[RFC] Introduce inactive member status

[David Woodhouse]

On Thu, 2021-10-21 at 12:35 +0100, Daniel Golle wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> 
> 
> as discussed in the previous developer meeting on 19th of October
> we need to find ways to improve our voting mechanics. It has became
> increasingly difficult to on-board new members as this currently
> requires a majority of all current members to be in favor of accepting
> the new member[1].

What is the problem we're trying to solve with the rules as they stand?

I understand that where meetings could be held in person at a specific
time, it makes sense to require a majority of the *electorate* instead
of just a majority of those present. Especially for 'constitutional'
changes, and I suppose that accepting a new voting member is one of
those.

That prevents a hostile takeover by declaring a meeting when *only*
those who would vote for the takeover are present, then declaring that
it was "by the rules".

But where votes are conducted by email with a two-week voting period,
that's a bit less of a concern (even if it was really a practical
concern for OpenWrt in the first place).

Why not just switch to allowing votes based on the majority of the
ballots in that particular vote? If we declare members "inactive"
because they aren't voting (or don't want to be held to doing so), and
call them "active" again when they do... just so that we don't have
to... erm... be sad when they don't vote... isn't that overkill? Why
don't we just *not* be sad if/when they don't vote, on a per-vote
basis?


Put another way — a variant on the existing proposals:

Why not call a member "inactive" automatically for a *specific* vote,
if they don't actually cast their ballot in *that* vote.
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