Aiding the constitutional procedure [was Re: Automation of the constitutional procedure]
When you have been through hundreds of meetings, one of the things
you learn is that communication is extremely important. It is
critical to know what people's intentions are. Critical to know what
the current state of affairs are. It is the normally the job of
the chair of a meeting to make decisions regarding protocol and
the secretary to take notes and count votes. In an electronic
setting, modifications need to be made to account for the distributed
(both in time and space) nature of things.
Ian's proposed constitution does a good job of setting down rules
that deal well with the fact that we are spacially distributed.
It is the job of the secretary to maintain order when things go
wrong and to see that elections are fair.
But there are also temporal problems with our being distributed all
over the world. Developers may only read mail once a day or less.
Going through hundreds of pieces of mail on the list archives is a
waste when you simply want to find the latest version of something.
What happens if the secretary is unavailable for 12 hours? For 3 days?
A week? It is important that the system be set up so that things will
continue to function, as well as possible, under these circumstances. Also,
to keep the job of secretary doable, it shouldn't involve hours every
day when things are hectic. There should be a method so everyday
events are handled without requiring human intervention.
Ian has questioned the wisdom of allowing certain aspects of the
proposal process to handled by scripts. The system proposed is
similar in some ways to the bug tracking system, but more flexible.
Proposals, formal amendments and seconds would all have to be
submitted to this system, which would then make an announcement
on the mailing list. The collection and counting of votes could
also be automated. The secretary has access to all the (ascii) files
and can override anything done by developers (except for change their
vote - they will be signed using PGP). To keep the system informal
everything else is done using the mailing lists.
No one has to guess what the current version of a proposal or amendment
is. The web page generated will have it. Anything else on the
mailing list is simply being discussed. No one has to guess whether
amendments are simply suggestions or when they have become formal.
If there is no web page for an amendment, it is still beind
discussed (hopefully in a friendly manner).
All this is done without the intervention of the secretary. It
is always clear what the status of proposals and amendments are.
Whether there are enough seconders; what is needed for a quorum;
what the supermajority is. When a disagreement arises, it is clear
to the secretary very shortly where the problem lies and can easily
fix it.
This seemed a natural and orderly extension of implementing the
constitution. If Ian feels that this is unacceptable for some
reason, I will make a formal amendment to the constitution
stating that it be allowed.
Jay Treacy
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