[PSF-Community] PSF Fellow Nomination Process & Fellow Working Group

[Ewa Jodlowska]

Dear members,

We have started to address the lack of process for voting in new PSF Fellow
members. Currently, when someone is nominated, the nomination can only come
from a current fellow or from a designated work group. Furthermore, it is
required that the approval be done by 2/3 of the eligible voters. To make
this a more inclusive process and to make it a labor-saving process, the
board would like to propose the following changes to the bylaws (
https://www.python.org/psf/bylaws/):

   1. Adjust Section 4.9 of the bylaws to read:
      - To be eligible for membership as a Fellow, a member must be
      nominated by a member *[changed fellow to member]* of the corporation
      or a specially chartered Working Group, which nomination should be based
      upon certain criteria to be established by the Board of
Directors and which
      criteria shall be designed to emphasize extraordinary contributions.
   2. Adjust Section 4.9 of the bylaws to read:
      - Following such nomination, approval of chartered Working Group
      voting members shall be required in order for a member to become
a Fellow.
      - *changed from:* Following such nomination, approval of two-thirds
      (2/3) of the members entitled to vote shall be required in order for a
      member to become a Fellow.

We wanted to inform the PSF membership of these proposed changes before we
send them to the Bylaws Working Group.
________________________________

We have also suggested a starting point for the to-be chartered Working
Group (https://wiki.python.org/psf/FellowWG) with the following policies
(not to be included in bylaws). These can be discussed more within the
group before the Working Group charter is approved by the board:

   - Up to 15 voting WG members and 5 non-voting members (could be board of
   directors who want to have oversight or a member who is interested in the
   process but does not want to commit to voting). To promote a diverse
   membership, the Working Group will aim to pick membership by
   first-come-first-serve and allow up to 3 people from one geographic region
   (for ex Africa,Asia,Central America, Eastern Europe, European Union, Middle
   East, North America, Oceania, South America, The Caribbean).
   - All voting WG members must also be PSF Fellow Members
   - 2/3 of the votes placed must be "aye" in order to approve the Fellow
   nomination
   - Every year after the new board is elected, we will ask WG voting
   members who is interested in continuing and who would like to opt out of
   the working group.
   - Voting WG members that do not vote in three consecutive votes will be
   asked to leave the WG so we can substitute in new member.

If any current fellows would like to participate in the Fellow Working
Group, please let me know. We currently have three members: myself, Naomi
Ceder, and Kushal Das. Once we get more members, we will together work on a
charter.

Best wishes,

Ewa Jodlowska
Python Software Foundation
Director of Operations
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