[aur-general] [tu-bylaws] [PATCH] Honor TUs who become active/inactive during votes

[Xyne]

Lukas Fleischer wrote:

>+1. However, I would like to retain the repeated quorum offense
>condition. If there are a couple of TUs that work on the AUR (as in
>uploading, updating and deleting packages) and do not participate in
>SVPs, they might block decisions. I think that it is important to make
>sure every TU votes, especially when the new quorum comes into effect.
>Maybe we should also start a removal procedure (due to undeclared
>inactivity) if someone didn't participate in any of the latest SVPs,
>where the start time of the first SVP and the start time of the last SVP
>differ by more than two months. This could be auto-detected by the AUR.

At first I didn't like this idea, but the more I think about it the more it
seems to be the best solution. As long as it is done by the span of time rather
than the number of votes, I think it is fair, so +1 for me.

Otherwise, if we wish to stick to standard removals, we could create a page
that lists all TUs who have missed one or more votes, starting from the most
recent, e.g.

Foo has missed 2 votes:
Start        End
yyyy-mm-dd - yyyy-mm-dd
yyyy-mm-dd - yyyy-mm-dd

That would make it readily apparent to a human who has been skipping votes.






>
>> 
>> With the removal of the distinction between "active" and "inactive", I also
>> like the idea of establishing quorum when the vote is opened. TUs who are added
>> during the voting period (due to a parallel vote) will not be allowed to
>> participate in the ongoing vote. 
>
>> However, TU removals and resignations must be addressed. TUs who are up for
>> removal must not be allowed to vote on their own removal, and maybe not on
>> other votes either. TUs who resign (before the vote ends) should be removed from
>> the quorum calculation. If they have voted, their vote should also be removed.
>> 
>> For the former, a removal vote type that bars the removal candidate from voting
>> and quorum calculations should be easy enough to implement. For resignations, a
>> hook would be needed when a TU account is reset to a normal user account. The
>> hook would simply check ongoing votes, remove the TU from the quorum list, and
>> remove the vote if one has been cast. I don't know if the vote itself is stored
>> in the table though, so that might require more work. If it has to be
>> implemented, I would like it to be temporary. When the vote ends, the
>> association of participants to their votes should be removed, an only the list
>> of participants and the final tally should be retained.
>
>Ok. The first idea is simple to implement: When a new proposal (the
>proposal type doesn't really matter) is created, generate a list of
>current TUs and save it. If an applicant/TU is added to the proposal,
>this user will be excluded from the list. Only users in that list are
>allowed to vote.

By "added to the proposal", do you mean accepted as a TU?


>For the second idea, we would need to store every participant's vote.
>This has the downside that an AUR administrator could theoretically peek
>into the ballot box.
>
>Are those restrictions really necessary? What would be the downside of
>just allowing everyone with TUs powers (except the applicant/TU) to
>vote?

If a TU resignes after the vote starts then the TU is still counted towards
quorum, and quorum may fail if the TU doesn't vote. We can always encourage TUs
to vote before they resign, but in general I do not think that the future of
any organization should be determined by outgoing members on their way out the
door. This is not an important issue for me. I also agree that it is better not
to associate votes with TUs, but I do not expect that to be an issue if it is
only for the duration of the vote. An AUR admin who wants to peek would modify
the code if he really wanted.



>> Some thought must be given to whether TUs who are up for removal may
>> participate in other votes. With the current bylaws, any 2 TUs can remove all
>> other TUs by motioning for their removal. Only those 2 TUs would be able to
>> vote so they would be able to pass all the motions with 100% participation and
>> 100% yes votes. It might be enough to modify the voting restriction to forbid a
>> TU from voting on his or her own removal only. Perhaps we could even add some
>> clause that suspends other votes until the removal vote has passed. For the
>> bylaws that would require the addition of a clause to the SVP section.
>> Programmatically, all new vote proposals would be blocked if a removal vote is
>> running.
>
>I don't think this is needed. As you said before, restricting the TU
>from voting on his or her own removal is enough. I don't think we should
>make this overly complicated unless a simple solution has any real
>disadvantages.

Agreed.


>> The clause should probably also specify that removal votes take precedence over
>> any other pending votes except removal votes.
>
>What does this mean in practice? :)

Let's say that the discussion period for a TU application begins and the vote
is scheduled to start on Monday. A motion is made for the removal of a TU
during this period and the vote should normally start on Tuesday. I think the
application vote should be suspended until the removal vote is finished. It
affects quorum and the outcome of the vote.

If two removal votes are scheduled then they occur in the usual order.


>Thank for for coming up with this. I like most of the suggestions. To
>sum up, a patch to the bylaws would (assumed that we decide for the
>"simple" voting restriction approach):
>
>* Change the notion of inactivity to what you suggested above.
>* Change the automated removal condition to inactivity for >2 months.
>* Make the quorum a fixed percentage of all TUs.
>* Exclude a TU from votes affecting himself.
>
>Am I right? Did I miss anything?

I think that's it. I have attached up updated version of my previous
submission. Take a look and let me know what you think.


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