What is Expected of Members

FPA membership is a privilege. As a member, you have agreed to serve the FreeCAD community by adding your wisdom and talent. To make the FPA run smoothly, we ask that you take your responsibility seriously

Responsibilities

Vote

This is the single most important responsibility. Unlike the general FreeCAD community, progress is not made by waiting for consensus to emerge. Instead, we make proposals, take votes, and then take action.

If members do not vote, it halts our ability to do anything. We can’t take action, spend money, or otherwise fulfill our mission.

Please take every vote seriously. If you don’t feel qualified to offer an opinion, there will always be an option to abstain. Not voting at all is NOT the same as abstaining.

Offer Opinions, Insights, Experiences

Members come from diverse backgrounds and represent a broad section of FreeCAD users. Don’t assume that your perspetive is already represented.

In the best situation, all members are both voting AND commenting on every topic.

Communicate Well

Make sure that you are subscribed to the FPA Forum section so you receive an email whenever a vote or topic is created.

Provide an alternate communication mechanisem (email address, phone number, etc) so that you can be reached by the admin team if needed.

If you are tagged in a topic, please respond to the topic within 24-48 hours.

If you’re going to be away for an extended period of time, let someone know, especially if you are concerned about specific issues or upcoming votes.

Lead by Example

Whatever we want to see in the general community we should be doing ourselves as much as possible.

Conflicts of Interest

There may be situations where an FPA member could benefit from an FPA decision. In the interest of avoiding actual or perceived conflicts of interest, the member MUST recuse themselves from voting in these cases.

The member is free to participate in discussions prior to the vote.

Should a member submit a vote on a proposal where an actual/perceived conflict may exist, that vote will not be counted and will be treated as an abstention. In this event, the FPA Administration group will decide whether or not a vote should be counted.

Exit Gracefully

Hopefully, the FreeCAD project and the FPA will outlive us all. That means each of us will, at some point, end our time as a member.

When your situation changes such that you can no longer actively participate, don’t just fade away.

Notify someone in the Administrative team or another FPA member and let them know.

If you need some time and not sure if you’ll return, ask to be put on the Inactive list.