Adding Members to the Board

Questions for Candidates

* Why do you wish to serve on the Board?
* What qualifications should we consider when evaluating your application for membership?
* Are you willing and able to support and work within the Board's existing policies?
* Are there any particular aspects of the Board that you're interested in helping with, 
  and especially to help manage?
* Are there any particular aspects that you ''don't'' want to work with?
* How much time do you think you'll be able to commit to Board activities?
* Do you want us to publish the fact that you applied:
* before we consider your application?
* after we consider your application, if you are not appointed to the Board?

The above questions are reminiscent of a job interview, which is exactly what the 
application process is like. This list should not be considered complete.

Members of the board may wish to ask you further questions.

Selection mechanism

1. The number of new members appointed to the Board is determined before announcement, and must be less than half of the number of currently active members (e.g., seven active members => maximum of three new members).
2. The Board posts an announcement to news.announce.newgroups and news.groups when it is ready to consider applications for membership.
3. The application period ends one week after the announcement is posted.
4. Applications should be submitted via email to the board.
5. People who applied for membership before the announcement was posted are sent private email confirming that their applications are being considered (i.e., they don't need to apply again). Anyone who believes they've already applied for membership but does not receive confirmation by private email should apply again to make sure the Board hasn't lost their application.
6. At the end of the application period, the Board conducts a yes/no/abstain "consideration vote" on each applicant to determine whether to consider him/her for membership. NOTE: This vote does not determine which applicants are appointed to the Board. Rather, it determines which candidates are potentially acceptable to enough current members to warrant further consideration. A 2/3 vote of the active Board members is necessary for an applicant to progress past this stage in the process.
7. The results of the consideration vote are not published.
8. The identities of applicants are not published without their consent.
9. After the consideration vote, a discussion period ensues.
10. During the discussion period, any Board member may change his consideration vote on an applicant by notifying the votetaker. If a changed vote causes an applicant to drop below the 2/3 threshold, s/he is removed from consideration.
11. If the number of applicants under consideration does not exceed the maximum, the Chair at some point calls for consensus to appoint to the Board all the candidates under consideration.
    1. A Board member may respond by indicating s/he believes more discussion is necessary.
    2. A Board member may respond by changing his consideration vote on one or more candidates, in which case discussion resumes until a new call for consensus is posted by the Chair.
12. If the number of candidates under consideration is greater than the maximum, then STV is used to select the maximum number of new members.
13. Applicants who are not appointed are notified by the Chair via email that the Board has not appointed them at this time, but that they are free to apply again for membership in the future if they wish.
14. Applicants who are appointed are notified by the Chair via email that they have been appointed, added to the mailing list, given access to the members-only area on the Web site, etc.
15. After new members are appointed, the Chair is responsible for assigning term expiration dates to the new members and adjusting the expiration dates of existing members to keep the distribution as even as possible.

Announcement template

Cross-posted to news.announce.newgroups and news.groups.

The Board is now officially accepting applications for membership.

1. A maximum of (fill in) new members may be added to the Board.
2. Applications will be accepted until one week after this announcement was posted.
3. Applications should be submitted via email to the board.
4. People who have already applied will receive private email indicating that they do not need to apply again. If you believe that you have already applied but you do not receive private email to that effect, please accept our apologies for the oversight and send email to the board reminding us to consider your application.
5. The identities of applicants will not be published without their consent.
6. Each applicant will be voted on separately by the Board to determine whether to consider the applicant for membership.
7. If there are more applicants under consideration than the maximum, a Single Transferable Vote election will be used to select which applicants to appoint to the Board.
8. The results of the selection process will be announced no more than three weeks after this announcement was posted.
9. Terms of board members are staggered, with approximately 1/3 of members' terms expiring on April and October 1 of each year (see Board Membership Policy for more information). Newly appointed members' terms will expire on the April/October 1 closest to but not exceeding 18 months after their appointment. Terms of the other members will be adjusted as necessary to keep a relatively even distribution of expiration dates.