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Subject: Re: [chairs] Subtleties in the OASIS TC Member Attendance Rules


Seems like I said something that was open to misinterpretation. So,
just in case, I'd like to clarify that my comment, "What I would like
to see is for the Kavi process to follow the OASIS TC process and not
the other way around..." was not meant in any way to disparage the
participation of observers in the mailing lists. What I did mean,
though, was that I did not think it was appropriate to munge TC
participation with mailing list participation; that until very
recently there was no language separating the two, and those who
wanted to monitor the lists were invited to join the TCs, thus
potentially inflating the ranks of the quorum-busters ;). When a
chair goes to the Add a member section of the roster maintenance
page, the chair is still told that someone can be added as a member
of the TC because he/she has qualified according to the rules, which
is false, and that some ballots may allow only members with voting
privileges to vote, which is also false, because according to the
process there are no such ballots, IOW only voting members (which
is the only kind of *TC* members there are) can vote...

So it's not that I'm unhappy with the functionality of the mailing
lists; it the language and lack of differentiation between mailing
lists and TCs that make me less than happy.

Scott McGrath wrote:
> Allow me to toss out a members' perspective, one that has little to do
> with the strictly technical components of TC participation.
> 
> People derive benefits from 
> 'being a member" of OASIS TCs for a lot of different reasons.  Some such
> reasons are strictly warm and fuzzy stuff--it makes them feel like an
> important part of the process. Further, I would wager OASIS TC
> membership is in more than a few employee performance evaluations, goals
> etc as a measure of meeting some corporate objective.  
> 
> That said, we should be careful not to marginalize or sideline those
> that can only contribute minimally and cannot commit to travel, meeting
> attendance, concalls at 3am etc  I think Jon's point is valid, these
> members are an important part of the process and we should find ways to
> enable that. (remembering these are dues paying members like all others)
> 
> Notwithstanding the contradictory nature of the term non-voting member,
> I think it serves the above needs well and I think one intuitively knows
> what these mean.  I think grouping those with some valid input with
> other non-contributing Observers is less correct than grouping all
> contributing persons as members, where only those seeking and abiding by
> the restrictions have voting rights, quorum implications etc.
> 
> Scott...
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jon.bosak@sun.com [mailto:jon.bosak@sun.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 2:37 PM
> To: karl.best@oasis-open.org
> Cc: Eduardo.Gutentag@sun.com; Jon.Bosak@sun.com; hlockhar@bea.com;
> chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [chairs] Subtleties in the OASIS TC Member Attendance Rules
> 
> I certainly don't disagree with the premise that the kavi
> interface should align with the official OASIS TC process, but I
> am finding the category that allows observers to post on occasion
> to be extremely useful from an organizational standpoint.  The
> problem, as I see it, lies in calling this category "nonvoting
> member," which from a parliamentary standpoint is a contradiction
> in terms.  The interface should be distinguishing between
> "read/write" and "read-only" observers rather than between "voting"
> and "nonvoting" members.
> 
> | I'm working an fixes to Kavi to support this, but unfortunately
> | it's not going well...
> 
> Since we're starting to depend fairly heavily on the (badly named)
> "nonvoting member" category, I'm actually glad to hear that you're
> not making rapid progress on fixing this....
> 
> Jon
> 
>    Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 10:31:31 -0400
>    From: "Karl F. Best" <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
>    CC: Jon.Bosak@sun.com, hlockhar@bea.com, chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
> 
>    Agreed: We generally shouldn't be changing the process to match the 
>    tool. Tools are supposed to match the way we do things. I'm working
> an 
>    fixes to Kavi to support this, but unfortunately it's not going
> well...
> 
>    -Karl
> 
> 
> 
>    Eduardo Gutentag wrote:
>    >  > An alternative would be to officially legitimize the
>    >  > pseudo-category "member, nonvoting" conferred by the Kavi
>    >  > interface and say that (voting) members who don't attend two out
>    >  > of every three meetings are automatically shifted into this
>    >  > category so that they don't count towards a quorum.  The
> original
>    >  > design deliberately prohibited nonvoters from posting, but I now
>    >  > think that this may have been an unnecessary restriction.
>    > 
>    > No, let's not go there. There is, I believe, no way to
> differentiate
>    > between a prospective member and a 'member, nonvoting'.
>    > 
>    > What I would like to see is for the Kavi process to follow the
> OASIS TC
>    > process and not the other way around...
>    > 
>    >  >
>    >  > Having said that, I have to add that I'm not eager to continue
>    >  > this discussion in email.  Process design issues have to be
> hashed
>    >  > out face-to-face.
>    > 
>    > Or over the phone...
>    > 
>    > 
>    > 
>    > 
>    > Jon.Bosak@Sun.COM wrote:
>    > 
>    >> (I wrote this before seeing Eduardo's response, but I think that
>    >> my answer mostly agrees with his.)
>    >>
>    >> | Suppose a member misses 2 meetings in a row. They are sent a
>    >> | warning and they attend the next meeting. So far so good.
> However,
>    >> | unless they attend the NEXT meeting, they will lose membership,
> as
>    >> | they will have missed 3 out of 4 meetings. In other words, the
>    >> | pattern N-N-Y-N should be treated the same as N-Y-N-N.
>    >>
>    >> The requirement is that people have to attend two meetings in
>    >> every three-meeting window, and if they don't, they get a warning.
>    >> So the state transitions in your example go like this:
>    >>
>    >> 1. Y-N-N warning sent
>    >>
>    >> 2. N-N-Y OK (resets the counter)
>    >>
>    >> 3. N-Y-N warning sent ...
>    >>
>    >> The language "or if the member consistently fails to attend
>    >> two out of every three meetings" was intended to prevent people
>    >> from gaming the system by repeating this cycle ad infinitum. 
>    >> Before we get into an extended discussion of this interpretation,
>    >> I hasten to add that the language could use some work.  It was
>    >> copied from the rules for ANSI committee membership, as expressed
>    >> in NCITS V3 rules as follows:
>    >>
>    >>    Voting members of NCITS and its subgroups shall be terminated
>    >>    under the following conditions:
>    >>
>    >>    a) The principal and all alternate representative(s) shall be
>    >>       warned in writing upon failure of the organization to:
>    >>
>    >>       (1) attend two out of three successive meetings, in which
>    >>       case the membership shall be terminated if not
>    >>       represented at the next meeting; or
>    >>
>    >>       (2) return 80% of the total letter ballots (non-accelerated)
>    >>       closing during the present calendar quarter, in which
>    >>       case the membership shall be terminated if the member
>    >>       fails to return at least 80% of the total letter ballots
>    >>       (non-accelerated) closing during the subsequent quarter.
>    >>
>    >> Note that the NCITS/ANSI rules assume a delegate membership
>    >> structure rather than an individual expert membership structure.
>    >>
>    >> | (i). A member shall be warned by mail from the chair of the TC
>    >> | upon their first failure to attend two out of every three
>    >> | successive meetings of the TC. Membership shall be terminated if
>    >> | the member fails to attend the next meeting following
> transmittal
>    >> | of the warning or if the member consistently fails to attend two
>    >> | out of every three meetings.
>    >>
>    >> In light of some experience with the TC process, I think the best
>    >> fix (and the one that best represents the original intention of
>    >> the committee that drafted this language) would simply be to
>    >> change "shall be terminated" to "may be terminated."  In other
>    >> words, make this attendance pattern grounds for termination, but
>    >> leave the final disposition to the chair.  I know that this is
>    >> basically what we had in mind.
>    >>
>    >> An alternative would be to officially legitimize the
>    >> pseudo-category "member, nonvoting" conferred by the Kavi
>    >> interface and say that (voting) members who don't attend two out
>    >> of every three meetings are automatically shifted into this
>    >> category so that they don't count towards a quorum.  The original
>    >> design deliberately prohibited nonvoters from posting, but I now
>    >> think that this may have been an unnecessary restriction.
>    >>
>    >> Having said that, I have to add that I'm not eager to continue
>    >> this discussion in email.  Process design issues have to be hashed
>    >> out face-to-face.
>    >>
>    >> Jon
>    >>
>    >>
>    >>
>    >> You may leave a Technical Committee at any time by visiting 
>    >>
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/chairs/members/leave_workgr
> oup.php
>    >>
>    > 
> 
> 
>    -- 
>    =================================================================
>    Karl F. Best
>    Vice President, OASIS
>    office  +1 978.667.5115 x206     mobile +1 978.761.1648
>    karl.best@oasis-open.org      http://www.oasis-open.org
> 
> 
>    You may leave a Technical Committee at any time by visiting
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/chairs/members/leave_workgr
> oup.php
> 
> 
> 
> You may leave a Technical Committee at any time by visiting
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/chairs/members/leave_workgr
> oup.php
> 
> 

-- 
Eduardo Gutentag               |         e-mail: eduardo.gutentag@Sun.COM
Web Technologies and Standards |         Phone:  +1 510 550 4616 x31442
Sun Microsystems Inc.          |
W3C AC Rep / OASIS TAB Chair



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