16/05/2023 Model Proposal - Section 1, Membership

[ekke]

@rcheesley

A voting member who does not cast a vote for one (1) votes within a single calendar year shall immediately have their voting rights revoked for the remainder of such year.

@rcheesley I think I do not even understand the exact meaning of this. Moreover, what is the reasoning behind it?

[rcheesley]

@ekke

@rcheesley I think I do not even understand the exact meaning of this. Moreover, what is the reasoning behind it?

Ah that came from the Python Software Foundation - I think it’s to encourage people to actually ‘use it on lose it’ when it comes to voting.

I’m probably around a 2/10 on having that - I don’t think it’s hugely important but it might be an incentive for folks to actually do the voting part.

[rcheesley]

Hi @nick_vh and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, much appreciated!

@Nick_vh

Why even allow people to decline its right to be a Mautic member? It doesn’t make sense for someone to not be a member if there are no rights or obligations attached to it. Similar trend, but keep it as simple as possible. Let the code of conduct be the arbiter of the behavior.

Which part are you referring to here? If you are suggesting everyone having voting rights, we had quite a lengthy discussion around wanting to encourage people to give back to Mautic, and that earning voting rights by financially or practically contributing was one way to ‘incentivise’ for want of a better phrase, that behaviour.

@Nick_vh

• Supporting member. It’s not fully clear when the price is revised once a year.

I think we would review the base rate in the annual General Assembly but I can make that clearer. updated to make this clearer

@Nick_vh

I suggest to limite to X countries or regions. You already have enough administration I would think, so I’m not sure why this should be more complex than necessary.

I don’t think we should limit anything by country. We already use the Big Mac Index for our partner programme, and there were concerns expressed that $100 flat rate was a much larger ask in some places in the world than others. That’s why we proposed the Big Mac Index, to make it more proportionately fair.

@Nick_vh

maybe make the case that they should provide proof of 5 positive contributions to Mautic in the last 3 months?

We had a lengthy debate on this as well - it is a hard one. The 5 hrs/mth actually comes directly from a very long established open source project, the Python Software Foundation: PSF Bylaws | Python Software Foundation - see section 4.6. The main discussion was around 5 contributions being to create an image on Canva, for example, might take 5 minutes each, whereas a PR might take 2 hours each. So self-certifying the time basis was what we came up with (inspired by Python) as a way to work around this.

@Nick_vh

• Managing members: There is a small sentence about that, but no header.

This was subsequently simplified so I think this is outdated now.

@Nick_vh

Fellows: In most other OSS projects this is called “Core team” or something similar.

I don’t think that is the case. Fellows are folks who are most likely not involved with Mautic any more. Think of it like an honorary member. Voting rights, but not necessarily contributing any more.

@Nick_vh

I suggest to turn this around, if no objections are given for the member to become a fellow or core team member within 30 days, we’ll move forward.

Yes, we did discuss defaulting to using lazy consensus and time boxing of decision making in another part of the governance model. We absolutely could use lazy consensus there too. I’m fine with updating that away from a majority and towards a time-boxed lazy consensus.

[rcheesley]

@rcheesley

“Contributing members” are same as “managing members”? The name seems to change mid section. Important because the benefit (voting for free) only comes at the end.

This was updated subsequently so this point is no longer relevant as we simplified the wording.

@rcheesley

You may want to have a way to revoke Fellowship in rare and extreme cases. Maybe 1.6 applies to fellows but that is not clear.

Yes - this is a good point! We should make it clear that 1.6 indeed applies to fellows. updated to make this clearer

@rcheesley

The voting rights also seem to be responsibilities if voting rights are revoked following not participating in a vote. That should be considered carefully. Ie. if someone goes on vacation, could they loose their voting right for the rest of the year? Especially for 36 hour votes.

Yes good point - given what you and others have said, maybe we should just take out the responsibilities part - we can always add it back in a later year if we want to.

[ekke]

If we find this to be a practical issue, we can always tackle it later.
I think for now, less regulation is better, in general.

(And I still don’t get what the rule says: If I don’t vote by Dec/31st, I cannot vote for the remainder of the year ???)

[ekke]

Following up to yesterday’s panel discussion, I am now convinced that we should embrace organizational membership from day one, or else we’re missing out on a big opportunity.

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Implications of “Only Individuals”

Let’s envision the practical situation if we only do individuals, and I admit I have a Mautic service provider like ourselves in mind.
Possible reasons being dedication, participation, personal brand, right?
Let’s see:

• Would I personally become a member? Sure (probably make the company pay)
• Would any other employee become a member and pay for themselves? Probably not.
• Would the company pay for the membership of other employees? Maybe for 1-2, but without any good reason beyond general attitude.
• Would the company pay for the membership of freelancers? Rather not.
• Would freelancers become members and pay for themselves? Hopefully yes.

TOTAL = 1-3 Bigmacs plus freelancers

→ There is no motivation for organizations to pay more. And not even a clear way to do that.

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Implications of “Organizations, too”

What if, in addition to individual memberships, we also allow organizations, maybe even in tiers?
Possible reasons for organizations being dedication, participation, and for Mautic services: primarily marketing, imho.

• Would the company become a member? At least for ourselves, being a member e.g. in a 10-Bigmacs tier would be a no-brainer. And that is not determined by “how many votes does the tier get me?” or such
• Would the company pay for the membership of other employees? Maybe less likely in this setup.
• Everything else remains the same.

TOTAL = 11 Bigmacs plus freelancers

→ And organizations are now motivated (and enabled) to opt for even higher tiers.

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Proposal

• We offer organizational membership from day one, in multiple tiers (details tbd)
• Organizations too have only 1 vote regardless of the tier chosen
• Mautic Partners (let’s drop the word “community”) need to be organizational member of some tier (or of any tier, depending on the details)
• The only other benefit for organizational members is a nice logo for them to use
• Benefits may evolve over time (membership listing with backlink, number of votes based on tier if that turns out to be a topic, …)
• And in parallel, we bring the details of the Mautic Partner program to the next level.

Reasons, in a nutshell:

• Personal membership is not attractive to organizations
• We can raise way more money if we do not exclude organizations, plus give them premium options (marketing 1-0-1 )

[rcheesley]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts here and in the panel!

I do like the idea of having the corporate membership - maybe we can align with the existing sponsorship tiers?

@ekke

• Organizations too have only 1 vote regardless of the tier chosen

This might be technically a bit of a challenge to implement (who has the ability to use that vote, for example) but I am sure we can find a way!

@ekke

• Mautic Partners (let’s drop the word “community”) need to be organizational member of some tier (or of any tier, depending on the details)

I think that is a reasonable expectation and I don’t think it would be an issue for any existing partners.

@ekke

• The only other benefit for organizational members is a nice logo for them to use

@ekke

Benefits may evolve over time (membership listing with backlink, number of votes based on tier if that turns out to be a topic, …)

I think we would need to be clear the difference between sponsoring, being a member of the General Assembly, being a partner - but indeed nice to have shiny badges and good perks.

[rcheesley]

Here’s some proposed changes for incorporating organsational members:

1.3 - Organizational membership

Organizations can become a member by joining at one of the following tiers:

• Champion - $1,200/yr
• Community - $5,000/yr
• Bronze - $10,000/yr
• Silver - $15,000/yr
• Gold - $30,000/yr

Organizations will be entitled to one (1) vote, in the same way as individual members.

An addition to 1.6 making it clear that the org memberships may also be terminated and a clause to state that no refund will be made if an org membership is terminated.

Members may convert their membership to Basic Membership or withdraw any tier of membership including Fellow status and organizational membership at any point by completing the membership change request form. Refunds are not provided for organizational memberships which are terminated early.

A member’s membership may be terminated by the Community Council (for example as a result of a Code of Conduct investigation recommendation) with an affirmative vote with two-thirds (2/3) of the members who are present and eligible to vote at the meeting. This also applies to Fellows and Organizations. No refund will be provided for early termination of organizational memberships.

NOTE: This will take the place of the current sponsorship tiers that we have been planning to launch in the community. We will offer perks for the tiers, the first draft of which can be found here: Become a Corporate Sponsor of Mautic - Mautic Community. The $ amounts are not confirmed - these are proposed tiers. So we could decide to tweak them.