Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1
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Dear @Sheeo I have two questions regardning the faf association and board for you, or any else who is able to answer them, because my lack of knowledge regarding the faf association is making it impossible to draw any clear conclusions regarding each parties stances and argumentations on this topic (especially because the only Information on the topic I can easily find are the faf statues and 2 forumposts).
In a prior post you stated:"The board isn't managing day-to-day things so why do you need to know who's on it? You can contact me or anyone from the council about any concerns you might have and they will bring it to the board eventually if it needs to go there."
Yet in the statutes it sais: "The Board is responsible for managing day to day business."
Since I didnt follow all discussions regarding the board closely I likely missed information regarding this, but currently these two statements are contradicting.
If the board is not responsible for managing daily affairs who is (in the association)?If the board is responsible for managing daily affairs I would like to know what these "daily affirs" entail. neither the faf statutes, nor the fewforum posts regarding the faf assiciation give me any clear idea about it. The only thing I found was this https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1228/faf-association-preliminary-meeting , where it was stated that "Being a Board member gives you no additional privileges regarding moderation, deciding FAF operations, making balance changes, or anything of the sort. The central role of the Board and the association in turn is meant to provide a system of accountability for the financial aspects of FAF."
which is in accordance with you your statement regarding the boards role.
It would help me a lot if you could provide a clear overview of what tasks and responsibilities the association/board is currently supposed to get/have (or allready has) and how they are supposed to interact/cooperate (even if not explicitly stated in the statutes) with the current faf management (especially details regarding deciding what events will happen on faf, how they are organised etc.) to get a proper idea of what the current situation is (which ideally could also get added to the faf association forum topic).
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classic FAF drama
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@blackheart said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
@Sheeo Nobody is interested in the 2021 patreon data (that one will obviously be "correct"). We are talking about the years roughly 2017-2020, and you know perfectly well that we are, no need to play dumb or divert attention to "ill release 2021 data". Since you have surely separated faf patreon and private money and therefore directed the patreon to not-your-main bank account (...surely?), this shouldnt take you more than a couple minutes in the balance history of that account.
The tax authorities don't care what account i put money into.
Before 2020 the income was negligible and post-tax barely accounted for the server costs. In 2020 that changed and we now have $2800 in the patreon awaiting payout tax-free because we have a legal structure to support it.
The reason this is even demanded is that the patreon has been chilling at a solid 300-500 bucks a month (as of writing, 588) for a long time, while the server + tourneys should not remotely use it all up (if it does, sad, but we would like to see the facts). From what I have heard about server costs & the tourney contributions from official FAF, it appears that there should be thousands saved up.
Responded above.
Full accounts again to be made up by the elected treasurer. You could do well by showing up and engaging yourself as well, you're more than welcome.
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@Turinturambar Right now the head of the LLC can do what he wants. All the council is not legally binding and just a way to organise things. So if he wants to shutdown FAF tomorrow that will happen (just that nobody controls the developers, so you can not tell them what to do, at most what not to do). Only that of course FAF software is Open Source and can be Forked(copied) and redeployed anywhere at any point(just without all game/map/mod data).
After forming the association(which happened already I think, just not registered yet or something like this) nothing changes. Because all the stuff is still in the hands of the LLC, till it is transferred(which is the plan some day). On the other hands cause the owner of the LLC probably accepts the association it probably the association does business in practice. But this is just a legal construct. And of course power lies with whoever is legally responsible, how could it be otherwise. With the difference that in case of the association the guy legally responsible could be replaced/ is voted on. (Btw every physical person can join the association, not now but when it is registered I believe)
So everybody sane person votes @Sheeo cause he has done the paper work before and is here for a long time. And even if you might not personally like him he normally does only interfere if really needed. So since Sheoo or whoever else would like to be legally responsible(actually not fully liable but still has legal duties), would probably not want to organise all of FAF there needs to be some way to organise. And what better to do then form some loose halfway defined construct to do that like THE COUNCIL. So there is probably no change on that end. I mean there could but WHY.
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Btw in the association there is a treasurer. So should you want more transparency on funds good news for you.
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@turinturambar said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
Yet in the statutes it sais: "The Board is responsible for managing day to day business."
Yeah wow, this is an good question and I fully understand the confusion.
In the statutes "day to day" means something different from what I've been arguing in this thread.
It means anything not related to the legal structure of the association and how it conducts itself formally. That is; anything that isn't expected by it from authorities.
Not what is expected from it by players or somebody wanting aurora to shoot further.
I hope this is clear.
Since I didnt follow all discussions regarding the board closely I likely missed information regarding this, but currently these two statements are contradicting.
If the board is not responsible for managing daily affairs who is (in the association)?The board is. Just not by the definition of the how things currently "operate" in FAF.
If the board is responsible for managing daily affairs I would like to know what these "daily affirs" entail. neither the faf statutes, nor the fewforum posts regarding the faf assiciation give me any clear idea about it. The only thing I found was this https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1228/faf-association-preliminary-meeting , where it was stated that "Being a Board member gives you no additional privileges regarding moderation, deciding FAF operations, making balance changes, or anything of the sort. The central role of the Board and the association in turn is meant to provide a system of accountability for the financial aspects of FAF."
Yes, the notion here is correct. You do not get to decide the aurora shooting distance by being a member of the association.
You get a part of the overall responsibility of deciding who represents FAF; and if you're a part of the board, a say in some particular high level issues. No aurora shooting distance will ever come up here.
It would help me a lot if you could provide a clear overview of what tasks and responsibilities the association/board is currently supposed to get/have (or allready has) and how they are supposed to interact/cooperate (even if not explicitly stated in the statutes) with the current faf management (especially details regarding deciding what events will happen on faf, how they are organised etc.) to get a proper idea of what the current situation is (which ideally could also get added to the faf association forum topic).
Axel made a response above and he's entirely correct.
Until such time that the IP of FAF has been formally transferred to the association; it carries no further weight or responsibility than that which I'm capable of giving it.
But ultimately think of it as the point where the buck stops. If there's any disagreement or if there are any important things to be discussed in FAF; this is the body that now decides it.
Previous it was a set of private individuals.
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"No aurora shooting distance will ever come up here"
Wrong. You cannot guarantee that whatsoever. The only restriction on Board activity is gross and deliberate negligence.
What you mean is "I will try to the best of my ability as President to stop these things from happening"
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Yes there is no other sane option than a registered association XD But some ppl keep ranting about it without understanding the topic at all.
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If he does interfere in the shooting distance of the aurora you can vote against him right? And btw. you(as board/the head) can not really decide on development or balance topics. If you make developers mad you are left with no one doing your changes.
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Or if u interfere in balance team issues you are left without a balance team and developers coding balance changes.
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And ppl might think about replacing you as the head of the board.
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Hey lads,
I'm new enough here, play a bit but have never really contributed on the forums etc until I started reading some of the stuff from this week.
From an outsiders perspective, (and the perspective of a slightly older than average outsider who's ran a business before), a lot of the back and forth seems to boil down to some more general confusion about how board and management relationships function usually.
I'm not going to launch into a big patronizing Wikipedia style post about it, more so I think maybe somebody with experience as a company secretary could write a formal explainer, this might be something that some of the funds that are there could be used for. Some sort of outside arbitration or structural advice at the beginning of this transition would more than repay itself imho, and quite possibly quell some of the trust issues that are clearly disrupting the process at the moment.
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Yes axel, you are getting to my whole point about there needing to be an understanding between Council and Board about how to approach objectives for FAF. Having the Council pledge to "obey objectives" from the Board is entirely stupid. Councillors "pledge it" and then they just don't implement garbage ideas. Yeah, great point of that pledge.
I'd also like to hear a more in depth explanation of how Danish law works because as far as I know a pledge would only hold relevance in any sort of court as a contract. A contract is by definition civil law. This means the only restitution you are going to get is financial restitution. The intent of financial restitution in the situation of a contract breach is to bring the aggrieved party back to the original state they would be if the contract were not breached.
This is a nonprofit organization. I'm providing volunteer work. There is no exchange of value or productive labor. In what world would any sort of pledge where Board and Council agree to work together hold any legal scrutiny and not just be immediately thrown out. Does Denmark operate on case law? Is there some precedent for this?
If this is truly such a terrifying prospect, then don't make the Board pledge it. The Council will simply pledge to work on mutually agreed upon objectives and an implicit understanding to cooperate with it will exist among the Board.
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Done that a thousand times. We had documents explaining it. Conferences explaining it
we have the rules of the association which are public 
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It is like a sports club dude. It is not that complicated. We all vote a head/board he decides. But in reality he gives most of his power away. But such things are not found in the rules because that makes it inflexible.
Alternative is a private person own everything and he decides(right now the case).
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Ftx,
Just because work is voluntary doesn't mean whoever is providing it isn't bound by the terms of whatever contract, written or just assumed/statutory, just as there is statutory obligations on the side of the organization to the volunteer.
If I were to give my actual opinion on all this stuff going on, I think you're doing a fine job running the show from what I can tell. You're definitely in more of a management role than a player representative role however. I'd imagine, (speaking more in the abstract), the usual way to structure things would be to have a board, as well as a company treasurer, with whom you and the council (essentially the management team) would meet monthly. The council/you would present your plan for the medium to long term, as well as how much cash you need etc, the board would then approve it, and any aurora range issues would be up to you. This is the usual way things work. Only big picture things would really require board intervention. However the board would retain the right to intervene if they, as a majority, felt it was warranted.
There seems to be a lot of basic confusion about "who would be in charge" etc, not nessasarily from you, just around this whole election/this thread.
I'll leave you guys to it, some sort of outside binding arbitration might really do some good though.
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He would like to manage ppl yes you got that right. But that usually ends up with ppl getting upset
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That's fine. All I'm asking is for the acknowledgement that the Council needs to be involved in these "faf planning" decisions because they are the applicators of said decisions and are doing so as volunteers not paid employees. What you outlined is what I have been arguing for over the last few months.
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@ftxcommando said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
"No aurora shooting distance will ever come up here"
Wrong. You cannot guarantee that whatsoever. The only restriction on Board activity is gross and deliberate negligence.
So, hypothetically, because somebody could bring up aurora firing distance in a board meeting; you're going to halt this entire process that I've been working on for the whole year.
Lead me to believe for one second this has nothing to do with your personal motives once again.
What you mean is "I will try to the best of my ability as President to stop these things from happening"
Yeah that's what I mean.
I also mean I did my best to write the statutes to prevent that kind of hypothetical evil from happening in the future.
Your suggestion is still, as far as I understand, to keep the "powers" with me because somehow I'm permanently AFK and therefore that's OK.
Do you have a better suggestion outside of the board and the association binding themselves to responding to your personal wishes?
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My better suggestion was combining Council and Board into a singular authority so that the people handling the day-to-day administration and connected to the contributive teams of FAF are also responsible for the long-term direction of the project.
No, this doesn't mean you need to define anything about the Council in the statutes.
