Re: 010. Voting membership in a committee

[Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net>]

Jon wrote:
| Committees as defined in ordinary parliamentary practice (such as what
| we've inherited through the OASIS Bylaws) rely on quorum requirements
| to ensure that a meaningful number of members participate in
| decision-making.  In groups that perform most of their business by
| correspondence, the same purpose can be accomplished by a requirement
| that no action can be taken without the vote of a majority of the whole
| membership.
| 
| A hidden but highly significant assumption of this principle is that
| the members of the committee have all been selected by someone for
| their qualities, among which is a commitment to participate actively.
| Whether accomplished by ballot, by appointment of the chair, or by
| appointment of the board, this top-down model of member selection can
| screen out people who don't look like energetic participants and can
| remove deadwood after a committee has been formed.
| 
| In a model that allows people to join committees on their own
| initiative, however, experience has shown that feckless "participants"
| who don't bother to vote can cause a chronic inability to achieve a
| quorum and thus render the committee unable to function.

If you require a quorum.  The IETF doesn't, because all work that
counts takes place on the list (so there is always a quorum in the
sense that everyone can listen if they want), and decisions are not
made by vote.  Works great until Last Call, when the more energetic
feckless emerge, to be dealt with patiently for a few weeks, creating
a great show of responsiveness, accountability, and good humor.

[ face-to-face discussion omitted ]

| To me, the need for membership criteria in an organization that is (a)
| staffed from the bottom up and (b) actually intends to get something
| done is beyond question.  The questions that I have are these:
| 
|    1. Should we base our criteria on individuals or
|       organizations?  (Given our attempt to involve individuals,
|       I am strongly in favor of the former.)

We must accomodate both, as our membership includes both.  That
is real hard; I don't have a proposal.

|    2. What mechanism do we use to set the basic criteria?  We
|       can use attendance in person, attendance in telephone
|       conferences, percentage of votes cast, or some combination
|       of these.

If we do most work by email, a negative criterion would be that
if your email bounces, you're no longer an active member...  I
actively want not to have to do this at all.


regards, Terry