Member/Board Mutual Agreement

[patrick727]

Lets spend a week or two thinking about a mutual agreement to hold members/board accountable

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x3j8fERfWDBxyJZij8MChOrhzazmRgspxgNNRUkDHMw/edit

this is a draft from Jon West based on the discord discussions.

[dckc]

@patrick727: where are we on this issue? Suggestions for contacting Jon West?

I gather from @lapin7 in #616 that there's a board meeting tomorrow, May 1st. I've heard talk of the board sharing agendas with the membership in advance. Are we doing that yet?

@kennyrowe @leithaus @ian-bloom ?

[allancto]

@patrick727 , in reference to your first comment above) the draft from Jon West included input from several members. Obviously no contribution was huge (all measurable in minutes or hours), and in this there is no closure since the document is still unfinished and this issue isn't closed.Are these member's time and contribution considered valuable? If so, should they be compensated for their involvement?

There is and should be an RChain cultural understanding that members should be encouraged to participate and those who do participate should and will be rewarded for their participation. This principle of encouraging participation of membership and rewarding accordingly has been stated on multiple occasions by our board @kennyrowe @leithaus @ian-bloom @lapin7 . It's also a requirement of our structure as a cooperative that members be encouraged to participate and rewarded for their participation (which i understand to have been the intent behind the recent resolution which is the subject of #616).

[allancto]

@dckc , you are correct in your understanding that a commitment was made to publishing board meeting agendas in advance, as well as publishing minutes in a timely fashion. There may have been hiccups in the past with this process, but radical transparency is a bedrock principle of the RChain Cooperative and we've been fixing hiccups as rapidly as we can.

[dckc]

@kennyrowe writes in discord:

the agenda is typically not published ahead of time. Though that is something we could look into

[dckc]

a commitment was made to publishing board meeting agendas in advance? really? In what context was that commitment made, @allancto ? Is there some record of it? Got a pointer?

[dckc]

@allancto is there more to your question to @patrick727 about whether contributors should be compensated? It seems obvious that the answer is yes, they should, and our usual voting process is designed to determine how much.

We consider it fair if the value you provide towards our goal is proportional to the value you receive.
-- https://github.com/rchain/bounties/blob/master/README.md

[allancto]

@dckc , that's my interpretation of one of the many great points @ian-bloom made at the RAM meeting last week, so the pointer would be to the RAM meeting minutes. If it's not in the minutes @ian-bloom or @lapin7 (who was also at the meeting) can also just speak to this issue now! Or for that matter, the entire board (i'd ask in board<->membership if we had that channel).

[dckc]

i'd ask in board<->membership if we had that channel

#board2coop is close enough, for my purposes. As noted above, @kennyrowe replied there:

the agenda is typically not published ahead of time. Though that is something we could look into

I can check the video recording of the RAM meeting (#614). This is the 2nd time it's been suggested to me that it would be worth my time; i.e. that the written notes don't capture all the essential stuff or that some stuff that might usually be considered inessential is nonetheless worth my time.

[allancto]

@dckc , a bit more info, iirc correctly there was a concern expressed that some items might no be ready for public disclosure, so those aspects would be withheld (preferably temporarily, with a release date included for archival purposes). Also I requested that in addition to the agenda, relevant items such as resolutions under consideration and ancillary materials also be provided, again subject to the needs of (temporary where possible) non disclosure. In general the board has indeed tried to be radically transparent, but occasionally the ball has been dropped because of glitches of one sort or another. As the saying goes, the spirit is willing but the process hasn't been implemented. -Allan

[dckc]

OK... I see in the Apr 25 RAM meeting notes:

We also need some way to publish the Board agenda in advance so Members can suggest topics or provide feedback in advance

I also reviewed the video. There's clear momentum in the direction of sharing the board agenda in advance, but not what I'd call a commitment; nobody there was in a position to speak for the board.

But @ian-bloom , @lapin7 please do follow up on sharing board meeting agendas with the membership in advance.

[allancto]

@dckc I'd suggest inviting the other 6 board members as well, this topic isn't a surprise to any of us and thought has already gone into it. A 'also following @lapin7's lead i request to be included in any meeting that precipitates from this discussion

[dckc]

Why suggest that I invite them? Why not do it yourself? I prefer to make direct requests to one or a few people to avoid the anybody/somebody/nobody anti-pattern. Plus, only Ian and H J expressed support agendas in advance. I don't have that info from other board members.

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On Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 8:23 PM allancto ***@***.***> wrote: @dckc <https://github.com/dckc> I'd suggest inviting the other 6 board members as well, this topic isn't a surprise to any of us and thought has already gone into it. A 'also following @lapin7 <https://github.com/lapin7>'s lead i request to be included in any meeting that precipitates from this discussion — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#564 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAJNyrcB8DgLFXOn9VhNXAS0TVgbh4bnks5tt7klgaJpZM4TCGxx> .

[allancto]

Dan you're correct. Especially about the anybody/somebody/nobody anti-pattern. Counterbalancing that are two principles: informing people that we're discussing something that may involve them, and what process we have within the RChain membership to communicate effectively with our board.

The subtopic here is, what process can the membership use to effectively collaborate with the board in the meetings that (by definition) directly affect all members (including board members!) of the RChain Cooperative. Specifically we have been discussing agendas and reference materials that are inputs to board meeting discussions. There have been many examples where members and possibly board members themselves have felt "blindsided" because of lack of access to important inputs. The example in front of us is the TOS resolution adopted on April 9. Without speaking for @dckc, my sense is that he wasn't informed and had no chance to provide comments even though he's been a key contributor to the bounty system. Even lapin7, another Cooperative member (who happens to also be a board member) expressed some surprise in the RAM zoom, where Ian asked why he voted for the resolution if he had reservations, and lapin7 basically suggested (again, interpretation mine) that he didn't have enough lead time to understand the resolution, and further- in my estimation- lapin7 wasn't alerted to the significance of the resolution by the process of group intelligence BEFORE the meeting took place.

Here and now I'm trying to create membership involvement and board joint involvement in Cooperative decision making by inviting the board members to participate in this discussion. Is this an appropriate forum? Should there be a special meeting to address these issues and suggestions? Since I don't know of a better way to involve everyone who's interested I'd like to simply invite our board members now into this discussion here: @ian-bloom @leithaus @lapin7 @kennyrowe @evanjensen @vlad (??) @navneet (??) @dc (??). I'd like to also invite the members of our Executive Committee @kdvalentine @mrinalmanohar @kitblake @RollandWaters, and @Jake-Gillberg who's been involved in similar discussions (issue #399), to participate in the spirit of efficaciously involving all of our membership.

Our board and our membership together have so far been doing an awesome job in getting us to where we are today. A more appropriate title for this issue would be "RChain Cultural Values for Effective Collaboration", and would express as cultural values our expectations of mutual appreciation and respect that will help us to achieve the collective intelligence at scale we are all aiming for.

Thanks!
Allan

[dckc]

p.s. regarding...

Also I requested that in addition to the agenda, relevant items such as resolutions under consideration and ancillary materials also be provided

I'm a web guy; I assume the agenda is one page but includes other linked materials by reference.

[barneycinnamon]

Might it be helpful to see if Nathan Schneider or his friend who knows about co-op governance could provide a few comments or model bylaws we could review for inspiration in how other co-ops' boards perform their service? ...heads over to Discord to ping Nathan

[dckc]

@ian-bloom reports the coop is in the final stages of hiring someone to help with timely board minutes.

[dckc]

https://github.com/rchain/board is up-to-date now (c2e0d7f).

So... what's next? Is there any energy for continued work on this? Or is it wontfix?

[kennyrowe]

Good question. Since the last comment we hired Ashley to help with the board organization, and I've started a weekly board Q&A. I could see how some additional written documentation could be helpful, but perhaps it would good to think again about what the goal here is?

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On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 6:49 AM Dan Connolly ***@***.***> wrote: https://github.com/rchain/board is up-to-date now (c2e0d7f). So... what's next? Is there any energy for continued work on this? Or is it *wontfix*? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#564 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGAAnBqK3PbxKkybQtZgfq2TzxIU23T6ks5uWT7xgaJpZM4TCGxx> .

[dckc]

I'm going to call this fixed; anybody with a better idea can re-open it (or make a new issue).

[allancto]

@dckc @kennyrowe i agree this should be closed. The original impetus had to do with moderation of the discord channel, and over time and personal dm's our culture seems to have evolved to the point where there's a lot more mutual respect in the channels. Kenny's weekly office hours have gone a long way to unshrouding the mystery of what happens in the board meetings, @deannald has also helped in opening communication channels around specific topics. I expect that the runup to the upcoming annual meeting, proposals and campaigning (and eventually additional person-hours on the board) will also result in the kind of transparency which I think everyone has always wanted and has is happening a bit slowly but very surely.

[deannald]

@allancto Thanks for your input. That reminds me, I need to update the membership on Discord regarding the email on the annual meeting - Ian hit a legal snag on wording, but the email should be out soon...

[dckc]

@kennyrowe Hiring Ashly doesn't seem to have fixed anything. We're back to having the most recent board minutes 2.5 months old:

https://github.com/rchain/board/tree/master/2018