Re: Thanksgiving, for example

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

[robin@isogen.com:]

| > | I'm also convinced that each committee has to set its own criteria for
| > | what constitutes participation.  The commitment I've asked voting
| > | members to make in the case of the PAC applies only to the PAC.
| 
| This statement from Jon alleviated (considerably) my concern about the
| complexity of OASIS committee operations -- since in the back of my
| mind I have (mis)recollection about the PAC being used as a model...

As I've just commented in another message, this isn't what I meant to
say.  My fault, sorry.

| > That won't scale (wastes enormous amounts of time and requires the
| > attendance of a parliamentarian to get reasonable rules set up), so 
| > we'll have to consider that point later on.
| 
| | I think it could scale, and it should work better than
| | prescribing a fixed (often overly-complex) parliamentary
| | procedure governing (recursive) committees.  If a
| | subcommittee has no real power except as informal input into
| | its parent (sub)committee process, then nothing is risked,
| | seems to me, in allowing each subcommittee to set up rules
| | that match the problem space and operational constraints, as
| | agreed upon by the subcommittee members, per some default
| | (** very loose**) set of procedures, which the subcomittee
| | is free to override.

I believed this about three years ago, but not any more.  W3C cured me
of this point of view.  What it leads to is an endless reinvention of
the wheel as cases come up that can't be resolved under the loose
process and that therefore have to be solved by inventing process as
each incident occurs, which is exactly the wrong time to be doing it.
The fact that the limitations of this approach can occasionally be
overcome through masterful chairmanship or outstanding teamwork is not
an argument in favor of it.

Now I believe that the best solution is not a loose process but rather
a very tight process, most of which can be left on the shelf when it's
not needed.  Having every committee use a different process *really*
doesn't scale if you are trying to participate in more than one of
them.

Somewhere along the line, I have also lost the confident assumption
that a loose process will get complicated committee work done faster.
I don't believe that the conversation we're engaged in would be going
materially more slowly if we were operating with motions and
amendments in person; on the contrary, I think that it might actually
go faster.  It's the medium that's resisting us.

Loose process works only if there is a centralized authority to appeal
to in sorting out the hard parts.  Kings and strong committee chairs
can work that way.  But as soon as you try for democracy and
decentralization you need to be able to appeal to rules instead.
Paliamentary process is the difference between a king and a
parliament.  The trick is to preserve the principles while operating
efficiently.

Jon