Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Discussion about the Geocaching Australia web site
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caughtatwork
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Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by caughtatwork » 23 January 10 1:30 pm

This thread is sticked as a GLOBAL announcement meaning it will appear at the top of every forum page.

The senate will be formed by 1 member from each state in Australia and New Zealand and the GCA developers. This will result in a maximum of 10 senators representing two countries plus any developers who are on board. A state need not be represented, but should a state be not represented, they will continue unrepresented until the next election. In the event of a senator standing down, that state will continue unrepresented until the next election.

Senators will serve a term of around 12 months. Senators are eligible for re-election every 12 months. Nominations will be called for approximately 1 month prior to elections and vote will be taken for any state where there is more than one nomination. The senator will be elected on a "first past the post" result. Nominations must come from the nominee.

Governance of the website and the way that Geocaching Australia continues in the Australian geocaching space will be a collaborative effort between the senate and the developers. Voting in the Senate will be on a "first past the post" result. In the event of a tie further discussion and voting will take place.

When 50% +1 or more of the senators and developers choose an option, it will be considered a decision. Senators may "opt out" of voting, however their "opt out" vote will not be taken into consideration. Senators may not proxy their vote to another senator.

e.g. If only 9 senators vote and there are 5 FOR and 4 AGAINST, then the YES vote will be considered to the the decision even though there are senators who did not express a preference either way.

Major decisions in terms of the direction of the website should be proposed to the senate who will help to formulate the acceptance or rejection of the position to be adopted and guide the website towards achieving that goal. This is done though the Geocaching Australia Senate forum.

Enhancements to the functionality of the website where a function pre-exists do not need approval of the senate. e.g. Additional statistical data or data feeds to other sites.

Enhancements to the functionality of the website where a function does not currently exist may be provided to the senate for review and discussion. e.g. Recent introductions such as routes, individual watchlist and cache owner email updates, warnings for geocaching in banned zones, etc, etc.

Concepts for rewards programs shall be provided to the senate in confidence for review and discussion.

Our current philosophy is loosely stated as "free and open" which is the desire of the founders for a geocaching website where there will never be mandatory payment for access to geocache data and the data of the website can be openly shared to other websites. Data will be licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 deed. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ This is already agreed to when a cacher lists their cache at Geocaching Australia.

Funding of the website will be via voluntary donations or from the profit on the sale of token goods.

The role of Senator is not onerous and decisions are only likely to be taken a few times a year.

This is the first year we are undertaking nominations and voting. The roles and responsibilities of the Senate have been taken from various discussion points made over the years and are included above as the initial starting position. Changes to the roles and responsibilities of the Senators may occur from time to time.

If you wish to be considered your state Senator, please indicate your nomination in this thread including your home state for which you would like consideration. Nominations must come from the nominee. Please do not nominate others for consideration. It would be helpful if you could provide some background as to your geocaching "career" and why you would like to be your state representative. As indicated above if there is only one nomination for a state, the nominee will be automatically accepted. If there is more than one nomination for a state a vote will be taken.

Nominations are open until February 28, 2010. Voting (if necessary) will be taken in March 2010.

Thanks for your time.


Nominations to date:
WA - Papa Bear_Left
Qld - Camstal, ruzzelz
Vic - rhinogeo and Mr.Coffee and the clan
NSW - richary and Big Matt and Shell
ACT - mtbikeroz and Bewilderbeest
SA - firesafe
Tas - Cheesy pigs and Greenish
NT -

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Black Bunny
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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by Black Bunny » 23 January 10 2:16 pm

Very interesting.

Serious question: Why? What will be the advantages of having a 'senate'? What has led you to take this path?

I'm genuinely interested in the reasons, if you don't mind...?

Mrs Bunny

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CraigRat
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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by CraigRat » 23 January 10 3:43 pm

Black Bunny wrote:Very interesting.

Serious question: Why? What will be the advantages of having a 'senate'? What has led you to take this path?

I'm genuinely interested in the reasons, if you don't mind...?

Mrs Bunny
If c@w and myself make arbitrary decisions that change the course of the site, we'd be seen a dictatorial, when in fact GCA is everyones site.

We've used the senate in the past to make some serious decisions on the sites future directions and we have a couple of things coming up, including the possibility of banning caches placed in some areas. This is something we feel is too big for just us to make the call on, and the Senate is a great way of doing it, and it works a hell of a lot better than forum polls!!

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by Black Bunny » 23 January 10 9:00 pm

Makes sense. I like it. :-)

Mrs Bunny

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Papa Bear_Left
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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by Papa Bear_Left » 24 January 10 8:51 pm

OK, someone has to be first!

I'd like to put myself forward for consideration as WA's representative on the Senate.

I've been caching for over seven years and was one of the first 20 people to sign on here when it was launched in 2003. Since then, I've placed about a hundred caches, most of them pretty well received, and I'm in the top ten posters on these forums (and that's just as PBL!)

You probably know that I'm also "theUMP", the reviewer responsible for Australia except Qld and NSW on geocaching.com.

However, even though I work for the "secondary site", I think I've demonstrated my support of GCA over the years. I served as a Senator when we were discussing the sponsorship deal and I raised a reasonable chunk of money for the server fund, as well as being a regular forum contributor. My GSAK grabs GCA feeds and they go onto my GPS and PDA right along with the gc caches.

As those of you know me will attest, I do have some strong opinions on geocaching, but I'm always very happy to hear and consider other opinions and to represent others' views. Heck, as a reviewer, I publish a lot of caches that I'd rather not, but that others seem happy to place and even find, so I've had practice at this sort of thing!

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winglen
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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by winglen » 25 January 10 9:47 am

Some of you will know that Winglen were nominated and accepted as Senators for ACT some time ago, when a couple of controversial issues raised their head. At that time we gave the issues a lot of thought, followed the thread closely, added some comments, introduced the issues onto the ACT forum for wider airing, and so on. Some of the ACT community will also know that we've had a mixed year in 2009 with our son being quite ill - he's improving leaps and bounds but I think it fair to say we would not give a senator job all that it deserves in 2010. So we are happy to hand over the ACT post and look forward to seeing who might nominate.

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by Camstal » 26 January 10 2:05 pm

I am interested in nominating myself for the role of Senator for Queensland.

I have been geocaching since March 07...nearly three years. I have only found over thirty caches, including a couple of GCA's but the main reason being is that I live in a town in Central Queensland, which only has around a dozen caches within a fifty kilometre radius. I have hidden around ten caches, including two GCA caches.

I regularly use the forums and I am currently running the GeoPhoto Comp over in the Things Photographic Page.

The thing that sums up why I would like to be a Senator is that I really want to put something back into the thing that I get a lot out of.

Thanks,
Camstal

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by MtnLioness » 01 February 10 5:11 pm

I would like to Nominate Mtbikeroz For ACT
I know he puts a lot into this hobbie and is known and respected within the ACT caching community that he has been a part of for many years now.
I know any decisions he would have to be a part of would not be biased and he would try to be fair to all sides.
And hey, After all, he IS the highest finder in the Whole ACT by far and he knows what he's talking about.

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by Damo. » 01 February 10 5:15 pm

MtnLioness wrote:I would like to Nominate Mtbikeroz For ACT
I know he puts a lot into this hobbie and is known and respected within the ACT caching community that he has been a part of for many years now.
I know any decisions he would have to be a part of would not be biased and he would try to be fair to all sides.
And hey, After all, he IS the highest finder in the Whole ACT by far and he knows what he's talking about.
Have a word to him and encourage him to nominate himself.
Nominations must come from the nominee. Please do not nominate others for consideration.

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MtnLioness
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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by MtnLioness » 01 February 10 5:20 pm

oops - My reading skills leave a lot to be desired.

He won't - he's too humble!
(I'll give it a go though)

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by rhinogeo » 01 February 10 6:12 pm

To paraphrase the right Hon. James Hacker ...

If asked if he wants to be a Geocaching Senator, the generally acceptable answer for a geocacher is that while he does not seek the office, he has pledged himself to the service of geocaching, and that should his colleagues persuade him that that is the best way he can serve, he might reluctantly have to accept the responsibility, whatever his personal wishes might be

In other words ... I'm happy to do it again :P

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by caughtatwork » 01 February 10 6:27 pm

Ah, a courageous decision, Prime Minister.

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Richary
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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by Richary » 01 February 10 11:05 pm

Apologies for the delay in replying, have been away in Vixtoria and wanted to chat to a couple of others first.

Having been the NSW Senator before for the previous issues I am happy to put my hand up again. My history is I started caching back in SA in 2003 before moving to Sydney a bit over 2 years ago. Made lots of friends in all states through it. I am happy to find both GC and GCA caches, whatever is nearest (and often don't realise which is which until I go to log it later).

Total finds a bit over 2500 with 108 GCA ones in that lot. Quite a number placed though the stats don't show it as most of my SA ones are now adopted out to others. Despite the totals I'm not really a numbers man, and would rather find 1 nice cache that requires a good scenic bushwalk to get to that I will remember, rather than 10 unmemorable drive bys in the same day.

I'm part of the GCNSW Committee but that doesn't mean I would represent GCNSW as a Senator. Any issues that come up and need discussing input from anybody will be welcomed. GCNSW has it's place in negotiating with National Parks etc but at the same time it doesn't represent all cachers in NSW and I don't expect it to. It's just another part of giving back to caching the enjoyment I get from it.

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by mtbikeroz » 04 February 10 6:39 pm

ACT Senator if no-one else interested. Happy to relieve the Winglens.

Credentials
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Crazy Mtbiker
Care about the Environment.

Sigh (pesky (but loveable) daughter)

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Re: Senate for 2010 - Details, process and (self) nominations

Post by MtnLioness » 05 February 10 1:54 am

yippee!!

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