Out of the FOG - Leadership Guidelines

[Haggis]

Out of the FOG Leadership Guidelines

Out of the FOG  is owned and operated by a team of anonymous volunteers who make a commitment to provide free online information and support in a safe, solid and supportive community for those with a family member or loved-one who suffers from a personality disorder.

Out of the FOG has 3 functional levels of leadership:

Moderators:

Moderators have authority to move, edit & delete posts & topics, and modify, authorize and de-authorize individual accounts.

Moderators have access to the moderator discussion board.

Moderators do not have access to the Administrative Control Panel, Website source code or board donations & finances.

There is to be at least one moderator position open for every 500 active members on the board. An active member is defined as someone who has made at least 1 post and has logged on to the board at least once in the past 12 months.

Members with at least 1 year of seniority and 100 posts on the board are eligible to be nominated as moderators.

Administrators:

Administrators have all the rights and responsibilities of Moderators.

In addition, administrators have access to the Administrators Control Panel. They can change the board settings, create/delete forums etc, change the layout and appearance of the board, create/delete modify user groups and options.

Administrators have access to the website source code and hosting account.

Administrators have access to board donations and referral fees and collectively make decisions on how to utilize these funds. Administrators are responsible for annually posting site financial information on a public area of the site.

Administrators must give 48 hours notice and obtain unanimous consensus of other admins and the site owner prior to making any substantive change to the site appearance, layout, membership roster or adding or removing any content. In the event of any disagreement between site administrators or the site moderators the site owner's decision will be final.

Site administrators are responsible for ensuring that all site content is backed up with a minimum one-month frequency and independent access to all backed-up material and/or source content required to restore the site is distributed to all site administrators. This ensures that the site can be restored to its original state in the event that the site should be detrimentally or irretrievably altered.

There is to be at least 1 administrator position open for every 1,000 active members on the board up to a maximum of 10. An active member is defined as someone who has made at least 1 post and has logged on to the board at least once in the past 12 months.

Members with at least two years continuous seniority, over 500 posts and who have served at least one year as a moderator are eligible to be nominated as admins. Admins can be elected in any year and serve for a two-year period.

Site Owner:

There can only be one site owner at a time.

Members with at least three years continuous seniority and 1000 posts on the board who have successfully served at least one term as an admin are eligible to be nominated as site owner. The site owner can be elected in any year and serves a  three-year term.

The site is legally registered in the site owner's name, subject to these rules. The owner has responsibility to uphold these rules, to preserve the spirit of this community and to pay the bills.

To become site owner, The elected member must agree to uphold these rules by signing and publishing a copy of this document on a public area of the site.

In the event that a site owner wishes to stand down early, ownership of the site will be passed to the administrator who has the longest continuous seniority as a member on the board until the next election cycle is completed. If he/she is unable or unwilling to perform the duties of board owner, it will pass to the next most senior administrator and so on. If no succeeding administrator can be found, ownership of the board will pass to the moderator who has the longest continuous seniority on the board until the next election cycle. If he/she is unable or unwilling to perform the duties of board owner, it will pass to the next most senior moderator and so on. If no succeeding moderator can be found, ownership of the board will pass to the member who has the longest continuous seniority on the board until the next election cycle. If he/she is unable or unwilling to perform the duties of board owner, it will pass to the next most senior member and so on.

If no board owner can be found, the hosting bills will not get paid and the site will eventually be shut down by the host operators at the end of the next billing cycle.

In the event that the site owner is deemed unwilling or unable to uphold these rules, the most senior administrator will organize an interim poll among all elected and active site moderators and administrators. If such a poll yields a 66% or greater majority in favor of an ownership transfer, ownership of the site will pass through the same line of succession as for a site owner who resigns. It will be the responsibility of the succeeding owner to utilize the appropriate legal process to gain access to and control of the site.

Elections:

Active Members with at least 100 posts are eligible to vote in all elections.

Elections are held using the board's "Poll" function in a special elections forum which is visible only to eligible voters throughout the month of August each year.

Nominations may be made August 1-14 each year and 1-week long elections held within the period August 15-31. Appointments begin September 1 and end August 31 of the following year.

During the nomination period, any member may privately nominate another eligible member by private communication to an administrator. In order to be nominated for any position, a candidate for a position must be eligible and willing to serve the term of the appointment. Nominees must also be openly endorsed by 100% of the existing board administrators and site owner, who will indicate their support by posting "I support this nomination" on the appropriate poll thread.

For all positions, a candidate must be supported by at least 50% of the votes returned in the polling period. 

Moderators & Administrators can stand for re-election as many times as they wish. There are no term limits.

Moderators & administrators may stand down at any time by giving notice to the site owner and administrators. If a moderator or administrator stands down they forfeit access to board moderation functions, the administrators control panel and the moderator discussion board. After standing down they must successfully be re-nominated by the administrators and re-elected by the membership if they wish to take up their position again. A Moderator, Administrator or Site Owner who has not logged on to the board for a minimum of 90 days will be deemed to have resigned their position.

If at any time there are less than the minimum number of moderators or administrators, the site owner has the authority to appoint any eligible member to fill an admin or moderator position on an interim basis until the next election cycle occurs.

In the event that there are more candidates elected for any position than there are positions available, a 1-week long runoff election will be held between September 1-15 and the candidate(s) with the largest popular vote(s) will be appointed to the position(s) with immediate effect.

Miscellaneous:

No member of the Out of the FOG leadership team is to be paid for their services. Any and all funds raised by donation or otherwise are to be invested in delivering and publicizing the board sand website, and a statement of financial records is to be published annually on the site.

Each member of the leadership team indicates their willingness to serve the spirit and letter of these guidelines and the charter of this community with the statement "I have read and agree to these guidelines" posted below these guidelines in a public area of the site and returning a digital copy to the board owner.

Changes to these guidelines:

Any modifications to these guidelines must be unanimously approved by the Site Owner and all existing administrators and approved by 50% of the voting members in the next election cycle.