Results of the 2015 Election to the X.Org BoD & Vote on the By-Law Changes

[Peter Jones]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 04:10:24PM +1000, Peter Hutterer wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 09, 2015 at 08:27:45AM +0100, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > > 2. On the question:
> > >
> > > Do you agree to the changed By-Laws?
> > > No 2
> > > Abstain 4
> > > Yes 35
> > >
> > > According to Article 7 of the Oct. 29, 2006 By-Laws the following
> > > provision is made for changes to the By-Laws:
> > >
> > >  "AMENDMENT These By-law may be altered, amended or repealed by
> > >   an affirmative vote of at least two-thirds (2/3) of the Members
> > >   of X.Org."
> > >
> > > With 69 active Members a two-thirds of the Members of X.Org is 46.
> > > This would be the number of affirmative votes required for acceptance.
> > > This was clearly missed. Therefore the changes to the By-Laws
> > > were not accepted.
> > >
> > 
> > That's incredibly disappointing, especially with such a resounding majority
> > of those who did vote in favour.
> > 
> > Do we have a good sense of why turnout is so low? How does this compare
> > with previous elections, including the last bylaw revision? And, more
> > importantly, where to from here?
> 
> I'm gonna go with "communication issues". with the delay in the election it
> was pushed to the easter week where plenty of people are on holidays. The
> final day was easter sunday, so we should've spammed a lot more reminders to
> make sure we get through to everyone. And it looks like it wasn't clear to
> all members that the 2/3 majority was required to get the bylaws approved. 
> 
> Voter participation wasn't bad as such, I think 41 out of 69 is on par or
> higher than most other projects, or political elections in general. The need
> for a 2/3 majority is what killed us here though.
> 
> Personally, I think the clear tendency towards "yes" is motivation enough
> that we should try again, with clearer communication how important the vote
> is (this is not an official position of the board).
> SPI is likely to extend another invitation should we get to that point.

As somebody who probably is counted as an "active" member for this
purpose, but *really* isn't, I think you're right.

Which is to say that my incredibly passive membership is among the
reasons this completely reasonable initiative, which I knew about but
hadn't thought through in terms of /do I need to vote for this and if so
when/, didn't pass.  That's really embarrassing.  Sorry.

-- 
        Peter