Proposed referendum to tidy up Community Council election process before change in scope

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Ryan Abel

When the Hildon Foundation was formed the by-laws provided for a Hildon Foundation Council to replace the Maemo Community Council, as an interface with Nokia is no longer needed. The stated intention of the primary author of the by-laws, Craig Woodward, was that the Maemo Community Council would transition directly into the Hildon Foundation Council and that these were not two separate councils, but a change primarily in name. There has been some disagreement on this point from certain community members, who hold the opinion that the Maemo Community Council has no authority over the Hildon Foundation since it is not the Hildon Foundation Council.

As you all should be aware, the current Hildon Foundation Board is composed entirely of appointment members, as all elected board members eventually stepped down. To address this issue for future Hildon Foundation Councils, a referendum has been started to amend the election rules to handle a situation where all 5 council members are appointment members. This referendum will also align the Maemo Community Council voting rules with the Hildon Foundation by-laws and help clarify that the Hildon Foundation Council and the Maemo Community Council are, in fact, a single body and that the Maemo Community Council does have authority over the Hildon Foundation (in this case, potentially to trigger a Hildon Foundation election). {user:mentalist traceur} posted a thread on Talk to discuss it: The Maemo Community Council election rules [...] are a good base to start with, but they have a drawback: While there is a provision to avoid unelected members for less than 5 members, this provision does not cover the actual number five resulting in all 5 candidates to be appointed councillors (what has currently happened).

This should be corrected and the clause "If fewer than 5 candidates stand for election, the 3 with the most votes are elected to the council. " must be changed to "...fewer than or equal to five...".

For the same reason, the clause "If there are fewer than 3 candidates when the nominations close, the election cannot be held. " must be changed to "...fewer than or equal to three...".

The complete referendum is available on the wiki.

maemo.org mailing lists back online

Via: @GeneralAntilles

Editor: Ryan Abel

Our new maemo.org sysadmin, Falk Stern, sent a test email through the maemo.org mailing lists today after bringing lists.maemo.org back online. The maemo.org mailing lists should be functional again.

Relating to Falk picking up the mantle of maemo.org systems administration (which is not a small nor easy job), I, on behalf of the MWKN staff, would like to thank him for volunteering for what is generally a very thankless and time consuming position. He's an especially qualified candidate for the job of maemo.org sysadmin (as the network team leader for XING AG) and is very dedicated to Maemo and maemo.org. Our infrastructure would not be operational without his help, so make sure you toss a big "Thank you!" his way if you see him.