| 27 Apr 2024 |
 @theophane:hufschmitt.net | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.town
but not this weird "maybe a board member will come in to veto things, maybe they won't" inbetween situation that we've had thus far I certainly can't say I know everything, but I can't remember ever seeing that (I've seen board members engaged in all kind of discussion ofc, but not using some magic board wand to veto anything). Do you have some example? | 13:09:22 |
 @joepie91:pixie.town | if we're going to do community governance then the teams appointed to be responsible for certain areas need to actually have unambiguous authority over making decisions within those areas | 13:09:23 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | * if we're going to do community governance then the teams appointed to be responsible for certain areas need to actually have unambiguous and explicit authority over making decisions within those areas | 13:09:30 |
 Arian | What i have seen of Eelco are opinions. Not vetoes or mandates. And in the end he says "it's up to the organizers. I'd prefer the foundation to not have an opinion on this". Isn't that exactly the outcome we need? We just decide ourselves to stop inviting anduril and be done with it? | 13:09:50 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | Théophane: to be more explicit, a chunk of the open letter regarding eelco addresses this problem | 13:09:55 |
| @theophane:hufschmitt.net | (if anything, the sponsorship situation was the foundation not opposing a veto to a team's decision) | 13:10:08 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | Arian: if someone makes a statement who is also a board member, that carries the weight of the board with it, whether they intend it to or not. that is how soft power works. | 13:10:36 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | that is why "no duplicate hats" is necessary | 13:10:42 |
 Janik (they/them) | In reply to @theophane:hufschmitt.net
I certainly can't say I know everything, but I can't remember ever seeing that (I've seen board members engaged in all kind of discussion ofc, but not using some magic board wand to veto anything). Do you have some example? there was a sponsorship policy draft and Eelco went and misrepresented the board by stating his own opinion and making it sound like that's the board decision. (that was in the open board call so I don't know if it is written down somewhere) | 13:10:47 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | the separation between personal opinions and formal authority only exists on paper, it never actually works that way in reality | 13:11:21 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | (and a good non-interference policy is designed to account for that) | 13:11:51 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @theophane:hufschmitt.net
(if anything, the sponsorship situation was the foundation not opposing a veto to a team's decision) the sponsorship situation is an exceptional one, because it concerns "using the reputation of the project as a whole for something" (namely, endorsement of the sponsor) and this means that making that decision is not within the mandate of a conference team to begin with | 13:13:15 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | that is also why people only expected a sponsorship policy for official events | 13:13:46 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | * that is also why people only expected a sponsorship policy for official events, because those are the ones where that problem applies | 13:13:56 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | (in an ideal world, an official conference sponsor would be a community-wide discussion, but when you do not have functioning moderation - which again seems to boil down to a lack of mandate - that becomes almost impossible to pull off) | 13:17:13 |
| @theophane:hufschmitt.net | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.town
the sponsorship situation is an exceptional one, because it concerns "using the reputation of the project as a whole for something" (namely, endorsement of the sponsor) and this means that making that decision is not within the mandate of a conference team to begin with That's completely fair. I was just pointing out that the tendency is definitely that of under-intervention, not over- | 13:18:00 |
| Arian | Okay but shat I don't understand. Isn't "the board will not have an opinion" a first step to "the community decides" ? | 13:18:13 |
 @withoutwithin:matrix.org | I have had many thoughts about this and everything related over the last month. I've written up a post that I feel summarizes my emotions, feelings, and has my official response to this situation. I wish you all luck in your future endeavors.
Please take the time to read my post before you ask me questions that can be answered by reading the post carefully.
https://xeiaso.net/blog/2024/much-ado-about-nothing/ | 13:18:59 |
| @withoutwithin:matrix.org | be well, | 13:19:30 |
| @withoutwithin:matrix.org left the room. | 13:19:34 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @arianvp:matrix.org
Okay but shat I don't understand. Isn't "the board will not have an opinion" a first step to "the community decides" ? the problem is that the board - especially eelco - frequently does have an opinion | 13:21:50 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | when I say "explicit non-interference" I mean an actual strict rule about board members not involving themselves with team decisions and sticking to that rule | 13:22:34 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | there needs to be no uncertainty, no doubt, whatsoever, that a decision made within a team is going to remain unchallenged | 13:22:53 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | we do not have this today and we have not had this since the beginning of the project, as far as I can tell | 13:23:13 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | just saying "the board has no opinion" is not sufficient when you then have a board member proceeding to behave contrary to that claim | 13:23:50 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | there are many ways to solve that, but one thing that is certain is that as long as eelco both holds a position of (board) authority and abrasively butts into decisionmaking procedures, we will not have functioning community governance | 13:25:25 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | (this applies to other board members too in principle but I have not observed this behaviour from them) | 13:25:36 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | those two things are just fundamentally incompatible if you want community governance | 13:26:26 |
|  hexchen left the room. | 13:40:02 |
 Eelco | In reply to @joepie91:pixie.town
there needs to be no uncertainty, no doubt, whatsoever, that a decision made within a team is going to remain unchallenged Then let's be consistent with that: if (say) the NixCon NA team accepts a certain sponsor, nobody challenges that?
I also would like to know what team decisions board members have interfered with. | 13:41:33 |
