[Foundation] Criteria, Voting, Membership What does it mean?

[Mike Szczerban]

Criteria for membership is excellent, but I think something the JSF is 
in more need of is a well-defined mission, platform, statement of 
purpose, whatever.  I was rather disturbed by the large number of 
applicants that seemed to believe that in order to use or develop Jabber 
or Jabber-related stuff, they had to first become JSF members.

Unless I am horribly, horribly mistaken, the JSF is a subset of all the 
Jabber users, developers, corporate backers, etc, composed of those who 
want to help enhance, organize, and steer the project.  It isn't a 
litmus test to see if you're cool enough to be part of the club. 
 Unfortunately, it seems that some people think it is.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I the only one?  If so, maybe a few 
words expertly added to http://www.jabber.org/jsf.html or the next 
member drive signup area would be of use.

--Mike

Thomas Muldowney wrote:

>Some amount of criteria would definately be good, but I'm not yet sure
>about two types of members.
>
>Just as a note, when I voted I had a few rules.  The applicant must have
>posted on jdev in a development manner, jadmin in a helpful manner, or
>one of the jig/foundation related lists in manner suiting that list. 
>That was my primary criteria, I think I only accepted two people that
>had not posted, and that was because they had a well laid out list of
>how they wished to contribute.  Generally though, I found that if they
>had posted on the lists they were a good pick.
>
>I voted about 50% in.
>
>--temas
>
>
>On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 17:38, Iain Shigeoka wrote:
>
>>[snipped great discussion of lack of membership criteria]
>>
>>I have to admit to just now voting on new members.  I got about 5 votes in
>>and realized I had absolutely no idea why I was accepting or rejecting
>>applications.  Do they already need to have contributed?  Or is their desire
>>to contribute enough?  Do we want to accept the most members or keep it as
>>restrictive as possible?  What the heck do you get for being a member anyhow
>>(or conversely why should we deny membership apriori)?
>>
>>On 3/8/02 12:55 PM, "Harold E. Gottschalk Jr." <heg at imissary.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Some ideas on membership types and expectation of members.
>>>
>>>* Two-types of members, Voting and non-voting.
>>>* Must belong to at least 1 interested group
>>>
>>>This is not a long list, just a start, what are your feelings about this?
>>>
>>I think we need some criteria.  I assume #2 is only important if you want to
>>be a voting member?  Why would you want to be a non-voting member?  Do we
>>even give out buttons or something?  Perhaps we should charge membership
>>fees and hold dances.... :)  Seriously though, I do like the idea of having
>>some sort of criteria for membership (to go along with our criteria for
>>revoking it), and some idea of what members should do (beyond vote once
>>every 3 election).
>>
>>-iain
>>
>>
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>>_______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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>

-- 

Mike Szczerban
email:  mike at aspect.net
jabber: mike at jabber.org
aim:    boat pants
http://www.combustiblefruit.org