Editing Talk:Bylaws (section)

==Article 4 - Meetings==

I'd like to see the voting reduced to only exceptional circumstances. If decisions on important issues can't be decided by consensus, then action shouldn't be taken. Voting on everything will disenfranchise members with less free time (including myself) and less vocal minorities, which is not acceptable. A democratic voting process does not recognize the contributions of all members equally and violates the spirit of the organization.

I propose we amend Article 4 to remove sections 5 and 6 and replace them with a new article on "decision making" that reflects a consensus based process [[#reference-1|[1] ]] [[#reference-2|[2] ]] with votes taken only when consensus agreement on an issue cannot be reached and a vote is acceptable to all members. Similar to the IETF's "rough consensus model" [[#reference-3|[3] ]], the board and officers should be seeking the guidance and sentiment of the whole membership at all times in all decisions unless specific exceptions are discussed and agreed upon.

Divisions and serious dissension would either block decision making or lead to an invitation of voluntary resignation of membership. Hackerspaces are not hard to start, all you need are people. Anyone who doesn't think the group is a good fit would be more welcome to start their own than try to reshape Node against the will of existing members.

People join because they want to get things done, not because they want to play parliament. The decision making process should reflect that.

====References====

# <span id="reference-1">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making Wikipedia: Consensus decision-making]</span>
# <span id="reference-2">[http://www.freegeek.org/about/structure/ Free Geek structure description] From the page: ''All of the above groups are democratic, making their decisions not by majority vote, but by consensus. You may be familiar with consensus decision-making from your extensive contact with Quakers, who have been using it since the 17th century.''</span>
# <span id="reference-3">[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making#IETF_rough_consensus_model IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) rough consensus model]</span>

[[User:Abachman|Abachman]] 17:37, 26 July 2009 (UTC)