Re: [ga] THIS FRIDAY end the nomination's time...

["Mark C. Langston" <skritch@home.com>]

On 2 December 1999, R.Gaetano@iaea.org wrote:

>Mark C. Langston wrote:
>
>> 
>> And you cannot just go on about your business, assuming that all of us
>> are aware of things you aren't telling us.
>
>Hey, it's not "my business" more than it is "your business".
>I made an assumption, as you did, on how the system would work.
>I just assumed, from experience of several mailing lists, that if an
>automatic thing was set up, it would have been flooded by junk mail (maybe
>even from faked senders).

Then someone should instruct the appropriate parties in the installation
and configuration of sendmail, procmail, and the use of various spamblocks.
I've seen just as many lists that somehow manage to auto-archive and
avoid this problem.  And they use MHonArc as well.



>My point is just that if somebody wants to be understood, he/she should
>better use language that the average person in the audience can understand.

Then I should lower my assumption of the average intelligence of this
audience?  I've been accused of a lot of things; giving others too much
credit isn't often one of them.

>I have hundreds of E-Mails to read, in different languages. The writers of
>these E-Mail will make a "wrong assumption" in thinking I will consult the
>dictionary every time I hit a new word. They just lose their chance to be
>understood.

...conversely, your unwillingness to learn to communicate more
effectively in a given language prevents you from being included in
the conversation.  If this entire conversation was in French, I'd have
the choice of either learning to understand it, or not participating.
I would never even consider demanding that those speaking use small
words and simple constructs so I could better understand them.  The
burden of comprehension is, to a great extent, on the comprehender.
If you'd like more detailed information, I've published several papers
on comprehension.

>
>I did, long time ago, and decided that common sense always pays off versus
>checking in the procedure book what exactly has to be done, and not do one
>inch more.

Yes, but if it is "common sense", and every one in posession of said
"common sense" is going to do so anyway, why not require it?  Can't hurt.
Could only help.   If something's so commonsensical as to be absurd if
not done, then not requiring it is just as absurd.

If it makes sense to do it, it should be part of the documented procedure.


>
>Examples:
>When I learned that I have been nominated, the procedure told me that I only
>had to notify the WatchDog Committee whether I was resigning from the
>Committee itself, or declining nomination right away.


Indeed.  


>Common sense told me it was in order to announce this event to the GA.
>When I will notify ga-nominations@dnso.org of my acceptance or refusal of
>the nomination, according to the procedure, you bet that I will notify the
>GA list.
>Not because the process is broken, but because I think it improves
>communication (and is also polite) at little cost.

If it makes so much sense to do it, and so little sense not to do it, then
it should be part of the procedure.  A procedure that does not require
such commonsensical actions is broken, in my opinion.


>I am also assuming that the average reader of the GA list will not check
>every ten minutes the http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/1999.DNSO-GAchair.html
>page to see if there are new nominations/acceptances, so if I really want
>the message to go through, I'll send it myself rather than wait for the
>procedure to run.

What procedure?  One of the points I've been making is that the procedure
to which you just referred wasn't documented anywhere.  Except for the
requirement that nominations, acceptances, and so forth be submitted to
a particular address, the entire process to which your phrase "wait for the
procedure to run" refers was and is completely undocumented.  You 
assumed it'd be slow and manual;  I assumed it'd be fast and automatic.  You
took the actions appropriate to your assumption, as did I.

The whole point is that neither of us should have had to make that
assumption.  This should have been documented.  This should have been
part of the procedure.  We should have known exactly what would happen at
every step.

Why do you find this so difficult to accept?




>I'm learning that the fact that nominations can be posted on the Web site
>with few hours of delay is more important than the nominations themselves,

I don't see how the lack of conversation about the nominations themselves
in any way invalidates legitimate complaints about procedure.  If you
have a problem with the nominations themselves, feel free to start a
conversation about it.

Just because I'm not covering a topic doesn't mean I don't find a topic
important.  It could simply indicate that I don't have a problem with that
topic.  I don't have a problem with the nominations themselves. 

I may have had my concerns about the procedure used to select a nomination
procedure.  I may even have my concerns about the GA in its current form.
However, this is not the time for those conversations.  That time has 
passed.  We are now in the middle of the nomination process itself.
Two topics are germane at this point:  Conversations about the candidates,
and conversations about the implementation of the selected process.
I happen to see a problem with the implementation of the process as I
understand it.  I'm discussing it.  I'm offering a remedy.  You are
apparently trying to characterise this as vague whining about everything
being wrong.

I'm sorry that you see it that way.  I also hope that you either change
your mind on that point, or fail to become the chair of the GA.  Because
the GA needs someone who is going to listen to them.  If you want to
charactarize complaint as criticism as something to which you should not
listen, then you should not be Chair.

>not to speak about a discussion on the role of the GA, the role of the
>GA-Chair, the criteria of the choice (in the sense of the qualities that the
>Chair should have, not in the sense of the procedures to be applied). 

Well, since I've just brought up a quality a Chair should have, that should
satisfy this particular aspect of your complaint.

>
>But then, in the end, if this is the focus of the discussions in the GA,
>maybe we don't even need a Chair at all.
>

Then perhaps you should decline your nomination.  Procedure should be
discussed.  Procedure should always come before implementation --
something that this organization has ignored.  I've been trying to get
the NC to outline procedure for the GA since San Jose, as have others.
And the NC has continued to roll merrily along ignoring the need for a
solid foundation on which to build.  

I'm sorry you don't agree with this, or think procedural discussions
are important.  Your acceptance, should you accept, may prove interesting
reading.

-- 
Mark C. Langston
mark@bitshift.org
Systems Admin
San Jose, CA