Re: [802SEC] 802.11 PARs for Friday's agenda
Paul,
There is a motion to suspend the rules covered in Chapter 1 section 25
of RRoR. Here is my analysis of whether we can do this and what rules
should apply to the motion if it is allowed:
-----------------------------------------------
There is a significant section covering the rules that cannot be
suspended and possibly this rule is in that category:
Roberts says that that can not be used to override the organization's
bylaws or constitution. So it isn't clear to me that we can use it (or
anything else) to override our P&P. One view would be that the P&P are
our ByLaws. There is another statement in RRoR that may get us around
this: "Rules contained in the bylaws (or constitution) cannot be
suspended-no matter how large the vote in favor of doing so or how
inconvenient the rule in question may be - unless the particular rule
specifically provides for its own suspension, or unless the rule
properly is in the nature of a rule of order as described on page 17,
lines 22-24."
If I recall correctly, in an earlier version of our P&P the "procedures"
were in annexes and at some point we moved them to the body. One view
could be that these procedures are "rules of order" - One could argue
that their earlier position as annexes and our intention to put them in
the OM rather than the P&P shows that we consider them to be such.
Rules protecting absentees or a basic right of an individual member
cannot be suspended, even by unanimous consent or an actual unanimous
vote. "For example, the rules requiring the presence of a quorum and
previous notice of a proposed amendment to the bylaws protect absentees,
and suspension of these rules would violate their rights." (emphasis
mine). That example seems awfully close to what we are doing here. The
whole procedure for PARs was put into place because of past painful
experiences where a PAR got sudden opposition at the closing EC meeting.
To prevent that, we came up with a procedure that assured that everyone
would have a chance to preview PARs and get any concerns aired and
discussed during the plenary week. That way PAR approval could go pretty
smoothly at our closing EC meeting and we would avoid the case where a
PAR was delayed by a plenary cycle. It imposes deadlines both on the WG
proposing the PAR and on those who have concerns about the PAR going
forward. It wasn't put into place just to let the EC have time to
consider these PARs. It was there to give the Working Groups and their
members time to see the the PARs that other WGs were proposing. While
there is an aspect of protecting absentees in this notice requirement,
it isn't clear whether that applies. Even an absentee WG member could
submit a comment by the deadline on Tuesday of the plenary week - that
doesn't require presence. EC members are so rarely absent from plenary
EC meetings that I don't feel there is an issue with regard to
protecting them as absentees.
Conclusion on whether a motion to suspend is allowable for this rule:
This is a borderline case. In my opinion, it would be reasonable to
allow the motion as a suspension of a rule of order in our P&P but there
could be an objection that this is a rule protecting absentees. I'll
leave it to Paul to make the final ruling on whether to allow the
motion.
--------------------------------------------------
Assuming the motion can be made, the rules applying to a Suspension of
the Rules are:
Requires a second, not debatable, not amendable, cannot be
reconsidered, and
"Usually requires a two-thirds vote (see below, however). In any
case, no rule protecting a minority of a particular size can be
suspended in the face of a negative vote as large as the minority
protected by the rule."
I think the last one needs to be carefully considered before we have a
vote. Later text in RROR says that suspension of the rules of order of a
society requires a 2/3 vote. I am concerned about the "minority
protected by the rule" part of the statement above as the minority
protected by the rule is not necessarily part of the EC.
I would be most comfortable with a motion that attempted to protect a
broad minority. For example, a motion to "Suspend the rules to allow
consideration of these PARs at the July 2008 closing EC meeting except
that for each of these PARs, if a WG submits a comment by objecting to
the late notice of that PAR, the PAR will not be considered by the EC at
the July 2008 closing EC meeting."
I thought about whether it needed to be a comment objecting to the late
notice from just an individual or whether a WG comment supplied enough
protection. That seemed to tip the balance too far.
If the motion has this form, a 2/3 vote should be sufficient to approve
it.
Regards,
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: ***** IEEE 802 Executive Committee List *****
[mailto:STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of Paul Nikolich
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:18 AM
To: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: [802SEC] 802.11 PARs for Friday's agenda
All,
I suggest the EC consider the two 802.11 PARs following the normal PAR
procedure if and only if the EC explicitly grants the 802.11 WG chair a
reduction of the 30 day circulation requirement to 28 days for the two
802.11 PARs via an EC email ballot on a motion requesting the
requirement
reduction.
I'm not sure what the approval threshold for a rule waiver is per RR,
but I
would require a >3/4 approval threshold (with all voting EC members in
the
denominator).
I'll start an EC email ballot if someone is willing to make a motion and
find a second.
Regards,
--Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Kraemer" <bkraemer@MARVELL.COM>
To: <STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: [802SEC] PARs for Friday's agenda
> Tony,
>
> You've raised a number of points that I accept going forward and would
> certainly pledge to avoid any repeat offences.
>
> Much of what you refer to should be captured in what I might refer to
as
> a "Chair's guide document" that collects standard practices that
> augment rules and procedures not otherwise covered in either the P&P
or
> the OM.
>
> With your permission I'll take the material below and start a chapter
on
> this topic for further consideration prior to or during the July
> plenary.
>
> Bruce
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> [mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of Tony
Jeffree
> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 2:05 AM
> To: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: Re: [802SEC] PARs for Friday's agenda
>
> I would agree that 802.11 should not be penalized in this instance;
> however, if we are granting an exception here it should be a one-time
> exception, period, and not a license for all of the newbie EC members
> to assume that they will be granted a one-time "get out of jail free"
> card.
>
> However, I would make a few observations about the process of
> submitting files for EC consideration:
>
> Firstly, in my understanding, it is the Chair's responsibility (and
> not the Recording Secretary's) to do any circulation that is required
> in the P&P. This is the only occasion that I can remember when a
> Chair has passed the problem over to the RS to execute; in reality,
> once he had the PDFs all James did was to circulate them as
> attachments to an email, which the .11 Chair could have done himself
> (but please see below!), so apart from increasing the RS's workload
> and causing the submission deadline to be missed, its not clear to me
> what value was added there.
>
> Secondly, there is no requirement anywhere in our P&P (nor should
> there be IMHO) stipulating PDF as the format for submissions. The P&P
> simply state that the PAR and 5C "...shall be circulated via the EC
> reflector...", so it isn't at all clear to me on what basis James
> made that stipulation.
>
> Thirdly, and as far as I am concerned, this goes for all materials
> that EC members need to circulate to each other, sending stuff as
> attachments to emails is a royal PIA for the recipients, especially
> for things like PARs and 5C's, or other materials where EC members
> need to make their own constituents aware of the material. 802.1's
> email reflector, for example, has a size limit on attachments as part
> of our (very successful) SPAM filtering measures. I also don't like
> gratuitously inflicting attachments of any size on members of the .1
> reflector; I know high speed access is commonplace these days, but
> some recipients (myself included) sometimes have to use low bandwidth
> network connections to access their email. So if I receive a file
> that has to be circulated to my WG, I end up posting it on my WG
> website, which is simply making more work for me. This also means
> that the unsolicited addition to my workload gets prioritized, and
> can fall off the bottom of the stack as a result. Far better, and a
> considerable courtesy to those that have to circulate the material
> elsewhere, is for the sender to post the material on their WG or the
> EC website and email the URL(s) to the EC. In fact, I would go as far
> as suggesting that we codify that as a requirement in our new
> operations manual. (Aside: There is a potential bottleneck with
> uploading to the EC reflector, as not all of us have upload access;
> however, it is worth noting that Luigi Napoli has recently
> implemented an uploads webpage for 802.1 that allows anyone to submit
> a file to an uploads subdirectory, and for the appropriate 802.1
> officer to be notified - see http://ieee802.org/cgi-bin/upload_8021.
> No reason why that shouldn't be done for the EC website, and have the
> EC reflector as the recipient of the notifications.)
>
> So I would respectfully request the .11 Chair to post the PAR and 5C
> files on the .11 website (in reality, my guess is that they were
> there already, and if not, they should be!) and then email the
> reflector with the URLs.
>
> Regards,
> Tony
>
> At 23:40 16/06/2008, Michael Lynch wrote:
>>James,
>>
>>I agree that .11 should not be penalized if the documents were
>>submitted to you on time.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Mike
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: "James Gilb" <gilb@IEEE.ORG>
>>To: "STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG" <STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
>>Sent: 6/16/08 17:29
>>Subject: Re: [802SEC] PARs for Friday's agenda
>>
>>Pat
>>
>>Bruce sent me these on time, but I had a mix up in email and didn't
get
>>them posted until today.
>>
>>I don't think 802.11 should be punished for my mistake.
>>
>>Bruce will follow up and post the 5 criteria.
>>
>>James Gilb
>>
>>Pat Thaler wrote:
>> > James,
>> >
>> > There is a problem. Our P&P have a specific procedure for approving
> new
>> > PARs (Clause 17). 17.2 contains the requirement:
>> >
>> > "Complete PARs shall be circulated via the EC email reflector to
all
>> > Executive Committee members no less than 30 days prior to the day
of
> the
>> > Opening Executive Committee meeting of an LMSC Plenary session."
>> >
>> > You sent this today, June 16. Our Opening EC meeting is July 14.
> That is
>> > 28 days prior, not the required 30 days. There is an exemption to
> this
>> > rule for Maintenance PARs, division of existing work items and
> similar
>> > routine items but that wouldn't apply to either of these.
>> >
>> > Also, you didn't supply the 5 criteria for either of these. That
> needs
>> > to be precirculated along with the PAR for any PAR that introduces
> new
>> > functionality - which both these PARs do.
>> >
>> > I'm sorry, but I don't see how we can consider these PARs in July
> under
>> > our rules.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Pat
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: ***** IEEE 802 Executive Committee List *****
>> > [mailto:STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of James Gilb
>> > Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 1:49 PM
>> > To: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
>> > Subject: [802SEC] PARs for Friday's agenda
>> >
>> > All
>> >
>> > Here are two PARs for consideration at our closing plenary. They
> are
>> > from 802.11.
>> >
>> > James Gilb
>> >
>> > ----------
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reflector.
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>> >
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>> >
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