Re: Moving to two year terms for board elections

[Neil McGovern <neil gnome org>]

Hi Tobi,

Thanks very much for this, it's incredibly helpful. I think I
understand your position better now so can relay that to the board.

On Thu, 2019-02-07 at 18:53 +0100, Tobias Mueller wrote:
> 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?

There's two points I think that are worth considering here.

The act of simply deciding to re-run is a risk and contains an amount
of work itself. As someone who has run for election offline, and been
elected, and then lost my seat when re-standing, it shouldn't be
underestimated the emotional impact that even the possibility of losing
an election can have. This is a consideration of people when they
decide not to re-run, but would otherwise be happy to continue in the
role.

The use of longer than one year terms (and staggering them) is
considered good governance in general however, due to the
"institutional memory" that can be provided for this. For the actual
length of time, I believe a year is too short. Not only is the first 6
months spent getting up to speed, but the final couple of months can
often be a time of uncertainty for starting any new longer term
projects that a Director wishes to lead on.

I do understand your point about "well, if the electorate think that's
important, they can re-elect them", and that is distinct from the
length argument (although it's hard to have one without the other,
unless we want to move to 6-monthly elections and risk voter fatigue!)

So, I'll raise these as separate (but linked) items for discussion by
the board.

Thanks,
Neil
-- 
Neil McGovern
Executive Director, The GNOME Foundation