next time.)
>
> I appreciate your appreciation :)
>
> Anyone that has taken notes for a meeting knows that really well written
> notes can take a long time to do even when the final products doesn't look
> like it.  In the past it has not been unusual to spend the same amount of
> time writing the notes after the meeting as the meeting itself.  So two
> hours can easily evaporate from a work day just for one meeting.  I can't
> imagine how much time it would take to transcribe the view points of nine
> different people as they engage in vigorous debate.  While this might
> provide value for some issues I don't think it is sustainable or provides a
> very good ROI on the use of time.

I do summaries for another meeting and I completely understand how
long they take to do. And I want to really stress that while I talked
a lot about the minutes that was only because they are the primary way
we get information about the non-public meetings held by the board. I
tried to stay away from making suggestions and I'm afraid that left
the suggestion that I thought the minutes should be "fixed" in some
way. I really don't think the minutes need to be changed in any
burdensome way.

The fundamental issue is one of wanting the business of the board and
the activities of the individual board members (especially during the
deliberation process) to be more transparent to those who elect them.
Any step in that direction will be welcome and it could come from
having one meeting each month be held in public, either on IRC or with
the public allowed to eavesdrop in some way on a conference call (live
or by way of podcast or perhaps some other fashion) or in others ways
I'm not bright enough to think up.

Honestly, I would personally be delighted to trade the current monthly
public meeting, which isn't normally a meeting at all, with a real
meeting. I learn a lot more about the board and its way of conducting
affairs on my behalf from seeing them work for 45 minutes than I do
from asking them questions once a month which I could just as easily
ask on this mailing list.

John