Re: Moving to two year terms for board elections

[Tobias Mueller <muelli cryptobitch de>]

Hi Neil,

On Thu, 2019-02-07 at 16:20 +0000, Neil McGovern wrote:
> > > Finally, it could be argued that only having to find 4 people at a
> > > time
> > > to run may help, rather than 7.
> >
> > no. Not at all.
> >
> > If three people would indeed like to continue serving on the board,
> > you
> > still need to find four other people rather than seven.
>
> I'm a bit confused by this comment. Could you help clarify so I can
> present the options to the board?
>
> In year n, 4 people are elected for a 2 year term.
> In year n+1, 3 people are elected for a 2 year term.
> In year n+3, 4 people are elected for a 2 year term.
> etc.
Sure.
But: You can have that already with what we have today with the
advantage of letting the electorate choose freely what they want rather
than dictating what is good.

Currently, a candidate can simply run for a consecutive term. They can
even make it part of their platform that they intend to serve for more
than one term or that they have served a term already. The electorate
can then decide whether they like it or whether they'd rather see change
(maybe to overcome perceived bad habits or discontinuing a cabal).

So your initial claim, i.e. "it could be argued that one only needs to
find four people", does not hold true. That is, the proposal does not
add anything to what we can have today. Because you are assuming that
candidates are willing to run for two consecutive years. And once we
have established that assumption, then those candidates can currently
simply run again, as mentioned above.





I conclude that the proposal for increasing the term to two periods does
not have any advantage over the current system. That alone makes me
hesitant to like it, because it does incur some cost with no expected
benefit.

In addition, I can see drawbacks such as strictly increasing the burden
on candidates. Another, more philosophical one is that the longer term
mandates the electorate to live with a director for two years rather
than one.  I can see how this can be argued into being an advantage, due
to the knowledge not getting lost and the consistency it provides. I 
appreciate those arguments and they have some merit.
But my counter argument is that the electorate should be free to choose
whether they see it the same way. With the proposal, you are forcing the
electorate to think the same way as you do. And again, if a candidate
thinks continuity and preserving knowledge is important, I'd rather see
the candidate convincing the electorate rather than forcing that onto
them.

Or am I missing anything obvious that makes running for another term
impossible?

Cheers,
  Tobi