We had an incident in Discourse that has shown incompatibilities in the interpretations about what is allowed and what not, thus we are asking for guidance from the Council (or FESCo) to avoid conflicts in future:

When a user on Discourse has asked why they are not allowed to vote for FESCo, a Join SIG member has approached the user and offered them to temporarily add them to the Join SIG FAS group so that they can vote, and then remove them from the SIG again once they have voted (the reason the user could not vote was the CLA+1 / FPCA+1). I treated this as violation with the assumption this is an unintended abuse of powers, as this bypasses a technical restriction that was put there intentionally (original reasons for the CLA+1 restriction elaborated later by @kevin [1] - I don't repeat/cite here), while a Join SIG member determines by personal opinion who should be allowed to vote, outside the realm of their SIG and without intention that this user becomes a real member of Join SIG, and bypassing thus an intuitive filter that avoids people to vote in critical elections who have not yet been exposed to the community beyond a limited realm, thus not found out about FAS groups (which have a subtle impact/relevance) and thus did not ask for a membership on themselves. In short, I considered it an intended filter to ensure that at least the majority of users have a perspective beyond their own nose when doing critical votes, and this was intentionally bypassed (so far the core aspects of the assumption I have been working with).

This ended up in a discussion [1] that has shown that the Join SIG member's interpretation of this being allowed is shared among Join SIG. While Kevin provided an elaboration of the original reasons, there also seems to be no consent if/what to apply to the current case.

The Join SIG assumes this is ok and they will keep doing so because
- they are there to help, assuming this is a type of help,
- that we have to trust people implicitly,
- that we should not add/assume “intent” to CLA+1,
- adding people to FAS groups at their discretion, including temporary, is the norm all over the community

(I tried to sum up the core points of the other side here as neutral as possible, but given that this reflects not my POW, you have to consider my summaries as biased and if our opinions are relevant to the subsequent questions, please review [1] to see the points in context)

We consent that there is no consent about if that is compliant or acceptable, including which side needs Council approval for their actions/preferences (thus the ticket:)

The major questions that can be derived, and which we ask the Council to answer:
1) Does any SIG, or the Join SIG in particular, have the authority to offer temporary memberships for the sole purpose of voting for FESCo?
-> 2 sub-questions that could become relevant depending on your answer:
1.1) Does it matter if users who didn't ask for such a membership are actively approached?
1.2) Can a SIG make the decision for such a temporary membership based on contributions of the realms of other SIG and based on personal opinions?

This phenomenon seems to have been not considered before, this being the first (known) case, and since this now has become agreed in Join SIG (and now also communicated pubclicly) that it is ok and intended, it is unclear if and how far this will be used more actively in future (thus how far moderators of channels will end up with this case again). I am not sure how many FESCo voters exist or if the argument of the hundreds of voters (?) is true and thus how far this can practically impact FESCo election outcomes at some point, so I leave this part out as far as it concerns me.

The more immediate case is obviously for moderation: what and to what extent shall we allow or ignore such cases, and when to intervene.

While the case makes clear that I have my opinion about this, I think there is agreement that the most important thing is to go in a common direction, whatever this is. So some clear guidance would be nice, e.g.,
1) forbid this at all, allowing SIGs only to add the members whom they see fit for their own activities as permanent members (maybe excluding the known cases of temporary memberships for wiki edits)
2) remove the CLA+1 at all, to have the same condition for all users
3) allow SIGs to temporarily add users beyond their own activities/realm for the sole purpose of voting, but then also communicate this clearly to all SIGs with an FAS group to ensure that not one SIG can disproportionately impact a critical election based on their own intuitive (voter) preferences (I do NOT want to imply any type of intentional manipulation or so! There is agreement that everyone is acting on good faith!).
4) Allowing this only to Join SIG, but creating limitations clearer than personal opinions, or limiting numbers or so (or not creating any limitations at all, making clear to moderators to allow this to Join SIG members in all circumstances)

Just some possibilities...

A side note: as far as I know, the temporary membership was intended mostly to allow wiki edits. As it is discussed if the wiki is replaced, this could be merged into a discussion if temporary memberships shall be allowed in future at all, though I do not argue in any direction about this, as I lack information if and when this is necessary (Join SIG members might correct me here).

I share this ticket link in [1] to ensure Join SIG members can review, and correct me if I summed up something wrong or so.

[1] https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/a-post-in-how-can-i-join-the-f43-fesco-election-requires-staff-attention/179007/