For your consideration: Proposed bylaws changes to improve our membership experience

Can it? The CoC WG acts in an advisory manner only. It takes reports and evaluates cases, and then recommends actions to whatever authority there is in the relevant spaces. Right now the only way to deal with a Fellow who repeatedly flaunts the CoC – and I’m neither on the Board nor on the CoC WG but I have seen ample evidence that there are, in fact, Fellows who repeatedly flaunt the CoC – is to have a very public vote among the membership. Because of the logistics involved, doing so outside of the regular cadence of once a year is difficult. Convincing all the membership that an eviction is warranted also requires airing all the dirty laundry, which would be good for exactly no one – certainly not for the Fellow being evicted, nor for anyone who was forced to complain about them. CoC matters can be incredibly sensitive and harrowing.

There should be ways to redress abuse of the powers of the Board, although that’s a topic that goes way beyond this particular amendment to the bylaws. The main tools for that are the annual elections, a special election (which can be called by the Board or by 10% of the membership), and public pressure. (Let’s not underestimate the power of public pressure over the PSF, given that it is pretty literally nothing without its public support.)

Debian -- News -- Statement on Daniel Pocock might be a persuasive example for the general topic of having some way of dealing with members who are acting against the interests of the Foundation.

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