`Standing resolutions'

Many board resolutions authorise immediate one-off action, or state a
one-off decision, etc. But many others stand, potentially
indefinitely.

We have a few organisational problems with such resolutions at the
moment:

* They're not easily found in the morass of general stuff.

* When they are amended, the current state of affairs has to
be pieced together by inference from the texts of the resolutions.

* There is no process for regularly reviewing them.

I'd like to propose that we adopt a process which I've seen work well
in another organisation (a college student union, as it happens):

Resolutions which are not one-off become `policy'. Such a resolution
will state that it creates policy in the rubric, and give the new
policy a short name. A separate list of the policies is kept
(probably this is easiest done by separating policies and resolutions
on the web pages). Policies come up for renewal every few years (3?),
so the list of policies has to have a `last renewed' date; when a
policy is more than 3 years old, it gets put onto the agenda for the
next board meeting where it can be amended, or renewed on the nod, or
allowed to lapse.

A policy is considered to have lapsed if a board meeting with the
policy on the agenda fails to either renew the policy or explicitly
postpone its consideration.

Policies would include many resolutions. Starting at the bottom of
the list of resolutions, for example:

1998-09-24.2: Powers of the Treasurer
1998-09-24.iwj.5: Procedure about resolutions (as amended)
1998-11-16.iwj.2: Position and Promises about Intellectual Property
1998-11-16.iwj.1: Framework for Associated Projects
1999-08-12.iwj.1: Appointment of Debian Project Leader as Adviser
1999-08-13.nl: Guidelines for Equipment and Service Donations
etc.

Policies ought to be displayed sorted by short title, and policies
which related to specific associated projects ought to have the
project name at the start rather than in the middle.

I'm not sure how much support this would need in the bylaws. It might
be possible to implement it entirely with a board resolution.

Ian.

John Goerzen writes ("Re: `Standing resolutions'"):
> Some comments:
>
> 1. I don't think that we need a general over-all expiration date. If
> the Board wants to set an expiration for a particular item, it can
> do so, of course. My concern is what will happen if we have lots of
> these things to keep track of and fail to renew something tnat
> people didn't realize was expiring -- plus the added workload,
> presumably on the secretary.

Perhaps it would be better, given SPI's history, and the consequences
of expiration, to have a date in the resolution saying `the policy
stands until amended or withdrawn, but board resolves to reconsider
the matter at its first meeting 3 years after the policy is last
reconsidered' or some such.

> 2. Policy should be numbered and organized, similar to, for example,
> Debian policy or (better) United States Code. Board resolutions
> that adjust policy or adopt new policies will essentially say
> "change paragraph x.y.z to foo" or "add new section foo after
> x.y.z" or "delete section x.y.z". It will be completely clear from
> resolutions exactly what the change is.

Something like that, yes. Although I was imagining that the policies
would have titles and named sections, so that you don't end up with
opaque edits like "from policy no.14, delete paragraphs 2 and 3 and in
paragraph 4 change the 2nd `and' to `or'" :-).

If other people think this is a good idea, or have comments, please
say so. If it seems to generally meet with favour, I'll draft a
resolution for the next board meeting if that seems to be the right
answer.

Ian.