Re: [ga] Time line for a vote; procedures.

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

Under the Best Practices (BP) procedure, once it is agreed upon that an Issue
is ripe
for treatment, as evidenced, e.g., by the results of a Poll, then the "floor"
is open
for Proposals. Since the Poll seems to be heading towards keeping going,
when
that result is announced James Love can re-enter his "Motion" as a Proposal,
or
in tracking this whole bit Joanna could simply recognize the one James already
posted as constituting a Proposal. Through Debate, that Proposal could end
up being amended, or alternative Proposals could be advanced. If more than
one Proposal were finalized (and hence Accepted), and it was clear that neither
one negated the other, both could be Recognized as Motions to be Debated.
(Conflicting Proposals would have to be run through a Poll.) Otherwise, both
would proceed on separate Ballots.  A person favoring A over B would vote
on both, with a "Yes" for A and a "No" for B -- there would be no vote splitting.
The procedure you suggest, Jonathan, is exactly what Best Practices provides
-- see esp. http://www.cerebalaw.com/BPIVial.htm.

With regard to there being "no winner" as you suggest below, that result
is fully
anticipated by BP.  It is a mechanism either for reaching and indeed demonstrating
consensus, or showing that none exists.

(Your suggestion I would say is well taken, but one of the reasons for establishing
a fixed procedure such as BP is to preclude changes in the process in the
course
of any procedure -- in ga@dnso I've seen arbitrary changes made in mid-stream,
and no one knew what the rules were.  That "the ga has no procedure"
has been
expressed innumerable times. Your suggestion happens to square precisely
with
BP, so no change is involved with the process initiated by Joanna, but heaven
only
knows what other suggestions might show up.  (And ALL, of course, would be
welcome, but maybe to be implemented in the NEXT trial run of  BP. This run
is intended not only to see whether consensus can be reached on the exact
wording
of a Motion ultimately to be submitted to the GA Chair for entry into the
mechanisms
of ICANN/DNSO, but also to see how well BP as presently written can handle
an
issue such as the one at hand.

The discussion I've seen so far has been delightfully chaotic, which is expressive
of a democracy, but today I received a Ballot in the mail for an election
here in
Oregon -- a more rowdy outfit is hard to find! -- and even here the rules
are
fixed.)

Bill (I think that's five) Lovell

Jonathan Weinberg wrote:
> Pine.BSI.4.21.0205041821390.18493-100000@conch.msen.com">
> On Sat, 4 May 2002, Thomas Roessler wrote:
> > I would suggest that the ballot should be opened for several possible 
> > resolutions on the topic of reform and a possible re-bid of ICANN 
> > functions, plus the option not to accept any of the resolutions.  For 
> > the evaluation of the vote, there are two possibilities (which only 
> > differ if there is more than one resolution on the table):  (1) one vote 
> > per member; a resolution which has more than 50% of the votes is 
> > accepted [note that there can be at most one such resolution], (2) 
> > preferential voting like what we are using for person elections, with 
> > the top resolution being deemed to be accepted.  (Please comment.)
> >     
>
> 	Neither of these, I'd suggest.  The problem with (1) is that if
> two or more of the resolutions on the ballot are essentially similar, they
> may split the vote so that neither gets a majority, even though a
> substantial majority of the body in fact favors at least one of them.  
> The problem with (2) is that the IRV system we use for candidate elections
> is designed with the goal of producing a winner in every election.  
> That's not good for this sort of issue poll, since it may be we are so
> fragmented that there is *no* position that a majority supports -- in that
> case, there should be no winner.  My suggestion:  Allow members to vote
> yes/no on *each* resolution, and then see if any of the resolutions
> capture a substantial majority of those voting.
>
> Jon
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
> Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html
>
>
>