Re: [ga] Reform in the GA?

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2001-02-08 14:27:44 -0500, Kevin J. Connolly wrote:

> My suggestion is that we form a working group to prepare a set of
> rules that make it clear how the GA can formally consider and
> ultimately adopt substantive resolutions. Once the Working Group
> has shredded itself, we will have a multiplicity of proposals,
> from which the GA may ultimately bootstrap and adopt a proposal
> as the governing set of rules. My own suggestion on the substance
> of the rules is that we make it fairly easy for a "majority" to
> amend the rules, because otherwise we will spend the rest of our
> lives trying to create the perfect procedural rules.

May I suggest, as a shortcut, that the GA tries to keep things
simple?  Also, while it may be a good idea not to strive for the
perfect rules in any working group, it's most likely a bad idea to
strive for them in plenary - which would be the effect of being able
to change the rules easily.  The result would be a set of procedural
rules which get more and more complex, and become unmanageable at
some point.

Returning to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principles, a very simple
way of working on substantial output - which has proved to function
nicely elsewhere - looks like this:

1. Find a description of the topic to be worked on, and a volunteer
   who will edit the document to be emitted.  Assume that the
   volunteer and the topic are ok when there is no strong
   opposition.

2. It's now the editor's job to produce structured output from the
   free-form discussions on the list.  He should as soon as possible
   produce a first draft which summarizes what has been said about a
   topic so far.
  
   (Here: What has been voted upon in MdR? What is the GA asking the
   board for?  Why?)

3. The editor publishes the current draft at some well-defined
   point.

4. The list public discusses this draft and possible changes.

5. If 4 produced any substantial output, return to 3.

6. "Vote" on the resulting document, either using some voting
   machine, or asking people to individually express consent/dissent
   with the document produced.


-- 
Thomas Roessler			    <roessler@does-not-exist.org>
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