Re: [TC Admin] Ambiguity in TC Process about recording Individual's Atte

Subject: Re: [TC Admin] Ambiguity in TC Process about recording Individual's Attendance

Hal, thanks very much. This is very helpful and well timed because we are working through significant and substantive changes to the TC Process and thus a good time to add clarifications and improvements.

I agree with your specific point about the minutes. In fact, I've been drafting up a 'minutes best practices' email to send to the chairs list to help with their execution. The practice is far from consistent and I have lately had to help TCs out a couple of times with voting rights snafus. I also agree with you that there is a gap between what our rules say and what Kavi can do - the voting rights calculation being exhibit number one.

Part of the difficulty of course arises from my general inclination to be hands-off as much as possible and let the TCs do their work unimpeded. But minutes are a problem. The practice is just too inconsistent. Finding the minutes filed by TCs is quite important for me and sometimes makes more work for the TCs when I have to go back to them to fix things.

(By the way, I don't look at Kavi as the authoritative source of attendance because it is so inconsistently done. I have generally relied on the minutes. Perhaps I should tell TCs that I'm counting on their Kavi attendance from now on!)

I will go through the specific points you took the time to track down (thank you very much) and let you know what changes I propose to the Board. I'll also give it another read from the general tools perspective and fill you in on that as well. Again, this kind of detailed comment and suggestion is very very helpful.

More to follow.

/chet

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 1:12 PM, Hal Lockhart <hal.lockhart@oracle.com> wrote:

I was looking at some KMIP Meeting Minutes recently and I noticed that rather than including the entire attendance list, the minutes simply state that attendance was taken and whether or not Quorum was achieved. Individual attendance is recorded in Kavi.

I was under the impression that the TC Process required that TC Minutes include the complete attendance list. Reviewing it carefully, I see that is not explicitly stated.

The second paragraph of Section 2.10 reads:

Without a Quorum present discussions may take place but no business may be conducted; those present may act as a "Committee of the Whole" as defined in Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, and make a report to the entire TC. Attendance must be recorded in the meeting minutes. Meetings without Quorum shall still count towards attendance for purposes of Members gaining, maintaining, or losing voting rights.

It is not clear whether the sentence “Attendance must be recorded in the meeting minutes.” applies to all meetings or just ones where Quorum is not reached. Further, it is not clear whether individual attendance must be recorded.

Section 2.44 sections b) & c) imply that individual attendance must be recorded saying that voting rights depend on attendance “(as recorded in the minutes)”. But I cannot find any place it says they have to be there.

Section 2.8 says “The minutes of each TC meeting and a record of all decisions shall be posted to that TC's general email list.”
(This is odd. The only ways I know of that a TC can create “a record of all decisions” are Minutes and Electronic Ballots. Perhaps the sentence was intended to say “The minutes of each TC meeting which must contain a record of all decisions, shall be posted to that TC's general email list.”)

Section 2.10 says “Meeting minutes must be recorded and posted to the TC's general email list and referenced on the TC web page.”

I have no idea what the phrase “referenced on the TC web page” means. In principle it could mean 1) a general statement minutes are available, 2) generic directions on how to find the minutes of any meeting or 3) a link to every set of minutes posted. I don’t see any of this in the standard web template on either the public of member’s page. (another ambiguity: which web page?)

From a Chair’s point of view, to get the advantage of attendance reports, the recording mechanism in Kavi must be used. I think most Chairs view Kavi as THE authoritative source of attendance data. Certainly TC Admin does. In any event, the attendance, so recorded will appear at the bottom of the meeting page of any meeting that has occurred.

While the TC Process says minutes must be posted to email, Kavi provides slots for both Agenda and Minutes on the meeting page. Some TCs use the Minutes slot, others do not. I have also seen TCs set up a document folder for Minutes. As it happens, I think the slot in the meeting page is somewhat difficult to access, as compared to looking in my email archive.

All of this is a reflection of the fact that in general the TC Process does not track the actual OASIS software tools very closely. There has never been a general effort to make them consistent as the tools have added capabilities. Paradoxically this means that people who are new to OASIS are more likely to use the new features than old timers (like me). Also, changing procedures like where Minutes are posted can be disruptive in a long running TC.

Recommendations:

1. Build a Kavi add-on which lets a Chair or Secretary produce (at the touch of a button) an Attendance Report formatted in the OASIS approved way (whatever that is) which can be cut and pasted into the Minutes. I believe this can be done by OASIS staff, without the help of Kavi, just as the public/private doc link feature was added.

2. Review and fix ambiguities in the TC Process such as the second paragraph of Section 2.10.

3. Do a general review of the TC Process from the perspective of the available Kavi tools and what should be optional and what should be required to be used.

Hal

/chet
----------------
Chet Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org

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