And like Brian said, it’s not solely about honesty and integrity: it’s about making the needs and desires known so that people are motivated to step up to the plate.

The actions we’ve seen out of OSM this week have been encouraging and I hope we continue to see the budget results posted regularly. Andrew, this conversation has been helpful for me; thank you for taking the time to talk. I think I have a more realistic idea of the level of communication OSM and the community at large can engage in, even if we don’t agree on some of the specifics. I’ll let you wrap this up with anything you’d like to add, but I’m going to give it a rest now.

It’s not about keeping things “honest” it’s about being a community and in a community you talk to each other. Reports like the excellent one from Ryan today are what many of us have been asking for for many years. They take 10 minutes to write etc and ensure engagement and to quote Ryan enourage “transparency + accountability + empowerment”

That said, we all make mistakes and say the wrong things at the wrong times in the wrong way. I reminded myself only this week about taking Europeans the wrong way because they tend to use the aggressive form of verbs rather than the passive. I guess the moral of the story is treat others how you want to be treated.

However, since you used the term, one thing I’ve found exceptionally peculiar about OSM is the frequent hand-wringing about how certain actions will be perceived by “the layman.” This term has been thrown around a bit, particularly during the GPL debate (and I only bring that up as an example, not to trot out a dead horse for more beating).

While yes, some people might not have the knowledge to interpret financial data correctly, there are many in our community who do. Joomla is a large community including lawyers, accountants, business owners, government employees/contractors, pastors, non-profit organizers, and pretty much any other profession under the sun. I doubt the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and budget Dave just posted are the first ones most of us have ever seen before in our lives. And even if these are totally new documents for some people, learning the basics of how they work doesn’t take but a few minutes.

When you get the information out there, those who have the ability to interpret it are then equipped to address concerns of those who don’t. When the information isn’t out there, people are left to their imaginations. The most fantastic stories tend to become the history, rather than the reality. And when people are brushed aside after asking specific unanswered questions, it only serves to make OSM look guilty of covering something up.

As for asking OSM a question – well you just need to look how the treasurer responded to questions.

As for me, here’s what would be ideal. OSM publishes the Draft 1 of the budget after all the sectors of the project and the organisation have put in their proposals. This is what the community can comment on and, for example, ask the PLT “what is this line item that you’ve put in”. The board then takes that comment on board and brings down the hammer. At the end of the year there is an annual report done which summarises what OSM has done the year, and that includes a financial report with the explanatory notes for the layman. Elin did something like this recently. In this way those that are really interested can ask the questions *before* the money is spent, and then ask questions after the fact at the end of the year if there are any discrepancies.

Certain lines in the financial report may appear surprising (either by their size or lack of) as without the “explanatory notes” that typically accompany such reports “can” be misleading.

I may have been a little quick in getting my ideas down; I might update this post with a note at the bottom rescinding the voting idea.