Membership Process 2016

#REDIRECT Archived
Approved by board vote in August 2016.
= General Process =
Each year new charter members are nominated and elected by existing OSGeo charter members, in a process operated by the Chief Returning Officer (CRO). 
Previously:
* Membership Process 2014 Approved by board vote in July 2014.
 
== Nominations ==
# The nominations period should be roughly 2 weeks, and should be announced by the CRO on the OSGeo announce and discuss lists.
#* A person may ask a charter member who can vouch for the Positive Attributes of the person to nominate them.
# An existing charter member can nominate potential new Charter Member(s).
#* Nominees should meet the Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes Positive Attributes for Charter Members.
#* Please confirm with the nominated person first! 
#* Please email cro@osgeo.org with their name, contact email and paragraph describing why you are recommending this person as a Charter Member 
# CRO will verify with the nominee that they are willing to stand for nomination
#* The CRO will include an explanation of Membership_Process#Responsibilities charter membership responsibilities.
#* The CRO will invite new charter members to update/create their OSGeo Advocate profile, as per: OSGeo_Advocate#Process_for_becoming_an_OSGeo_Advocate. 
#* Once confirmed by the nominee the CRO will send the nomination to discuss@osgeo.org
#A nomination must be seconded by at least one other charter member
#* CRO will gather nominations into a candidates list to be presented to the OSGeo board
# Candidate review
#* All OSGeo members (members as well as charter members) are encouraged to discuss candidates on the discuss list.
#* A veto may be raised by any OSGeo charter member by sending a private e-mail to the CRO (at cro@osgeo.org)
# Once all the nominations close
#* CRO will gather any and all vetos for the OSGeo board for an anonymous review
#* If the veto is accepted by the board, then the CRO shall reply to the public discuss@osgeo.org and the nomination is removed from the CROs candidates list
#* A summary of charter candidates will be prepared and presented by the CRO to the OSGeo board
#* When approved by the OSGeo board the candidates will be added as charter members and posted to the OSGeo discuss list.
= Positive Attributes = 
Recommended membership selection criteria include:
* Members should believe in the general goals of the Foundation. To support and promote the use of free and open source geospatial software, education and data in a collaborative manner.
* Previous participation in or support of OSGeo activities
* The person should already have made a contribution to free and open source geospatial software, education or open data.
* The person should be willing to put in time and effort on the Foundation, perhaps joining committee(s), or volunteering in some other way that gets the Foundation going.
* Members should be prepared to work constructively and positively towards the goals of the Foundation. Good teamwork skills are an asset.
Membership nominations should strive to promote diversity:
* Nominate members representing a diversity of geographic regions, diversity of projects, diversity of programming languages.
* Nominate members representing and diversity of interests (e.g., corporate, hobbyist, educational, scientific).
* Nominate members representing a diversity of humanity including gender and race
= Responsibilities =
Official responsibilities for charter members are important, but relatively light. As of August 2014, they include:
# Annually vote for OSGeo Board members.
# Annually vote for new OSGeo Charter members.
# Be aware of and protect against a takeover of OSGeo by single group or viewpoint. This threat is incredibly low but has been known to occur in other volunteer organisations.
= Questions =
The following questions have been asked during the election process, if you have a question please reach out to the discuss@osgeo.org email list.
* Q: What is meant by hostile takeover
** Charter Members have the responsibility of voting responsibly "preserving the integrity" of the OSGeo Foundation. A takeover in this context would be a change of management, without the consent of the members resulting in a new direction of the organization.
* Q: Where are people to send nominations? 
** Please email your nomination to cro@osgeo.org as outlined above, the chief returning officer will email discuss@osgeo.org after updating the wiki page of nominations.
** Be careful about emailing the discuss@osgeo directly, your candidate may be missed!
* Q: Will the nominated person who has been vetoed be publicly named (this might be seen as insensitive and might be best to inform them privately).
** The board motion calls for transparency in this manner, it may be enough to indicate that the nomination was unsuccessful.
* Q: Will the person sending the veto be named? 
** The review is conducted blind by the board.
* Q: Will the board member votes be made public?
** Yes (The board publish minuets of all meetings)
* Q: Will the reasons someone has been excluded be made public?
** Reasons will be discussed as part of the blind review process.
Category:Membership
Category:Elections
Category:Election 2017