TinkerDifferent Board Governance Policy

Standards for forum member conduct are listed on the Forum Conduct page.

In a similar vein, this page lays out what you can expect from members elected to the Board of Directors.

Board Roles and Responsibilities

President

• Responsible for coordinating projects & prioritizing line items from the agenda
• Arranging & recording (in the cloud) the board meetings
• Following up on line items from previous board meetings
• Setting the dates of elections
• Implementing policy

Secretary

• Records Minutes of Board Meetings
• Minutes Include:
  • Attendance
  • Topics Discussed
  • Notes / commentary on those topics
  • Action items
  • Action items assignee
• Push for there to be definite owners of tasks
• Follow up on tasks which have been assigned on a regular basis (every week or two)

Director of IT/Ops

• Evaluate requirements for running the site and offer cost effective solutions
• Maintain backups
• Patch and update software
• Keep secure list of passwords and accounts

Treasurer

• Manage economic aspects, such as ensuring that bills are paid on time
• Trail the cash; where does the monies come from, where does it go?

Vice President

• Acts in a support role to the president and board (Steps in as President in their absence)
• Assist in conflict resolution and moderation
• Monitor compliance of policies

Director of Policies and Guidelines

• First reviewer of items in the Feedback forum
• Regularly reviews all existing Policies and Guidelines to ensure they make sense
• Presents update suggestions to the Board for review

Director of Admins/Mods

• Oversees moderation efforts on Forum and Discord
• Acts as a tiebreaker vote for moderation actions when the moderator group is split on decisions
• Presents all bans to the Board for review
• Suggests additional moderators and administrators as the need arises

Public Relations Liaison

• Facilitates communications between the Board and Forum / Discord members
• Overall handles communication-related tasks with tactfulness

Overall the Tinker Different Board of Directors exists to keep the Forum and Discord running well. The Board will review feedback items, promote the forum, search for stable sources of funding, review rules and guidelines regularly, post transparent meeting minutes, maintain backups, ensure high moderation standards, and so on.

Board Succession / Transitions to New Board

• Where possible, Board members from the previous term are encouraged to join the first meeting of the new Board for knowledge transfer
• It is required for exiting Board members to transfer any “working documents”, projects in progress, etc. to the Board for the new members to use in knowledge transfer
  • Where necessary, exiting Board members are to be available for meetings, emails, etc. with new Board members to answer questions for a month
• Board members that hold special credentials, such as those to the merch store or platforms other than the Tinker Different forum and Discord are required to attest that those credentials have been deleted from their systems upon exiting the Board
  • A best practice is for the Director of IT/Ops to change the passwords to deny access

Board Voting Quorum

For “everyday” business, a simple majority will suffice. For more serious business, a ⅔ majority is required.

Board Term Limits

• A Forum member can be on the Board for 2 consecutive terms
  • After which a 1 term gap must be observed
• If there are not enough Forum members elected to fill all the Board seats, an existing Board member may be appointed by the new Board to remain
  • The new Board shall put forth effort to find a Forum member to take the place of the Board member that is serving an extra term
  • The new Board will appoint the replacement
  • An example of this situation could be that there are not enough interested community members to take all the available Board seats

Board Eligibility

• A Forum member must have been registered for at least 6 months in good standing to be eligible for selection as a Board member

Board Service Terms

• The Board of Directors serves for a 3-year term
• Presently the 2023 Board will serve until the end of 2025
• Moving forward, the Board will be split into two groups (A and B) to ensure that we do not lose all the expertise every time a new Board is elected
  • Group A will serve until the end of 2024
  • Group B will serve until the end of 2025
• Term Schedule:
  • Group A elections, end of 2024 for the 2025 to 2027 term (25-27)
  • Group B elections, end of 2025 for the 2026 to 2028 term (25-28)
  • No elections at end of 2026
  • Group A elections, end of 2027 (for 28 - 30)
  • Group B elections, end of 2028 (for 29 - 31)
  • No elections at end of 2029
  • Group A elections, end of 2030 (for 31 - 33)
  • Group B elections, end of 2031 (for 32 - 34)
  • No elections at end of 2032
  • Group A elections, end of 2033 (for 34 - 36)
  • Group B elections, end of 2034 (for 35 - 37)
  • No elections at end of 2035
  • And so on

Board Role Groups

• Group A
  • President
  • Director of Policies and Guidelines
  • Public Relations Liaison
  • Treasurer
• Group B
  • Vice President
  • Secretary
  • Director of Admins/Mods
  • Director of IT/Ops

These groups are referenced in the Board Service Terms section above.

Board Member Resignation

• Board members are permitted to resign from the board if their life situation changes significantly, such that they are no longer able to perform normal duties of the position they are in
• Resignation must be made in writing (such as an email or post in the relevant Board year subforum)
• Upon resignation, the Board will convene a meeting within two weeks to discuss the situation (or may use the relevant Board term subforum for coordination in the same timeframe)
• Board member resignation is announced publicly after the Board has convened to discuss the situation
• The Board may either:
  • A: Appoint a qualified member to serve the remainder of the resignee’s term
  • B: If there are less than 6 months remaining in the term, elect not to appoint a replacement Board member (their position will be filled in the next election)

Board Member Removal

• A Board member may be removed with a unanimous roll call vote
  • A “roll call vote” will require all present Board members to individually state their vote, yes or no
  • In all cases where a roll call vote is used, the results shall be posted publicly in minutes
• Procedure:
  • A Board member must propose and document why in a meeting prior to a vote
  • The minutes of this meeting must be posted for a month
  • The vote will take place at the next Board meeting

The removal process should only be used as a last resort. Efforts must be made to resolve the situation before coming to this.

Membership Voting Requirements

A Forum member must have been a member for at least 6 months before becoming eligible to vote in Forum level polls or participating in Board election voting.

Membership Polling Requirements

• All Polls shall have a Forum level banner to draw attention
• All Polls shall be mentioned publicly in the Discord
• Polls are to run for a minimum of two weeks, with the timeframe stated in the poll opening post
• The number of votes on a Poll to determine a trustworthy result should exceed 60% of the Daily Active User (DAU) count
• After a Poll has run its course, a summary post should be added to state the results and then the post and poll can be locked

Moderation Practices

When banning a user, in any messaging to them state the reason for the ban in terms of Tinker Different policies. Otherwise, a simple “You are banned for policy violations” would suffice.

All Bans are to be reviewed at the next regular Board meeting. The Director of Admins and Mods will present the reasoning for each ban individually.

Forum members that report scamming / fraud in the trading post should be asked for evidence of that behavior. Any members found to be scamming or pulling fraud on other members are eligible for a permanent ban.

Amendments

The governance document can be amended by the board with a 2/3 majority. Proposals can be submitted by any Board member into the Agenda document, and must be present in the Agenda document for at least three weeks prior to a Board meeting. The changes must be published in the meeting minutes for transparency. At the next scheduled board meeting the proposal may be voted on, adopted, and published.

Last Updated 15 April 2024