Hi Jamie,
I’d like to thank you for helping
deal with this matter in an expeditious manner. It’s good to see
the organization listening to its members and working with them to make things operate
more efficiently. But I have a question.
Is this change effective immediately? If
not, what is the effective date of the new policy? It wasn’t quite clear from
your message. The last time changes were made to the process, there seemed
to be a pretty formal process where the TC process committee submitted proposed
text back to the board which edited and approved the new process on 23-Mar-05, and
set the effective date of the new policy at 15-Apr-05. But that was a pretty
major change to the process and I am not sure whether this change has already
been approved by the board or whether it has to go back to them for approval.
Oh, and BTW… The old TC process
(i.e. 2003 version) included ballot voting in the voting status rules of all TC’s.
As of the 15-Apr-05 process, ballot votes now only count against status in TC’s
that have a standing rule to “conduct business only by
electronic ballot” (note the “only”).
I have assumed this to mean that if the TC uses BOTH meeting votes and
electronic ballots, then if a Voting Member fails to cast an electronic ballot,
it will have no impact on their voting status. But, when setting up an
online ballot, there is a box checked by default for whether the ballot is an “Official
Ballot”. I’ve been meaning to ask whether leaving this
checked for our TC (which uses both meeting and online ballots), affects the
voting status of members? Or should we always be unchecking this box?
And 2 nits re: electronic ballots:
1) on the ballot page, there is a typo: “Is
this ballot is an official organization ballot?”;
there is an extra “is”.
2) the help page for setting up a ballot
does not describe the “Official Ballot” field.
Thanks,
From: James Bryce
Clark [mailto:jamie.clark@oasis-open.org]
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005
11:36 PM
To: chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [chairs] Simplified TC
attendance rules
After the 15 April 2005 TC Process revisions were
posted, we received significant feedback from TC chairs and others that the
revised rules for TC attendance in Section 2.4 -- which govern when voting
rights are acquired and lost -- were not easy to administer. We try to
make only infrequent changes to the TC Process, but our Board of Directors took
this feedback to heart and re-examined the rule. At their last
meeting, they directed the Board's TC Process Committee to simplify the rule.
The new text is set out at the bottom if this message. Note:
-- A TC member who fails to attend may lose their
*voting* rights as a result, but their *membership* does not expire due to
absences.
-- Most felt that the "2 out of 3" and
"3 out of 4" formulations we've discussed were easy to
misinterpret. So we built the revised rule around "2 consecutive
meetings": members will lose voting rights by missing 2 in a row,
and regain them after attending 2 in a row.
-- A simple rule should be easier to administer. This
is important because we rely on volunteer TC chairs and secretaries to mind
attendance. Our next task will be to make the database-driven TC rosters
and attendance tracking functions more user-friendly.
-- We did also consider, but declined, giving TC chairs
discretionary power to waive the attendance rules. There were a range of
opinions here. More focused on the risk of inconsistent or inappropriate
use of the waiver. A person with a planned absence still can employ the
leave of absence rules.
The Board delegated the power to change this rule to the TC
Process Committee, so that we could amend immediately instead of waiting
another month. We enacted this change on Tuesday, effective immediately
upon posting, and will post it to the [members] list and the official TC
Process page shortly after this announcement to you. Our thanks to the TC
leaders and participants who flagged this issue for us and suggested
solutions. The revised test of the rule follows.
REVISED TEXT:
2.4 TC Membership and Participation
TC membership is per person, not per organization, and is
not transferable from person to person.
Observer
An Eligible Person may become an Observer of a TC by
registering as an Observer using the electronic collaboration tools provided by
OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an employee or designee of an OASIS member
organization, the Primary Representative of that organization must be notified
that the person has requested to become an Observer. The Observer is not a
Member of the TC so has no attendance or participation requirements to maintain
this status, other than to remain an Eligible Person.
Member
Any time after the first meeting, an Eligible Person shall
become a Member of an existing TC by registering as a Member using the
electronic collaboration tools provided by OASIS. If the Eligible Person is an
employee or designee of an OASIS member organization, the Primary
Representative of that organization must confirm to the Chair and to the TC Administrator
that the person may become a Member of the TC. Upon receipt by the Chair of
confirmation by the Primary Representative the Member may begin participating,
but shall not have voting rights. A Member shall become eligible to vote in the
TC when the requirements below are met.
Voting Member
After the first Meeting of a TC, a Member shall gain voting
rights at the close of the second consecutive Meeting attended by the Member or
60 days after the person becomes a Member, whichever comes first.
A Voting Member must be active in a TC to maintain voting
rights. In TCs that hold Meetings, a Voting Member who is absent from two
consecutive Meetings (as recorded in the minutes) loses his or her voting
rights at the end of the second Meeting missed. If a TC has adopted a standing
rule to conduct business only by electronic ballot, without Meetings, then a
Voting Member who fails to cast a ballot in two consecutive Specification
Ballots loses his or her voting rights at the close of the second ballot
missed.
A Member who has lost his or her voting rights shall regain
them for a TC that holds Meetings by attending two consecutive Meetings (as
recorded in the minutes), thus regaining voting rights after the end of the
second Meeting attended. A Member of a TC that does not hold Meetings may
regain voting rights by making a request to the chair(s) to regain them,
effective 60 days after the request.
Voting Members who lose their voting rights remain Members
of the TC. A warning may be sent to the Member by the Chair, but the loss of
voting rights is not dependent on the warning.
END
Regards Jamie
~ James Bryce Clark
~ Director, Standards Development, OASIS
~ jamie.clark@oasis-open.org