RE: voting membership rules
Roger,
A useful way to deal with the likely unquorateness of interims is to
pre-authorise certain actions at the preceding plenary. 802.5 typically
takes a plenary vote to begin a ballot, and then another vote stating that
if a majority (sometimes 75%) of those voting at the interim meeting vote to
send a subsequent draft out for ballot, then it should go out to ballot.
We've used this to pre-authorise committee letter ballots and also
forwarding to LMSC. There are some instances of this in our minutes at
http://www.8025.org/meetings/.
Regards,
-- John
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org
> [mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of Tony Jeffree
> Sent: 24 September 1999 09:42
> To: Roger B. Marks
> Cc: stds-802-sec@ieee.org; SMarin@boschtelecominc.com;
> louis.olsen@teligent.com
> Subject: Re: voting membership rules
>
>
>
> Roger -
>
> Your message annotated, preceeded by >>
>
> Regards,
> Tony
>
> At 23:56 23/09/99 -0600, Roger B. Marks wrote:
> >
> > 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."
>
> >> One of the key statements that you have missed is that the
> Chair also has
> the power to grant membership as he/she sees fit.
>
> >> The rules are not entirely clear as to which meetings
> constitute "the last
> four". When you are at a Plenary meeting, does that meeting
> count as one of
> "the last four"? or are they the four most recent (and completed)
> plenaries? I
> believe that the correct interpretation is the latter.
> (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
>
> >>I believe this is correct.
>
> 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
>
> >>Correct.
>
> 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.
>
> >>Correct.
>
> 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.
>
> >>Wrong. The granting of membership occurs at the start of the
> third plenary
> attended (assuming the "last four" rule has been satisfied); so
> in this case,
> the individual will gain voting rights only on attendance at
> plenary meeting 4
> or 5. This is clear from the first passage you quote.
>
> (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?
>
> >>The substitution rule (you can substitute one interim for one of the
> plenaries) is reasonably clear on this, but I agree, if there has
> only ever
> been 1 interim and that occurred in 1981, then there is the possibility of
> mis-interpretation. I believe that what the rule should clarify
> here is that
> the only interim attendances that can be substituted are the ones
> that have
> occurred during the time-period betweem now and the first of the last four
> plenaries. In other words, the test for gaining membership becomes:
>
> >>"If you are building membership, and you are attending a
> plenary meeting,
> and
> you have either attended two out of the last four plenaries or
> have attended
> one of the last four plenaries plus one interim meeting that occurred in
> between any two of the last four plenaries, then you have achieved voting
> status."
>
> >>Similarly, for maintaining membership:
>
> >>"If you have either attended two out of the last four plenaries or have
> attended one of the last four plenaries plus one interim meeting
> that occurred
> in between any two of the last four plenaries, then you have
> maintained your
> voting status."
>
> 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.
>
> >>I believe that is a tighter constraint than is currently
> applied in other
> WGs.
>
> (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.
>
> >>This seems at variance with your statement on substitution. If
> you believe
> interims and plenaries are of equal importance, surely you should be
> travelling
> in the direction of giving equal credit for attendance at either.
> If you are
> suggesting a "mininum time served" rule should be imposed, then
> it would be
> better separated from the meeting rule.
>
> 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.
>
> >>It is not unusual for interim meetings to be non-quorate; this
> does not stop
> the working group from functioning. If decisions need to be
> taken, then the
> interim meeting's decisions can be ratified at the next plenary
> (if the issue
> can stand a 2 month delay) or ratified by email ballot (if more urgent).
>
> 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:
>
> >>I don't see anything to prevent you doing all of the above. But as
> commented
> earlier, non-quorate interims do not prevent work from being done.
>
> (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."
> > >>I believe as WG chair you have the right to define such a
> rule if you see
> > fit (see my comment above).
>
> 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
>
> >>Not quite...I believe the strict interpretation is that he/she only
> becomes a
> voter at meeting 4 if he/she attends the meeting and it is a plenary (see
> earlier). But as this is a startup situation that is not handled by the
> rules,
> I guess you get to call the shots. (Typical software bug
> here...it handles
> the
> normal cases, but not the exceptions...)
>
>
>
>