[tei-council] [TEI-L] Changes on the TEI Board (fwd)

Mon Aug 15 15:48:11 EDT 2011

Council folk,

I want to make a couple of observations in my role as administrator of the TEI 
Council and TEI Board email lists, as a preface to continued discussion. I'm not 
a voting member of either Council or Board so I am limiting myself to some 
purely technical points followed by one suggestion.

Keep in mind that by Council agreement at some point in the past, archives of 
postings to the tei-council email list are public 
(http://lists.village.virginia.edu/pipermail/tei-council/). Therefore whatever 
you post to this list cannot be considered to be confidential.

On the other hand, for historic reasons I am not personally familiar with, 
discussions on the TEI Board list are confidential and accessible to current 
list subscribers only. ("The board runs a confidential mailing list" as noted in 
the TEI Board Procedures page at 
http://www.tei-c.org/Board/procedures.xml#mailingListArchive). I suspect that 
the higher level of confidentiality is connected with the Board's responsibility 
for the formal/legal organization matters of the Consortium.

I think there are two competing legitimate needs here: (1) as much transparency 
as possible for Council (and beyond) about the vote of no confidence that was 
taken, and (2) honoring the expectation on the part of the Board that 
confidential discussion is, in fact, honored as confidential. Negotiating 
between those needs is not trivial.

As Laurent is subscribed to both email lists, and is on Board ex officio as 
Council chair, perhaps he would be willing to serve as intermediary in 
requesting the Board to make specific information public?

David

On Mon, 15 Aug 2011, Martin Holmes wrote:

> I for one would love to know what the actual disagreement was about. 
> I've trawled through the #teiputsch tweets and I can't make head or tail 
> of it. Prior to this, I hadn't heard anything about conflict or division 
> in the board.
>
> Who actually attended the meeting, who voted against Martin, and what 
> was their beef with him?
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
> On 11-08-15 12:14 PM, Laurent Romary wrote:
>> Council.
>> This is a serious and sad moment, which follows a series of events that I for myself disagrees with. I had great faith in the vision that Martin Müller had for the TEI and his willingness to create a dynamics bringing various scholarly, but also industrial, communities together.
>> We now need to think this over and use all the energy, creativity, and fine understanding of what the TEI really is, that I have observed in all of you, to ponder upon our mission and how not to leave all our people in limbo. We need to maintain our implication at their service by continuous work on the TEI guidelines and infrastructure, but also think of the optimal framework that will prevent similar event to occur in the future.
>> Laurent
>>
>> Le 15 août 2011 à 19:48, David Sewell a écrit :
>>
>>> Copied formally to Council at Sarah's request.
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:46:47 -0400
>>> From: Sarah Wells<spw4s at VIRGINIA.EDU>
>>> To: TEI-L at listserv.brown.edu
>>> Subject: [TEI-L] Changes on the TEI Board
>>>
>>> To the TEI Council and larger community,
>>>
>>> As some of you may have heard, the TEI Board had a contentious conference call
>>> last week, and the result was the Martin Mueller has resigned as Chair of the
>>> Board.
>>>
>>> This occurred during a regular conference call last Thursday, August 11. Five
>>> out of six voting members were expected to attend, but minutes before the Board
>>> convened, one member apprised the Board via email that she would not be able to
>>> attend. This meant that only four of the six voting members were present, which
>>> still represented a quorum.  There were some difficulties in joining the
>>> conference call, and one Board member arrived a few minutes late. Prior to the
>>> meeting, a Board member requested a point of privilege via email, on a motion
>>> of confidence in the Chair. The Chair absented himself from the meeting to
>>> switch connections and another Board member moved for the vote of confidence
>>> without discussion. It failed, with one vote expressing confidence in the Chair
>>> and three against.  When the Chair returned he was apprised of the vote and
>>> left the call.
>>>
>>> We realize that this may raise more questions&  concerns than it addresses, and
>>> we will send out a more detailed explanation to account for this event and to
>>> outline our plans for finding a replacement. In the meantime, we are working on
>>> an interim solution to stabilize the Board. We are continuing our conversations
>>> on this list, and will hold a teleconference very soon.
>>>
>>> Sincerely yours,
>>> Sarah Wells
>>> TEI Secretary and Treasurer
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Sarah Wells
>>> Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
>>> spw4s at virginia.edu    434-924-4370 or 434-924-4527
>>>
>>> O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
>>> Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
>>> Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
>>> Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
>>> Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
>>> A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
>>> To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke.
>>> Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
>>> The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
>>> Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.
>>>
>>> (Jeff Brechlin, Potomac Falls.
>>> Stolen from the Washington Post's Style Invitational Week CLXI)
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> tei-council mailing list
>>> tei-council at lists.village.Virginia.EDU
>>> http://lists.village.Virginia.EDU/mailman/listinfo/tei-council
>>>
>>> PLEASE NOTE: postings to this list are publicly archived
>>
>> Laurent Romary
>> INRIA&  HUB-IDSL
>> laurent.romary at inria.fr
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> PLEASE NOTE: postings to this list are publicly archived
>> .
>>
>
> -- 
> Martin Holmes
> University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre
> (mholmes at uvic.ca)
> _______________________________________________
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> tei-council at lists.village.Virginia.EDU
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>
> PLEASE NOTE: postings to this list are publicly archived

-- 
David Sewell, Editorial and Technical Manager
ROTUNDA, The University of Virginia Press
PO Box 400314, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4314 USA
Email: dsewell at virginia.edu   Tel: +1 434 924 9973
Web: http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/