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RE: [802SEC] Efficient Organization of SEC Business




Hi Roger,

I'm afraid I have to catch a lot of the flack on the rules issues.
Maintaining the rules is one of the duties assigned to the second Vice
Chair (me).  I've been debating myself on how the improve the process,
and do plan to raise the issue at the July Plenary.  I think part of the
problem is the number of rules changes we have ongoing.  We had 5
planned for this cycle, 3 of which I am running.  This is a lot of work
in addition to other work that is not part of my regular assignments,
and interruptive in nature. I don't think we used to do so many rules
changes at once.  But we suddenly have become aware of a number of
deficiencies in our rules and are struggling to deal with them as
expediently as possible.

FYI, I've had an updated version of the rules for a month or so under
review by a couple of individuals to do error checking before releasing
it.  It does incorporate all the rules changes you mentioned.  I have
just this week given a "final" copy to Paul and Bob O'Hara.  The one
hang up is the creation of the PDF with Bookmarks.  I've been unable to
get the auto bookmark generation running on my machine, and I've asked
Bob / Paul to help me on that.  When that gets cleared up the document
will be released.  Hopefully, there will be less editorial issues this
time, but honestly the more we amend the document, the more editorials
seem to creep in.  I'm also a little uncomfortable about assuming any
editorial license in the process, so I will be slow to fix most
editorials.

Anyway, my apologies for the apparent bugs in the process.  I am working
it as best I can.

Regards,

Mat



Matthew Sherman 
Vice Chair, IEEE 802 
Technology Consultant 
Communications Technology Research 
AT&T Labs - Shannon Laboratory 
Room B255, Building 103 
180 Park Avenue 
P.O. Box 971 
Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971 
Phone: +1 (973) 236-6925 
Fax: +1 (973) 360-5877 
EMAIL: mjsherman@att.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: Roger B. Marks [mailto:r.b.marks@ieee.org] 
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 6:35 PM
To: Paul Nikolich
Cc: stds-802-sec@ieee.org
Subject: [802SEC] Efficient Organization of SEC Business


At 7:34 AM -0400 03/06/23, Paul Nikolich wrote:
>Attached is the initial draft of the July plenary session opening 
>SEC meeting agenda, please review and send requests for revisions to 
>me.

Paul,

I'd like the agenda to include a DT on "Efficient Organization of SEC 
Business".

The general issue is that I am very disappointed at the organization 
of the work in front of the SEC. Over the last year or so, I have 
been constantly confused about what is going on and where we stand. 
I've doing a little thinking about why. Maybe I'm just growing old, 
but I've also identified some other causes. I think they need to be 
fixed.

Here are some specific issues I'd like us to address:

(1) We are currently in the middle of many (don't ask me how many) 
rules change ballots. It is very difficult or impossible to change 
the rules without knowing the rules. How current are the currently 
posted rules? I don't know. On the cover, they say "Revised effective 
July 12, 2002." The PDF Title is "802 Operating Rules, Revised 
effective July 14, 2000." The PDF creation/mod dates are 15/16 
October 2002. In any case, I would presume that no changes from the 
November and March meetings are incorporated. I've just done some 
research. To my knowledge, we approved one change in November ("SEC 
TAG rule change") and two in March ("SEC Electronic Ballots") and 
("Rules Title Change"). There may be even more changes that we made 
to the rules but have not been incorporated in the rules. Where do we 
turn to find the facts?

(1a) As an aside: we changed the balloting rules in March. Are we 
following them?

(1b) As another aside: during my research, I discovered at least one 
rules change ballot that we voted in March to initiate but which, to 
my recollection, has not been initiated ("rules change on Sponsor 
Ballot periods for SEC ballot"). Maybe we've already balloted this 
and I've forgotten. Or maybe there are more that fell through the 
cracks. How should I find out?

(2) There is essentially no web support for the SEC's work. This is 
causing serious problems. We don't need a lot, but we need, at a 
minimum, a catalog of on-going and completed ballots, as Tony and I 
discussed in April:
	http://ieee802.org/secmail/msg03748.html
We need this to help the SEC members do their work, and we need it so 
we have an archive of past decisions.

We also need a catalog of materials for upcoming meetings. I have, 
for example, been cataloging PAR proposals:
	http://ieee802.org/16/meetings/mtg26/lmsc/pars.html
but this is not the complete story.

In my Working Group, we wouldn't think of carrying on our activity 
without this kind of web-based organization.


Last summer, when we discussed adding a 2nd Vice Chair, I suggested 
that we follow 802.11's example by assigning specific duties to the 
two. I mentioned, for example, the need to have a particular person 
in charge of the rules, so that things wouldn't fall through the 
cracks. I also said that, with two Vice Chairs, we ought to have 
enough labor to support functions like web site support (I also 
mentioned publicity). I didn't get my way; instead, the rules say "A 
Vice Chair will be responsible for such duties as may be assigned by 
the LMSC Chair." And things are falling through the cracks.

So, can we add this issue to the agenda?

Roger