Hi all This email teases out what seems to be three separate options for what the WS2 item on Board standards means, to see if others are clearer or share my view that a number of topics are on the table. When we (ages ago, early in WS1) were discussing the removal of Board members community power, there was agreement - from memory in Dublin - that it would be helpful to generate some community norms for Board members. Let's refer to this as Option 1 for now. This was seen as having two benefits that I can remember being discussed - that Board members would have some insight into what the community was looking for beyond the procedural "rules" of Board membership, and removal processes by the community would be guided by such norms (since, presumably, they would be embedded in the community's views of what it needed from the Board - not for procedural reasons). A few weeks ago a discussion suggested that this topic might be going in a different direction - perhaps Option 2 - creating standards against which a Board removal decision might be objectively judged (i.e. creating criteria for removal). That was rebutted at the time - the CCWG never agreed to that. Today a different interpretation - Option 3!? - has emerged on the call just now - from Annex 4 para 54 of the final Proposal, the fourth bullet point: "Guidelines for standards of conduct that will be presumed to be in good faith (for example, conducting reasonable due diligence as to the truthfulness of a statement) will be developed in Work Stream 2." I confess I had not read or noticed the implications of this text in previous readings of the draft. It appears the topic noted here is to create standards for COMMUNITY members not for Board members, relating to indemnity. It may be useful to clarify this through discussion on list before Helsinki.
From my point of view Option 1 remains important and useful for the community to express some views that will help inform current and future Board members or candidates for the same about some things the community wants to see, beyond what can/should be written in bylaws or rules language.
Option 3 seems to be required too but is not the same thing. I'd be strongly opposed to Option 2 coming back on the agenda. Look forward to your thoughts! Jordan -- Jordan Carter Wellington, New Zealand +64 21 442 649 jordan@jordancarter.org.nz