voting membership rules
Title: voting membership rules
Gentlemen:
I am a rookie Working Group Chair in need of some advice.
In constructing rules for 802.16, my greatest challenge is
voting rights. I simply can't decipher the 802 rules on this. Several
of us spent over an hour with Jim Carlo in Montreal without
resolution. I've been worried that I am overcomplicating the
situation, but I have concluded that the situation in inherently
complicated.
I have looked at some other WG rules and have not found a
clearer explanation. I'd like to know more about how you interpret
the rules in your group.
Here are the key 802 statements:
"... Thereafter, voting membership in a Working
Group is established by participating in the meetings of the Working
Group at two out of the last four Plenary sessions... Membership
starts at the third Plenary session attended by the participant. One
duly constituted interim Working Group or task group meeting may be
substituted for the Working Group meetings at one of the two Plenary
sessions."
"Membership is retained by participating in at least
two of the last four Plenary session meetings. One duly constituted
interim Working Group meeting may be substituted for one of the two
Plenary meetings."
(1) First let me put off the question of interims and make sure
I understand the basic idea. I understood from Jim that lists are
updated only in conjunctions with plenaries, that new members are
added at the opening of the plenary meeting, and that expired members
are deleted at the end of the plenary. I think that these statements
follow from the rules.
Here are a couple of simple scenarios and my interpretation of
the rules:
Meeting: 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9
Attendance: x x x - -
- - - - x=attendance
Status:
v
n
v=becomes voter; n=becomes nonvoter
Meeting: 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9
Attendance: x x x - -
x - - - x=attendance
Status:
v
n v=becomes voter;
n=becomes nonvoter
I think I understand everything to this point.
Here's a slightly more interesting case:
Meeting: 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9
Attendance: x x x - x
- - x x x=attendance
Status:
v
n v v=becomes voter; n=becomes
nonvoter
Here someone loses voting rights after meeting 7 and regains
them in time for meeting 9.
One scenario that also follows from the rules is:
Meeting: 1 2 3
Attendance: x x -
x=attendance
Status: v v=becomes voter;
n=becomes nonvoter
In other words, you become a voting member at the third plenary
even if you don't attend it. I think the requirement that
people petition for membership at the meeting is in conflict with
this rule, so I don't plan to implement this petitioning
requirement.
(2) Now we introduce the interim meetings, and things get
trickier. The problem is that the rules don't specify WHICH interim
meetings are eligible. For example, if someone comes to an interim in
1981 and then turns up this November, does he become a voter the next
time he shows up at a Plenary? A more typical example is this: a guy
comes to a March Plenary and a May interim. Is he a voter in July?
Does this violate the clause that "Membership starts at the
third Plenary"? It seems to; you could establish voting
membership from scratch in 4 months. How do you guys handle
this?
One of the rules I'm considering is allowing an interim to
substitute ONLY for the preceding Plenary. This would require a
minimum of 6 months to gain voting rights. If I don't do this, I'll
probably let the interim credit be applied to either the preceding or
following Plenary but not to any other.
(3) This is a comment, not a question: I think that the rules
should be revised to take into account the existence of and
importance of interim meetings. Like many other groups, we are
planning three interims a year. People can maintain membership by
attending two out of four plenaries, which is three meetings every
two years. Three out of twelve, in my opinion, is insufficient to
justify continued voting rights.
The voting rights rule reduces the incentive for people to
attend interims. At our interim last week, we ended up with less than
a quorum. It didn't hurt us much, but it could in the future. For
instance, my project plan has us making our key decisions at a May
2000 interim. If we don't have a quorum, we could have real
problems.
I'm getting off the topic, but I'd appreciate any advice on how
I can keep from being completely hosed if I don't have a quorum.
Right now, I have two ideas:
-Make decisions by letter ballot.
-Get the inactive voting members off the rolls by:
-deleting members who fail to vote in letter
ballots.
-offering inactive members the option to
resign.
-ensuring that the rules are interpreted to
delete inactive members. See (4) below:
(4) For a new WG, 802 doesn't include any specific rules except
that:
"All persons participating in the initial meeting of
the Working Group become voting members of the Working
Group."
Strictly interpreted, the rules says that my voting members (who
became so by attending last July) will lose their voting rights at
the end of the November plenary if they don't attend; they will not
have attended two of the last four. Of course, there have only been
two, but the rules don't provide any kind of allowance for that. One
might say that one of two is enough, given that there have only
_been_ two. However, I prefer the stricter interpretation and plan to
use it. Note that people who lose voting rights after November can
regain it fairly quickly:
Meeting: 1 2 3 4
Attendance: x - x
- x=attendance
Status: v
n v v=becomes voter;
n=becomes nonvoter
I know you have higher-priority issues on your table, but I'd
appreciate any thoughts you can offer.
Roger
Dr. Roger B. Marks
<mailto:marks@nist.gov>
Chair, IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access
National Wireless Electronic Systems Testbed (N-WEST)
<http://nwest.nist.gov>
National Institute of Standards and Technology/Boulder, CO
phone: 1-303-497-3037 fax: 1-303-497-7828