[MEI-L] MEI organization

Fri May 9 11:11:05 CEST 2014

Hi Giuliano,

we're all speaking just for ourselves in this discussion, and I think it's crucial that everyone actually gets, but also feels like he has the same say on this. I also don't want to rush things. If we need the time to discuss, we take the time to discuss. I'm very happy that we entered another round of discussion at this time. 

I share your argument that the conference is a precious opportunity for discussion. However, I also think it would be a brilliant opportunity to come to conclusions. There is this momentum of a personal meeting, and we all know that after such an event, risk is great that nothing more will happen for the next few weeks. Therefore, I would love to reach some sort of consensus by the end of the conference. As this is probably the most severe decision that the MEI community ever had to make, I would really love to reach a consensus, and not a vote, which always results in someone having lost. Of course this requires everyone interested in the problem to speak up timely, but if someone doesn't share his opinion with the community, this is some kind of statement as well, I think. 

As I said, I'm not trying to rush things, I'm just curious about the direction we're taking. In my ideal (other say naive) world, we enter the conference with more or less one proposal (which may be a combination of the three we have right now), so that we can use the conference to talk out the important details (e.g. four seats vs. six seats). I don't think we need to come up with final "MEI community bylaws" (this is something the future Board (or whatever it will be called) can work out in greater detail), but we should try to agree on the cornerstones, I think. This won't be easy, especially since we need to make sure that people not in C'ville will get opportunities to participate in the discussion as well, but otherwise I see the risk of having an eternal discussion with virtually no clear end. I'm fine with giving everyone an opportunity to think over what we will have discussed in C'ville for another week or two. Since the current proposals include elections, it is obvious that we don't vote at the time of the conference anyway. But still, we should have a draft at the end of the conference that clearly describes the most important aspects at least. Otherwise, we will discuss about apples and peaches for a very long time…

As I said earlier, this is just my personal view, and I absolutely agree that we have to discuss this properly. If our discussions take more time, I'm more than happy if we just take that time. However, I know that some people in this community (including myself) are most efficient when working against a deadline. I'm just afraid that we allow ourselves more time for discussion, which we don't use actively afterwards. The schedule above is nothing more than a proposal, and I see no harm in being late on it – as long as we're actively working. It seems desirable to me to have an official MEI body that has the authority to decide about future conferences etc. rather sooner than later…

Again, just my personal two cents,
Johannes

Am 08.05.2014 um 21:27 schrieb Giuliano Di Bacco <gdibacco at indiana.edu>:

> 
> Also from my personal perspective:
> 1- I always assumed that the current Council would remain in place until the future Board is installed;
> 2- the conference is approaching, and I see this as a precious opportunity for both informal and formal discussion. So (at this point) I would wait until the end of it to draw any conclusion. Then the proposals could be fine-tuned and re-submitted for final discussion and approval to the list. As for Benjamin's excellent idea, we could attach a resumé of all pros/cons that people will have expressed so far (I am sure that those members of the Strat-group who will be in Charlottesville would be happy to collect more opinions--certainly I would). 
> Best,
> Giuliano
> 
> 
> Benjamin Wolff Bohl wrote on 08/05/2014 11:01:
>> Dear Johannes,
>> thanks for your questions, tah I'll answer below from my personal perspective:
>> 
>> Am 06.05.2014 21:18, schrieb Johannes Kepper:
>>> Dear all,
>>> 
>>> thanks to those that did respond to the strategy group's proposals. For those who didn't – it's not too late, please give some feedback and help us to shape the future MEI. You can find the document with the proposals at
>>> 
>>> 
>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IBvbKFM1fo4lwyFnIYnneUhfwTj4DLrAmtCSUfqzeQs/edit?usp=sharing
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Since we're approaching the conference, I'd like to ask some questions. 
>>> 
>>> - All proposals don't make a statement about the current MEI Council. Was this an intentional decision? If I remember correctly, there was some concern about this group last year. I know that it won't be easy to find a solution for this one, but I think we should address it in one way or the other…
>>> 
>> 
>> This is a great hint, I guess we just missed to articulate anything about this. From my part I always was assuming, that any new Board would replace the "current Council" but others might have another opinion?! 
>> 
>>> - At first glance, it seems that the first proposal triggered most feedback. Would it be a correct observation that most in the community prefer this over the other two _in principle_, but still would like to clarify some details about it? Please don't get me wrong – I don't want to get rid of the other two proposals, I just want to get a sense of where we are drifting. If you think my impression is wrong (which is perfectly possible), please disagree – either here on MEI-L or in the document linked above. If you like the other proposals (or aspects of them), please speak up – the sooner the better. Please remember that the google document gives the possibility of anonymous feedback, if you prefer. 
>> 
>> Getting a feeling if general tendencies towards one of the proposals would be indeed very interesting! Nevertheless the comment frequency is not to be taken as general tendency towards one or the other... for example Raffaele shared a quite good argument for Model B over this list:
>> 
>>> In general, I prefer Model B: it's lean and reflects well the size of the community. It also keeps the focus on the Guidelines and releases, which I agree with Sigfrid are the most important product of this community. I feel model B will allows us to move forward without having to jump through too many administrative hoops, while tasking people with essential admin responsibilities.
>> 
>> Maybe we should try come up with a general pros-and-cons list for each Model?
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Benjamin
>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks again for your interest and participation. 
>>> Best,
>>> Johannes
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>  
>  
> _______________________________________________
> mei-l mailing list
> mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de
> https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/mailman/listinfo/mei-l

-------------- n?chster Teil --------------
Ein Dateianhang mit Bin?rdaten wurde abgetrennt...
Dateiname   : signature.asc
Dateityp    : application/pgp-signature
Dateigr??e  : 496 bytes
Beschreibung: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
URL         : <http://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/attachments/20140509/6532bbe4/attachment.sig>