Re: Robert's rules (Re: [ga] Blockage/delay of postings)

[Ellen Rony <erony@marin.k12.ca.us>]

Ken Stubbs wrote:

>someone is being a bit presumptive here to assume that they would have the
>right to impose what is essentially an "american parlimentary rules process"
>on the rest of the world.

As a former Parks and Open Space Commissioner, I have used Roberts Rules of
Order and seen how effective they are in a public forum.  However, IMHO,
those rules do not graft well onto electronic medium, and we may find
ourselves bogged down here in pseudo parliamentary minutia, where the cure
is as bad, if not worse, than the cold.

I join Ken and many others who are weary of the noise posted by a few
self-serving list members. They are overly generous with their
contributions yet pay no heed to the loud and repeated calls for restraint.
It is truly unfortunate that they believe their plethora of off-topic and
substantially uninformative messages merit the attention of the 300+ list
members.

In a public forum, time limits are imposed so that the general assembly
does not have to suffer fools and grandstanders at the expense of an
informed debate.  How do we get to that point here? We have no central
figure here who wields a gavel and tells bothersome interruptors to sit
down and keep quiet.   We cannot censor, since the line between drivel and
discussion is in the mind of the beholder.

But we can censure.

I believe spoofing an email address crosses a line, even when we have been
informed that the header has been spoofed.  You see, two of the
self-selecting mechanisms we have at our disposal are filtering and the
Delete button.  That puts the notion of censorship where it belongs, at the
individual recipient level.  But spoofing is a means of bypassing this
personal gavel.  When time is short and traffic is high, most of us
probably cherry pick through the messages and return to the others later.
Like others, I am displeased to open a message from someone whose comments
I read only to learn they were generated by another party.

Thus, I would give the boot to spoofers.  *Nothing* in this discussion
justifies that activity.  And I would give the boot to those who post
private messages on a public list without asking permission of the writer.

As to imposing an essentially American parliamentary rules process on the
rest of the world, I would rather a process that has been tested under fire
for decades than the chaotic happenings I witnessed at the June 25 Names
Council meeting.  Discussion and amendments should preceed voting...but
that's the stuff of another message.

Any public forum requires of each of us a certain level of manners and
decorum.  Unfortunately, the more people you get together to play in
sandbox, the more likely there will be someone who wants to throw sand.
Nobody has handed me a gavel, but I have probably used the Delete button
more in the past two months than the prior 12.   Brickbats to those who
have dragged the discussion through so much virtual dust. You surely know
who you are.  My $.05.

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Ellen Rony                         ____             The Domain Name Handbook
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