Term duration for board members (was GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections 2017 - Candidates)

[Alexandre Franke <afranke gnome org>]

Hi Michael,

I’m starting a new thread by taking out of your mail the question you
ask to candidates as the other part was already covered in the other
thread.

On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 1:54 PM, Michael Catanzaro
<mike catanzaro gmail com> wrote:
> Here's another question: what do the candidates think about switching to
> using two-year terms?

That is an interesting idea. We remotely touched on the topic on
occasion, like during the in person meetings at GUADEC last year where
the handover from one board to the next happens, and the consensus
seemed to be that it takes a while to get up to speed when joining the
board for the first time, and one is usually more efficient on their
second term. You can also notice by looking up [the list of former
directors](https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard) that it’s not
uncommon to serve for more than one term.

There was also a consensus about the fact that having people that were
not on their first term alongside people who were was a good way to
impart knowledge.

Taking all of this into consideration, we could switch to a system
where directors are elected for two years, and half of the board gets
replaced every year. I’m adding that to the agenda for the in person
meeting at this year’s GUADEC and maybe we’ll have a referendum in
fall of this year?

Thanks for raising this.

Cheers,

-- 
Alexandre Franke
GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director