Manoj Srivastava writes ("Re: Filibustering general resolutions"):
> I am not sure this is the model we should be following )I know
> we are currently not following it at all). Your reading of the
> wording means that, strictly speaking, there is only a two week (or
> one week, if the DPL wishes) window for people to come up with
> alternate proposals, and there could be proposals submitted with no
> discussion at all, if the vote is called after the minimum discussion
> period.
Indeed so. When I wrote it I was hoping people would be more ready to
go to a vote (rather than go endlessly round in mailing list
flamewars) than it seems they in fact are. If people disagree then
they can vote.
> The ambiguous point here is the word "accepted". Accepted by
> whom? The proposer of the original proposal? Or the project secretary
> as being a valid amendment to the proposal, whether or not accepted
> by the proposers of the initial proposal?
There can be no real doubt about this, even if you don't take my word
for what I meant :-).
Look at where and how the word `accepted' is used in the document.
Nowhere is there any talk of an amendment being accepted or not by the
Secretary; the phrasing for the closest relevant concept is `made
formal'.
This argument in more detail:
Firstly, in my reading, A.1(2) defines `accepted' to mean `by the
proposer'.
But if you consider that as a descriptive rather than definitive
qualifier, the question arises, by who else might an amendment be
accepted or not ? There's no textual support for anyone else to be
the decisive person, with respect to the specific word `accept'.
If that's not convincing, consider other uses. `Accept' appears only
in Appendix A. A.1(3) uses just `accepted' as part of `not accepted'
in obvious opposition to A.1(2); and it's clear that it doesn't mean
accepted by the Secretary because an amendment not `accepted' _will_
be voted on, which is the opposite of what would happen if we were
discussing the Secretary's role. A.1(4) says `accepted by the
original proposer' to talk again about A.1(2) and A.1(3)'s acceptance.
A.2(4) is the paragraph in question, so I'll leave it aside.
A.4 also talks about `[un]accepted amendments', meaning amendments
accepted by the proposer; any other interpretation of `accepted
amendment' in A.4 would make a nonsense of it. In particular, why
talk all the time of amendments accepted or unaccepted, but never talk
about the acceptedness (by the Secretary, we are to suppose) of
resolutions ?
Thanks,
Ian.
(PS: Sorry to reply only to this less-important thread and leave the
giant dunc-tank stuff to one side but I've had rather too much booze
and might do something rash.)