Concerns related to Art 7

[dkoureas]

The following was received by a TDWG member:

As it is currently drafted there is a huge importance on the controls and scope of actions/responsibilities built into the FS Charter – this makes wording and approval of the Charter extremely important.
I strongly believe that we need to update Article 7 to allow for provision of change to a FS in both Charter and membership, and to retain the ability of some Executive influence.

In particular Article 7 • Does not include provision for modification of a FS Charter.
Suggest a sentence needs to be added to this effect. It would seem appropriate that modifications may happen at any time at request of the Executive Committee or be initiated by the Chairperson of the FS. Once drafted this would probably trigger the consultation with membership and approval of modified Charter by Exec. • Article 7.2 – do NOT agree with FS automatically operating for remainder of Chairs term after it has been dissolved by the Executive. I believe this needs to be amended to be “Following the Executive Committee’s decision to dissolve a FS, the Executive Committee may choose to dissolve the FS with immediate effect or at the end of the FS chairperson’s term of duty.” • Article 7.3 – I believe that the Executive should also have the power to nominate (and possibly veto) members for a FS.

[peterdesmet]

The requested updates seem reasonable, especially 7.1 and 7.2

[dkoureas]

I strongly believe that we need to update Article 7 to allow for provision of change to a FS in both Charter and membership, and to retain the ability of some Executive influence.

The Executive Committee is responsible for setting the thematic priorities for the creation and operation of the Functional Subcommittees. In that context it retains the capacity to change these priorities as needed. However, the Functional Subcommittees do receive membership mandate for their operation (direct election of chairs and vice-chairs).

• Does not include provision for modification of a FS Charter. Suggest a sentence needs to be added to this effect. It would seem appropriate that modifications may happen at any time at request of the Executive Committee or be initiated by the Chairperson of the FS. Once drafted this would probably trigger the consultation with membership and approval of modified Charter by Exec.

Art 7.2 sets the process for the approval of charters by the Executive Committee, and does not exclude the process of updating the charters. These provisions will need to be made at statute level.

• Article 7.2 – do NOT agree with FS automatically operating for remainder of Chairs term after it has been dissolved by the Executive. I believe this needs to be amended to be “Following the Executive Committee’s decision to dissolve a FS, the Executive Committee may choose to dissolve the FS with immediate effect or at the end of the FS chairperson’s term of duty.”

As mentioned above FS chairs have direct membership mandate and participate as full members of the Executive Committee. As such their term cannot be terminated by the power of the Executive Committee.

• Article 7.3 – I believe that the Executive should also have the power to nominate (and possibly veto) members for a FS.

Nominations of individuals to the Chairs of the FS is not excluded. XC can nominate people at will. Again, I don't see a reason to include this in the Constitution. The FS chairs are full members of the XC and these discussions can be handled as part of the remit of the XC.

[jmacklin]

I generally agree with Dimitris. For 7.2, the XC can dissolve an FS and in doing so, the Chair would default as a general member of the XC. In this case, we would need to be clear somehow that when the membership votes for a given Chair and thus XC member that this is not exclusive. Do we have a mechanism to remove an XC member if necessary? I don't think it is wise to do this based on performance but it would be appropriate for some kind of acts obviously (criminal, discriminatory...). Sorry did not take the time to check ;-)

JAmes

[ghwhitbread]

Also in general agreement with Dimitris ... though changes to FS charter (including dissolution) would seem to require 21 days open consultation with the membership. Probably a good thing, but there will be an impact on the nature of charters in that they will be written in very general terms (and TAG draft charter will change) with the actual workings of a committee documented elsewhere.

But I could not figure out what to answer to the survey monkey questions

[dkoureas]

@jmacklin Art. 3 of the current (and revised) Constitution specifically mentions end of membership conditions. Professional misconduct is one of them. All XC members are subject to this Article as they need to be TDWG members to participate to the TDWG XC.

[jmacklin]

Thanks Dimitris for clarification. So, this makes me believe that there does not need to be any revision of the current charter as the XC does have process to manage and dissolve FSs and deal with the person/people associated.

James

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 3:51 AM, Dimitris Koureas notifications@github.com wrote:

@jmacklin https://github.com/jmacklin Art. 3 of the current (and revised) Constitution specifically mentions end of membership conditions. Professional misconduct is one of them. All XC members are subject to this Article as they need to be TDWG members to participate to the TDWG XC.

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[stanblum]

+1 for keeping the language as it is, just to keep things simple.

I think we should keep the option open, pending further discussion, to propose another small amendment to alter article 7, but only after this larger proposal passes.

[dkoureas]

Hi @stanblum Stan,

Are you planning to circulate the ballots invites today?

[stanblum]

Yes, It will give the links to the package and page on the web site, and say something like:

I am an [ individual / institutional ] member of TDWG and I:

approve the constitutional proposal

do NOT approve the constitutional proposal

Two separate surveys will be used, one for individuals and the other for institutions. All individuals/institutions who paid membership (or were granted membership as being from a developing country) in 2015 or 2016 will get a ballot.

Any other issues I should address?

-Stan

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 4:38 AM, Dimitris Koureas notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi Stan,

Are you planning to circulate the ballots invites today?

Kind regards, Dimitris

End

Dr Dimitrios Koureas, FLS Lead, Research Data & Partnerships Dept Life Sciences | Natural History Museum London | SW7 5BD, UK

Coordinator, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) initiative Executive Secretary, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) co-Chair, RDA – Biodiversity Data Integration IG & Attribution metadata WG

ORCID: 0000-0002-4842-6487 | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/dkoureas E-mail: d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk | Twitter: @DimitrisKoureas | Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5244

From: Stan Blum [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: 08 November 2016 06:39 To: tdwg/constitution constitution@noreply.github.com Cc: Dimitris Koureas d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk; Assign < assign@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [tdwg/constitution] Concerns related to Art 7 (#4)

+1 for keeping the language as it is, just to keep things simple.

I think we should keep the option open, pending further discussion, to propose another small amendment to alter article 7, but only after this larger proposal passes.

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/ tdwg/constitution/issues/4#issuecomment-259058172, or mute the thread< https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ ALmnQP6EX4pD8z4QxeTotfhBbWM8WjOyks5q8BjvgaJpZM4KoV8U>.

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[dkoureas]

To be on the safe side, I would propose to also include a URL (github?) that points to the Constitution proposal package in the ballot itself.

Kind regards, Dimitris

End

Dr Dimitrios Koureas, FLS Lead, Research Data & Partnerships Dept Life Sciences | Natural History Museum London | SW7 5BD, UK

Coordinator, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) initiative Executive Secretary, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) co-Chair, RDA – Biodiversity Data Integration IG & Attribution metadata WG

ORCID: 0000-0002-4842-6487 | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/dkoureas E-mail: d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk | Twitter: @DimitrisKoureas | Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5244

From: Stan Blum [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: 08 November 2016 16:25 To: tdwg/constitution constitution@noreply.github.com Cc: Dimitris Koureas d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk; Assign assign@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [tdwg/constitution] Concerns related to Art 7 (#4)

Yes, It will give the links to the package and page on the web site, and say something like:

I am an [ individual / institutional ] member of TDWG and I:

approve the constitutional proposal

do NOT approve the constitutional proposal

Two separate surveys will be used, one for individuals and the other for institutions. All individuals/institutions who paid membership (or were granted membership as being from a developing country) in 2015 or 2016 will get a ballot.

Any other issues I should address?

-Stan

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 4:38 AM, Dimitris Koureas notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi Stan,

Are you planning to circulate the ballots invites today?

Kind regards, Dimitris

End

Dr Dimitrios Koureas, FLS Lead, Research Data & Partnerships Dept Life Sciences | Natural History Museum London | SW7 5BD, UK

Coordinator, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) initiative Executive Secretary, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) co-Chair, RDA – Biodiversity Data Integration IG & Attribution metadata WG

ORCID: 0000-0002-4842-6487 | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/dkoureas E-mail: d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk | Twitter: @DimitrisKoureas | Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5244

From: Stan Blum [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: 08 November 2016 06:39 To: tdwg/constitution constitution@noreply.github.com Cc: Dimitris Koureas d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk; Assign < assign@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [tdwg/constitution] Concerns related to Art 7 (#4)

+1 for keeping the language as it is, just to keep things simple.

I think we should keep the option open, pending further discussion, to propose another small amendment to alter article 7, but only after this larger proposal passes.

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/ tdwg/constitution/issues/4#issuecomment-259058172, or mute the thread< https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ ALmnQP6EX4pD8z4QxeTotfhBbWM8WjOyks5q8BjvgaJpZM4KoV8U>.

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[stanblum]

OK, I will also add an explanation on the repo homepage that there are two branches, current and proposed, and to view the two versions, the branch dropdown can be used to switch between them.

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Dimitris Koureas notifications@github.com wrote:

To be on the safe side, I would propose to also include a URL (github?) that points to the Constitution proposal package in the ballot itself.

Kind regards, Dimitris

End

Dr Dimitrios Koureas, FLS Lead, Research Data & Partnerships Dept Life Sciences | Natural History Museum London | SW7 5BD, UK

Coordinator, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) initiative Executive Secretary, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) co-Chair, RDA – Biodiversity Data Integration IG & Attribution metadata WG

ORCID: 0000-0002-4842-6487 | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/dkoureas E-mail: d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk | Twitter: @DimitrisKoureas | Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5244

From: Stan Blum [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: 08 November 2016 16:25 To: tdwg/constitution constitution@noreply.github.com Cc: Dimitris Koureas d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk; Assign < assign@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [tdwg/constitution] Concerns related to Art 7 (#4)

Yes, It will give the links to the package and page on the web site, and say something like:

I am an [ individual / institutional ] member of TDWG and I:

approve the constitutional proposal

do NOT approve the constitutional proposal

Two separate surveys will be used, one for individuals and the other for institutions. All individuals/institutions who paid membership (or were granted membership as being from a developing country) in 2015 or 2016 will get a ballot.

Any other issues I should address?

-Stan

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 4:38 AM, Dimitris Koureas notifications@github.com

wrote:

Hi Stan,

Are you planning to circulate the ballots invites today?

Kind regards, Dimitris

End

Dr Dimitrios Koureas, FLS Lead, Research Data & Partnerships Dept Life Sciences | Natural History Museum London | SW7 5BD, UK

Coordinator, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) initiative Executive Secretary, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) co-Chair, RDA – Biodiversity Data Integration IG & Attribution metadata WG

ORCID: 0000-0002-4842-6487 | Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/dkoureas E-mail: d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk | Twitter: @DimitrisKoureas | Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5244

From: Stan Blum [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: 08 November 2016 06:39 To: tdwg/constitution constitution@noreply.github.com Cc: Dimitris Koureas d.koureas@nhm.ac.uk; Assign < assign@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [tdwg/constitution] Concerns related to Art 7 (#4)

+1 for keeping the language as it is, just to keep things simple.

I think we should keep the option open, pending further discussion, to propose another small amendment to alter article 7, but only after this larger proposal passes.

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/ tdwg/constitution/issues/4#issuecomment-259058172, or mute the thread< https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ ALmnQP6EX4pD8z4QxeTotfhBbWM8WjOyks5q8BjvgaJpZM4KoV8U>.

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[peterdesmet]

Here's a link to the proposal: https://github.com/tdwg/constitution/blob/49a9c6c5f86f93e36d16f4958b772d98668b6864/constitution.md

And here's a link to see the changes: https://github.com/tdwg/constitution/pull/1/files?short_path=26f07ab#diff-26f07ab58c6acb6da1a3d79f4c13125d