proposal-membership.md

Membership

Founders

Responsibility: Get the first version of the EU Buttsortium up and running.

Criteria

1. Actively participate in at least 3 buttsortium meetings
   1. Provide personal answers to ongoing questions
   2. Be present and active in audio/in-person meetings
2. Volunteer for at least 25h on tasks required for bootstrap (beside meetings, unless facilitating):
   1. Facilitate meetings
   2. Organize the next meeting date
   3. Organize notes
   4. Prepare the website
   5. etc.

Erick volunteers to log the tasks performed by all Founders (including his and the 3h it took to articulate and revise this document).

After the successful bootstrap of the Buttsortium, Founders will essentially become regular members (except for the sake of resolving Membership Split, see below). They will still retain the honorific title for recognition in the bootstrapping effort.

Active Members

Responsibility: Keep the consortium going.

Membership Principles

1. Financial stake: high enough for serious commitment but low enough to be accessible.
2. Trust: existing active members have to actively pull new members and keep other existing members in.
3. European: be related to European activities.
4. Active participation: members must make regular contributions to maintain their active status.

Criteria (for individuals)

1. Pay a monthly membership fee of 10 Euros (which can be paid in advance for up to 12 months)
2. Be actively vouched for by at least 5 active members (see “Membership Split” for limit cases)
3. Have physical or legal presence in Europe, or be involved in an active consortium project with at least one member with a physical or legal presence in Europe
4. If not a member for the last 12 months:
   1. Publicly introduced themselves to the existing members (ex: background, motivation, skills, etc.)
   2. Have made recognized contributions to the larger SSB community (ex: tools, artwork, community gardening, volunteering, etc.)
5. If a member for the last 12 months:
   1. Voted in the last annual general assembly
   2. Performed >=10h of recognized volunteering work for the consortium over the last 12 months, beside voting and participation in meetings.

If a member fails to maintain their active status by omitting to fulfill some of the criteria above, they become an “Inactive Member” for up to a year, and loose voting rights. An active member will contact them to understand why. The “Inactive Member” can then choose to: (1) fulfill the criteria to become “Active” again, or (2) become a “Past Member”. In the absence of answer, after one year of “Inactive” status, they automatically become “Past Members”. (see “Recognizing Past Members” below)

Bootstrap

A Founder is considered an active member for the sake of vouching if they are themselves vouched by at least 5 other Founders.

Membership Split

If some members stop vouching other members such that membership would split in disjoint groups:

1. The group including the largest number of Founders is the official consortium;
2. otherwise, the largest group is the official consortium;
3. otherwise, the consortium is dissolved and its assets are liquidated and transferred to the Secure-Scuttlebutt Consortium Open Collective.

The other disjoint groups shall create new consortiums with different names.

Recognizing Past Members

Recognition is based on mutual consent:

1. Active members are encouraged, but not obliged, to list “Past Members” and a summary of their contributions on the consortium’s public website for posterity.
2. “Past Members” have the possibility, but no obligation, to be listed publicly on the consortium website. Their active consent will be sought by active members that want to recognize them, unless the past members are not able to give that consent anymore. In the latter case, the choice of listing or not the “Past Member” is left to the best judgement of the active members.