[ZF] A clarification in the bylaws could be good.

[Lennart Regebro]

Hi all! Good meeting yesterday!

First: What needs to be clarified.

When it comes to what majority is things are unclear. Especially the
difference between §3.9, where it says "If a quorum is present, the
affirmative vote of a majority of the members represented at the
meeting and entitled to vote on the subject matter shall be the act of
the members". Compare this to §4.7, which says "Upon an affirmative
vote of a two-thirds majority of the members of the corporation". I
interpreted this a s two-thirds majority at the meeting. However, A.
M. Kuchling says that in the PSF, which has similar bylaws, this is
*not* how it's supposed to be interpreted. However, that was how it
was interpreted yesterday, so it's clearly some confusion here.

Second: Some explanation and thoughts.

I got surprised about Kuchlings comments, but when I thought about it
it actually makes sense. I've been active in Swedish politics for many
years, and it always annoyed me that you could in theory call a
meeting only to those who agreed with you, and then push through
changes of bylaws etc with this small group of people. Yes, just like
the ZFs bylaws you had a requirement that you had to send out
invitations to all members, but it is the meeting who decides if this
was done or not. :-D In ZF's case we do have a quorum, which helps.
But it still means you only need 9 members in a conspiracy to make a
coup and vote everybody else out. ;-) (And if you wonder if I ever
have seen organisations getting hijack, then yes, I have. But not this
way, but by a sudden and unsuspected membership influx, where all the
new members voted for a new board and then subsequently left the
organisation).

I would suggest that it is a good idea to have a fixed part of the
whole membership to change the bylaws or kick members out against
their will. I would suggest half though, not two-thirds. This means
that you need half of the members to show up and vote positively,
instead of one third showing up and two thirds of them voting
positively. It means you need sixteen people to make a coup with
todays memebership.  :)

Third: The suggestions

In any case, the status of this needs to be clarified. Does a majority
mean a majority of all members, or a majority of members present at
the meeting? In most cases it's majority present, this needs
clarification. The exact formulation should be discussed. I suggest
changing "majority of members" to "majority vote at a annual or
special meeting" in most cases. If we want it to state that it refers
to all members, and not those present, we could say "majority of all
members of the corporation", "majority of all nominated members of the
corporation", etc.

Opinions on that?

-- 
Lennart Regebro: Pythonista, Barista, Notsotrista.
http://regebro.wordpress.com/
+33 661 58 14 64