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[ga] The motions

  • To: "ga@DNSO.org" <ga@dnso.org>
  • Subject: [ga] The motions
  • From: "William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>
  • Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 10:19:46 -0700
  • Organization: Cerebalaw
  • Sender: owner-ga@dnso.org
  • User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020314 Netscape6/6.2.2

I have responded to the ballot on the two motions, voting on the first one
and abstaining on the second. I was forced to abstain on the second because
it is so ambiguous and poorly worded that it should never have been accepted.
While one can discern the intent of the motion, the problem lies in the following
language:

" . . . orgnizations which are accountable to the international Internet community
have clearly defined missions and are not only under the sole control of a national
department of commerce . . . "

Taken literally, that seems to say that the accountablility, having missions, and being
under the sole control of a national department of commerce are all desired goals.
One can read on, and from the rest of the context figure out what was meant to be
said, but that will not do. From where I've ended the quote above, one would
ordinarily expect a phrase like "but also . . . blah, blah."  It is only from the absence of
such a phrase that one can figure out that the preceding "not only" in the motion as
written does not really mean what is says -- the syntax is backwards.

What was evidently meant was something like "having missions, and the control of
which is not under the sole control . . . ," but the motion does not say that. The same
might have been accomplished simply deleting the "only" -- it is redundant anyway,
since the term "sole" expresses the same thing.

An issue as important as this should have been defined more carefully by the Chair
and Alternate Chair, and I suggest that when this voting is over, the same thing be
done again more correctly, and particularly by a motion that is not thrown in at the last
minute with little time for comment. If motions are proposed by persons for whom
English is not the native language, there will typically be syntax problems that the
Chair and Alternate Chair should correct.  The results on motion 2, whatever they
may turn out to be, are going to be rather meaningless.

Bill Lovell


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