Participation in Discussions Regarding Conflicts for publicly-archived meetings (was Re: Conflict of Interest policy, 1 March 2012 draft)

[Chris Leonard]

I believe the reworded section addresses my concern (SL open meeting
policy) while still achieving the essential goal making it clear that
attempts to influence a "conflicted" vote are unethical.

cjl
Sugar Labs Translation Team Coordinator

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> wrote:
>>> * *Participation in Discussions and Votes Regarding Conflicted Matter.*
>>> A conflicted PLC Person shall not participate in or be permitted
>>> to hear the PLC's or PLC sub-committee's discussion of the matter
>>> where he or she has a conflict of interest, except to disclose material
>>> facts and to respond to questions. The conflicted PLC Person shall
>>> not attempt to exert his or her personal influence with respect to
>>> the matter, either at or outside the meeting.
>
> Chris Leonard wrote at 21:42 (EST) on Thursday:
>> our PLC discussions are held in an open IRC forum and openness is a
>> philosophical position within our project.  Can we narrow this
>> restriction for PLC members to "participate" while allowing "hearing"
>> on an equal footing with all project members?
>
> Tony and I came up with the following change which we think addresses this
> issue:
>
>  * *Participation in Discussions and Votes Regarding Conflicted
>  Matter.* On a matter in which a PLC Person has a conflict of interest,
>  the conflicted PLC Person must abstain from, and must not hear nor
>  read the pre-vote discussions of the matter by the PLC or PLC
>  sub-committee, except to disclose material facts and to respond to
>  questions. The conflicted PLC Person shall not attempt to exert his or
>  her personal influence with respect to the matter, either at or
>  outside the meeting.  The conflicted PLC Person may read minutes
>  and/or logs of the matter's discussion after voting is complete.
>
>
> This change allows the conflicted PLC Person to "disclose material facts
> and to respond to questions", but does not allow them to actively otherwise
> participate in discussions until a vote occurs.
>
> One thing we still want to prevent is the conflicted person being a full
> participant at the meeting.  For example, the conflicted person being
> present in real-time at an IRC meeting then back-channeling to non-conflicted
> parties would defeat the purpose of the clause, so we didn't want to
> soften so much as to allow that activity.
>
> Does this change address your concern?
> --
> Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
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