Re: [ga] DNSO/GA Blocking and other concerns

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

My personal comment on the matter of motions:

A vote by the GA takes a week of wall clock time, and several hours of 
secretariat time as presently configured. If there is debate about the 
validity of votes, the time spent could easily go quite high.
It is not a mechanism we should trivially set in motion, or we will very 
quickly see "voting weariness" setting in.

In the rules we agreed upon, we gave the chair the sole responsibility to 
formulate and send out votes; we did not see a better solution at the time.

There might be other possible solutions - for instance, one could say that 
a petition for a motion, fully formulated and signed by at least 10 
members, MUST be put before the assembly by the chair. Or this threshold 
might be too low.

Many of the motions I have seen on the list are what I would call 
"half-baked" - they are not precise in what they want to achieve, they are 
not precise in how they are formulated, and they are emphatically not the 
most useful comment the GA could make into a situation.

If the GA is to spend the resources to go through a vote, I think we need 
at least to take the time to formulate it properly.
Roberto and I probably used the voting mechanism too rarely.

It is still a danger that one could be using it too much.

                Harald

At 11:58 20.04.2001 +0000, Roberto GA wrote:
>Jefsey,
>
>>
>>What is expected is simple and common:
>>- a motion is proposed
>>- the motion is seconded
>>- the motion is acknowledged
>>- the motion may be opposed
>>- if it not opposed it is deemed accepted
>>- if it is opposed it is made to a vote
>>- if the vote is in favor of the motion, the motion is accepted
>>- once accepted the motion is acted upon and the way it is carried out is
>>subject to ML consensus or debate.
>
>
>I have a comment on this, from my past experience as Chair.
>Sometimes this Assembly is jumping to motions before having made any 
>effort to debate the issue.
>IMHO, the debate of the issue has to be done *before* the presentation of 
>motions, and not following it.
>In fact, when a motion is presented, seconded and acknowledged, there is 
>no further debate, if not on the wording of the motion.
>So I was feeling the need of a step in the procedure that allows the Chair 
>"not to acknowledge the motion" because of lack of previous discussion, 
>and in this case to send an implicit invitation to debate (and maybe give 
>a deadline, at which the floor will be open for motions).
>
>Regards
>Roberto
>
>
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