RE: Bob Grow's proposed rewording of the ++PROPOSED RULE CHANGE LETTER BALLOT
Tony, I apparantly failed to make my point as clearly as I intended. I have no
disagreement with your reply.
My concern is that we now have words that address the voting threshold for
technical issues, but no corresponding words to address the voting threshold for
non-techical issues. It could be argued that the words about Robert's Rules
would apply for this other case. I simply wanted the threshold implied by
Robert's Rules to be explicitly stated here. I certainly did not want to open
up the subject of which topics are to be decided by vote, and which by the
chair.
Best regards.
Robert D. Love
Program Manager, IBM ACS - US
Chair IEEE 802.5 Token Ring Working Group
IBM
500 Park Offices Phone: 919 543-2746
P. O. Box 12195 CNPA/656 Fax: 419 715-0359
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA E-Mail: rdlove@us.ibm.com
Tony Jeffree <tony@jeffree.co.uk> on 10/09/99 03:16:30 AM
To: Robert Love/Raleigh/IBM@IBMUS
cc: stds-802-sec@ieee.org
Subject: RE: Bob Grow's proposed rewording of the ++PROPOSED RULE CHANGE
LETTER BALLOT
At 13:14 08/10/99 -0400, rdlove@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
>
>
>An example of a non-technical, non-procedural vote would be the location
of an
>interim meeting. It would be highly autocratic, and certainly against my
sense
>of appropriate procedure for the chair to decide unilaterally where the
meeting
>should be held. I believe that we must account for this class of vote and
>specify the rules under which the vote is to be taken. That said, I am in
>agreement with Bob Grow's comment that we must be careful to not hamstring
the
>Chair with the unnecessary burden of bringing all manner of procedural
issues to
>a vote.
>
I believe that the proper guidance already exists in the rules to cover
this - the Chair has wide latitude between deciding procedural issues at
one extreme and using RR at the other. Short of enumerating the set of
situations and the proper procedure for each, it is very unclear to me that
you are going to improve on that. The point is that there are other checks
and balances in place as well (explicit and implied) - for example, if the
Chair is seen to be abusing his/her latitude in these matters, there are
procedures for removal that can be invoked.
I feel that it would be a retrograde step if we reach the stage where the
conduct of working group meetings becomes a constant referral to the
rule-book before deciding whether or not the working group is permitted to
break wind without having a vote first. The focus of our meetings should
be on getting technical work done, and on minimising the bureaucratic
impediments to that process.
>By the way, it is interesting to see the level of subtlety implied in our
rules.
>I think the e-mail forum is an excellent one to allow for thoughtful
discussion
>over a reasonably long period of time to draw out the implications, and
without
>taking an undue amount of anyone's time. Seeing the progression of this
>discussion, and the benefits of conducting it over e-mail, I believe that we
>should be giving consideration as to how to expand the set of topics that get
>discussed electronically, so that we can decrease the discussion and time
>required to address SEC issues at the plenary meetings.
I couldn't agree more. Seems to me that there is an opportunity here to
recover *even more* of our plenary meetings for productive technical work.
But I know long & heated debate in Exec meetings is *great fun* for all
concerned... ;-)
Regards,
Tony