Forum:Federal States/Regional Coordinator Pilot Program
Since we're nearly halfway into the current vacant FSA Coordinator term, I'd like to pilot a new project leadership process. Briefly recapping the results of the advisory portion of February's omnibus ballot:
- When asked "How should an FSA Coordinator vacancy be handled?", the results were:
- A member of the OGF admin team should officially serve as Acting Coordinator: 15 votes (50%)
- The position should remain vacant until a nominee is found: 9 votes (30%)
- We should consider restructuring the FSA Coordinator role entirely: 6 votes (20%)
- When asked "If the position is to remain vacant, how should the vacancy be filled?", the results were:
- The position should only be vacant as long as needed; ballots should be issued as soon as a mapper declares themselves a nominee for the FSA Coordinator role: 24 votes (83%)
- The position should remain vacant through the current term (through August 2022), with a full nomination process executed before the next omnibus ballot: 5 votes (17%)
- When asked "If an admin is named Acting Coordinator, in what way should they serve?", the results were:
- An Acting Coordinator should handle the day-to-day business of FSA Coordinator (updating the wiki, moderating forums, etc.), but any new national initiatives should be on hold until a new FSA Coordinator is officially named: 16 votes (55%)
- An Acting Coordinator should have the full roles and responsibilities as any other FSA Coordinator and should be able to oversee new national projects and initiatives: 10 votes (35%)
- An Acting Coordinator should have no proactive role in advancing the FSA project at all; the Acting Coordinator's role should solely be to find a new FSA Coordinator: 3 votes (10%)
In other words, the popular sentiment to handle the vacancy was:
- An admin should serve as Acting Coordinator, but
- Only as long as necessary, and
- We should hold off on starting any major new initiatives until the vacancy is resolved.
Given the ongoing vacancy, with no new candidates for FSA Coordinator having been nominated, we're going to try a new pilot program to prevent ongoing stagnation at the national level. Effective 15 May, I will be stepping down as Acting Coordinator and instead delegating responsibilities to two new Acting Regional Coordinators, in addition to Fluffr_Nuttr in their existing role as Eastern Coordinator. ruadh and Alessa have both tentatively agreed to serve as Acting Northern Coordinator and Acting Southern Coordinator, respectively. The Eastern "region" is pretty well delineated by the eastern mountain range, whereas the line between the Northern and Southern regions is a bit more blurry. The two standing regional coordination groups (The West (Sierra, Apawiland, Tempache, etc.) and the West Lakes Compact (Minnonigan, Oronotia, Nishowigan, etc.)) will not be divided (The West will be in the North, WLC in the South), but there may be some overlap between the regions for states in between.
Within each region, each regional coordinator would have a high degree of autonomy in terms of handling interstate issues within each region. For national initiatives, the three regional coordinators would need to concur on a cohesive path forward. While the two continental admins (myself and wangi) would continue to be available and involved in internal FSA coordination conversations, our role as admins is strictly advisory and we would not have a vote on the three-person committee. (As continental admins we would still have veto power over any FSA initiatives that could destabilize the larger region or continent; however, any admin veto would require a public explanation from the admin team explaining why the decision was made.)
This pilot structure will only be in effect for three months. As part of the next biannual omnibus ballot scheduled for August, stateowners will be able to vote on whether or not to retain the regional coordinator model. While the Acting Regional Coordinators would be welcome to volunteer to serve a full August 2022-February 2023 term, they would be subject to the standard vote of confidence to retain their position, or they would be welcome to step down and vacate the position for another stateowner.
If there are any questions, please let me know, either here or in the FSA Discord. (If you do not yet have access to the (optional) FSA Discord and would like to communicate with your fellow stateowners there, please send me a message via OGF mail.) -TheMayor (talk) 16:29, 3 May 2022 (UTC)