Subject: ADs who are also WG chairs

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 08:17:20 -0700

>even though this is the problem not the solution list, can you suggest ways
>to do this in the IETF with its undefined membership and combination
>of face to face and mailing list work?

As I said before, look at the way it is working today in OASIS. You cannot
claim that something is impossible in the face of an existence proof.

Step one - election of IAB and IESG.

All members of the IAB and IESG to be directly elected by the membership of
the IETF as currently defined for the purposes of NOMCON membership. i.e.
all persons who have attended two out of the past three IETFs get a vote.

The voting process itself to be managed via a Web interface, software for
the purpose has been developed by Ron Rivest's students at MIT.

Step two - WG decisions.

In OASIS the membership of a WG requires attendance at meetings, both face
to face and in con-calls. Anyone present at the first meeting is
automatically a member. To maintain membership you have to attend a certain
proportion of the meetings and con calls. Anyone can apply to join at any
time, however they do not get voting privs until they have attended a
certain number of meetings.

Yes, I am aware that this limits decision making to people who actually care
enough to attend the con-calls. That is a good thing. It has not in my
experience excluded any participant who wanted to contribute. There are
plenty of academics participating in the OASIS process.

Step three - Roberts rules of order.

		Phill

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 17:44:48 +0200

> Step three - Roberts rules of order.

serious question:

do you have an example of a version of Robert's rules of order that has 
successfully been applied to mailing lists?

RR has a number of concepts that are hard to apply to a mailing list - 
recognition of speakers by the chair, expulsion from the room of disorderly 
members, voting in real time on points of procedure, for instance. I'd be 
interested in hearing of examples of successful adaptations.

I've been involved in one or two other attempts to call on Robert's rules 
when mailing lists were part of the context, and they usually petered into 
nothing when people started following the pointers and actually *reading* 
the Robert's Rules books - there are just so many concepts that need 
adaption. It may be possible, may even be very useful - but it certainly 
isn't obvious.

RR has sometimes been described as "how to make decisions in an orderly 
fashion with participants who don't trust each other one bit". We might 
need that model at times.

                  Harald

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 11:43:49 -0400

] Yes, I am aware that this limits decision making to people who actually care
] enough to attend the con-calls. That is a good thing.

yeah, it makes it really easy for the WG leadership to exclude anyone who doesn't
get paid to do standards work.  WGs are too narrow already.

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 17:53:49 +0200

What's to stop Big Bad Company stuffing an Oasis WG with ringers?

What's to stop a commercial grouping pushing something through
an Oasis WG that is good for them and harmful to the Internet?

How can Roberts' Rules be applied on a mailing list?

(I'm not trying to make debating points - I really am concerned
that these are serious weaknesses in the model you describe. And I
spent two years chairing a Board that supposedly followed Roberts'
Rules and used email extensively, and I can't answer the third
question.)

   Brian

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From: James Seng <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2003 00:00:38 +0800

While this is off-topic, one should note that

1. OASIS is a paid-membership group. Some would considered that the fact 
it is paid-membership makes is exclusive (altho not exactly closed).

2. IETF dont have "members", or at least similar to OASIS. Participating 
in IETF are usually free (excluding cost of attending IETF meetings) so 
any formal voting process, web-based or otherwise, arent likely going to 
work. (If in doubt, look at GA@ICANN).

3. OASIS is a coporate-centric organization whereas IETF is an 
individual-centeric organization. (This is not to say individual cant 
participate in OASIS or coporate cant participate in IETF...)

Are we prepared to make this big switch making IETF an industry consortium?

-James Seng

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From: James Seng <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2003 00:08:18 +0800

Remember the discussion of functional vs. ceremorial meeting? The 
Robert's rule of order is the latter.

If we taking this path, we might as well merge with JTC1.

-James Seng

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> recognition of speakers by the chair, expulsion from the room of 
> disorderly members, voting in real time on points of procedure, for 
> instance. I'd be interested in hearing of examples of successful 
> adaptations.
> 
> I've been involved in one or two other attempts to call on Robert's 
> rules when mailing lists were part of the context, and they usually 
> petered into nothing when people started following the pointers and 
> actually *reading* the Robert's Rules books - there are just so many 
> concepts that need adaption. It may be possible, may even be very useful 
> - but it certainly isn't obvious.
>