[council] Rules - D-Day is (finally) coming

[R.Gaetano@iaea.org]

Good evening/morning

You all have followed the sad stories of the GA-list.
Harald and myself, as Chair/AltChair, will send in the next hours a message
stating that the monitoring of the list will start.

The message, whose text I am preparing, will have the following outline:

- the traffic on the list will be monitored according to the adopted rules
(see http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc03/msg00743.html and
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc03/msg00447.html), but another list
will be set up to provide full record of the traffic on the list. Both lists
will be archived at the DNSO.org, and will be publicly available in the
archives (http://www.dnso.org/archives.html).

- the following people <names> will be in charge of the monitoring the list.
Requests for appeal of a decision of the List Monitors has to be addressed
to the Chair (mailto:roberto.gaetano@voila.fr)

- a discussion group will be started to collect alternative proposals for
the management of the GA-list. A dedicated mailing list will be set up by
DNSO.Listadmin. A vote will be organized before the end of April 2000 to
determine the will of the GA about the rules that will govern the GA list.


Let me explain the rationale behind some choices.

A discussion was ongoing on whether the "real" list should be the filtered
or the unfiltered. We should make the point that we are doing some
housekeeping: a different attitude will be interpreted as a sign of
weakness, without changing substantially the attitude of the people that are
opposing the project.

A discussion was ongoing on whether both lists should be archived.
We should provide online full record of the filtered messages, to guarantee
transparency of the decisions of the List Monitors + Chairpeople.
Issues related to legal responsibility in France regarding posting offensive
messages should be investigated.

A discussion has been going on about alternate solutions.
We should allow the discussion to go on on this subject, but possibly
affecting as little as possible the other mainstream business. The
establishment of a specific Discussion Group seems in order - the name
Working Group has been explicitely avoided in order not to create conflicts
with the NC, who is the only authority that can start a WG.
A vote on the issue seems in order, but in the meantime the list has to work
and not be paralized by discussions on the process.
If matters get worse, and the traffic on the GA-list will still be mainly
focused on process and claimed "censorship", the only way out will be to
start different Task-oriented lists, where off-topic posting will be
prohibited, to discuss the substantial issues.

Comments welcome, please in copy to the dedicated e-mail address shown
above.

Regards
Roberto