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ENH: Further improve the prescriptions for the Ombuds team #33
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... after consulting ChatGPT (and heavily adapting/modifying) from it.
* Ombudspersons should have no conflict of interest with respect to the community or its members. | ||
* Ombudspersons should be neutral and impartial in their approach to disputes or conflicts that arise, however are ready to take actions to protect members of the community at imminent risk. | ||
* Ombudspersons should not engage in any activity that could compromise their neutrality or independence, including serving as a spokesperson for the community or engaging in any fundraising or advocacy activities on behalf of the community. | ||
* Ombudspersons are invited to participate in the Community assemblies (*NiPreps bi-monthly Roundups*), however they cannot take part of nonsecret votings. Should an Ombudsperson be present at the voting, the voting must be executed secretly. |
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It's a bit picky (feel free to ignore) but isn't the fact that they can vote even anonymously in contradiction with neutrality?
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Can you elaborate more on why you find both in contradiction?
BTW. Please note that there are very few (if any) "binding" votes taking place in the Roundups. The governance places decision-making in entities incompatible with serving as ombudsperson. In practice, this ruling just helps in "consultation" voting (i.e., nonbinding). The only binding voting I can think of would be the approval of the first version of the governance (where there are no ombuds yet, btw). So it is virtually impossible to have an ombuds taking part in a decision.
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I have another question there on Line 32... It says:
they cannot take part of nonsecret votings
Immediately followed by:
Should an Ombudsperson be present at the voting, the voting must be executed secretly.
Why allow the Ombudsperson to vote secretly or non-secretly, as this may complicate the governance? It might be better to just ask the Ombudsperson to both abstain from all votes and step out of meetings where a vote is taking place.
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I see it as like judges, who get to vote in the elections despite their job being all about neutrality.
Having to walk out of a meeting or not being allowed to cast a vote when everyone else can is not very inclusive. Also, ombuds' neutrality should prevail over their own opinions, and that is only achievable if the ombudsperson reflects on their own biases. Finally, the incompatibility argument implies causation between a vote in an assembly referendum and the possibility of independently and neutrally acting later on specific cases. On the other hand, the secrecy of the voting is necessary to ensure members who need to reach out to ombuds do not draw their own conclusions about neutrality because they could see how the ombuds voted in the past.
Finally, it is also essential to consider the nature of the voting (assembly or referendum, everyone votes), with consultive only character (e.g., choose your favorite logo proposal) over very general things.
I'm not particularly against taking this out, but I honestly believe it is a nice thing that ombuds can be there and are not treated differently.
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looks good to me
@nipreps/acting-nsc please have a quick look :) |
... after consulting ChatGPT (and heavily adapting/modifying) from it.