|
Grex > Coop13 > #122: Proposal: Amendment to Bylaws Article 5 | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 71 responses total. |
janc
|
|
response 25 of 71:
| 
Feb 17 01:24 UTC 2004 |
I support John's proposal and prefer it to Eric's modification.
|
jared
|
|
response 26 of 71:
|
Feb 23 13:47 UTC 2004 |
the modifications sound useful. i think that there should be either
a timezone specified (midnight-midnight), or a statement that it
will be determined by the grex clock, but that could in theory be
tampered with, so specifying a timezone would be useful just for the
case of making people like jp2 happy ;-)
|
other
|
|
response 27 of 71:
|
Mar 1 05:49 UTC 2004 |
This is due for a vote.
|
remmers
|
|
response 28 of 71:
|
Mar 1 11:20 UTC 2004 |
Right. Before moving it to a vote, I'd like to see some discussion
of a couple of points. Specifics later, when I've got a bit more time.
|
salad
|
|
response 29 of 71:
|
Mar 1 21:56 UTC 2004 |
Right.
|
remmers
|
|
response 30 of 71:
|
Mar 5 21:18 UTC 2004 |
Guess I let this proposal slide a bit, but I haven't abandoned it.
Sorry for the delay.
The midnight-to-midnight requirement is now enforced by the voting
software, ending any previous sloppiness. So I think it can stay.
The original bylaw was written when Grex was strictly a local
dialup system with no internet connection. In these days of
global connectivity, it would probably be good to state the
timezone, to remove ambiguity about what "midnight" means.
After reading Eric's concerns about the endorsement mechanism, I
agree with him that it could use some sharpening up. However, I
think the goal can be accomplished by a simpler mechanism than
he proposes. How about wording section c as follows:
When at least two weeks have passed, the author may post
a final wording of the motion. Following posting of the
final wording, members shall have forty-eight hours to
add an endorsement or withdraw a previous endorsement.
At the end of this period, if the motion has the necessary
number of endorsements, it may be voted on. The vote is
begun as soon as feasible and is conducted online over a
period of ten days. If within thirty days from the date
of the motion the author does not request a vote or the
necessary number of endorsements have not been obtained,
the motion is considered to have lapsed and is not
eligible for voting.
In addition, since membership levels fluctuate, section b
should probably specify a point in time at which the 10% is
calculated. I'd suggest that it be the date on which the
proposal is first posted.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 31 of 71:
|
Mar 6 04:49 UTC 2004 |
Can a lapsed proposal be re-submitted? Immediately, or should there be a
waiting period.
Asking the treasurer to make a response giving the number of endoresements
required seems reasonable to me. The day of the proposal sems a reasonable
date to use for the determination.
|
remmers
|
|
response 32 of 71:
|
Mar 8 13:49 UTC 2004 |
Guess I'm not inclined to specify a waiting period. I can envision
scenarios where immediate resubmission might be reasonable. E.g.
it gets a lot of endorsements but the original proposer backs out.
Think I'll start a vote on this tonight unless some new point gets
raised that calls for more discussion.
|
aruba
|
|
response 33 of 71:
|
Mar 8 17:20 UTC 2004 |
John, did you make a distinction between "members" and "voting members" in
your proposal?
|
remmers
|
|
response 34 of 71:
|
Mar 8 18:26 UTC 2004 |
Thanks for the reminder on that.
I need to fine tune a couple of other points as well. I'll post a final
wording here before starting the vote.
|
remmers
|
|
response 35 of 71:
|
Mar 12 16:29 UTC 2004 |
Okay, here's my proposed final wording. What do you think? My intent
is to give today and tomorrow for any comments, then start the vote
at midnight on Saturday the 13th. (That's when the current vote ends
if I recall correctly.)
MOTION: It is proposed that Cyberspace Communications Bylaw Article 5
be replaced by the following:
ARTICLE 5: VOTING PROCEDURES
a. Any member of Grex may make a motion by entering it as the
text of a discussion item in a computer conference on Grex
designated for this purpose. The item is then used for
discussion of the motion. All Grex users may participate in
the discussion. No action on the motion is taken for two
weeks.
b. In order for the motion to be voted on, at least 10% of the
eligible voting membership must endorse bringing the proposal
to a vote. Endorsement shall consist of a statement by the
member in the discussion item agreeing that the motion should
be voted on. A member may withdraw his or her endorsement at
any time prior to the start of voting by so stating in the
discussion item.
c. When at least two weeks have passed, the author may post
a final wording of the motion. Following posting of the
final wording, members shall have forty-eight hours to
add an endorsement or withdraw a previous endorsement.
At the end of this period, if the motion has the necessary
number of endorsements, it may be voted on. The vote is
begun as soon as feasible and is conducted online over a
period of ten days. If within thirty days from the date
that the item was posted the author does not request a vote
or the necessary number of endorsements have not been
obtained, the motion is considered to have lapsed and is
not eligible for voting.
d. Simultaneous voting on two or more motions is permissible,
subject to limitations of the voting software. However,
two motions may not be voted on simultaneously if one
is contradictory to or implies a modification of effect
to the other. In such a case, the motion posted first shall
take precedence in voting order.
e. A motion will be considered to have passed if more
votes were cast in favor than against, except as provided
for bylaw amendments.
f. For voting purposes, a day will run midnight to midnight, local
Grex time. In the event of continuous system downtime of 24 hours
or more, the voting period will be adjusted to compensate.
|
remmers
|
|
response 36 of 71:
|
Mar 12 16:34 UTC 2004 |
(Sorry about the slightly sloppy formatting of the above.)
The changes from the current Article 5 are:
o Required percentage of endorsement from eligible voting members
to bring a motion to a vote. (Currently no seconding or other
level of support is needed.)
o Motion expires if vote does not begin within 30 days.
o Requirement that conflicting motions may not be voted on
simultaneously.
|
other
|
|
response 37 of 71:
|
Mar 12 16:47 UTC 2004 |
Well done. I would only suggest that the 48 hour period of review
after final wording be extended to four days, just because I think
a lot of people easily manage to miss a couple of days and that far
fewer would be gone for four days without being out of town and
away from a computer altogether.
|
albaugh
|
|
response 38 of 71:
|
Mar 12 18:34 UTC 2004 |
The wording looks fine to me. If this comes to a vote, at this point, I would
recommend a NO vote on it.
|
gelinas
|
|
response 39 of 71:
|
Mar 12 18:46 UTC 2004 |
May I ask why you would recommend against ti, albaugh?
|
aruba
|
|
response 40 of 71:
|
Mar 13 03:05 UTC 2004 |
Looks good to me, John. I'll endorse it.
|
albaugh
|
|
response 41 of 71:
|
Mar 13 18:16 UTC 2004 |
Yep, I feel that although jp2 is being a twit, that is not a trend, and that
coming up with a somewhat "complicated" way for a member to get something
voted on is probably not a required step for grex at this point.
Mind you, I'm still not certain about that... ;-)
|
remmers
|
|
response 42 of 71:
|
Mar 13 21:20 UTC 2004 |
Think I'll stick with the wording as in #35 and start the voting
at midnight tonight.
|
remmers
|
|
response 43 of 71:
|
Mar 13 21:46 UTC 2004 |
Actually, I'll make one change in section (b) to remove a conflict
with section (c). Here's the actual final final wording:
MOTION: It is proposed that Cyberspace Communications Bylaw Article 5
be replaced by the following:
ARTICLE 5: VOTING PROCEDURES
a. Any member of Grex may make a motion by entering it as the
text of a discussion item in a computer conference on Grex
designated for this purpose. The item is then used for
discussion of the motion. All Grex users may participate in
the discussion. No action on the motion is taken for two
weeks.
b. In order for the motion to be voted on, at least 10% of the
eligible voting membership must endorse bringing the proposal
to a vote. Endorsement shall consist of a statement by the
member in the discussion item agreeing that the motion should
be voted on. A member may withdraw his or her endorsement at
any time prior to the close of the endorsement period as
defined in section (c) below.
c. When at least two weeks have passed, the author may post a
final wording of the motion and request that it be voted on.
Following posting of the final wording, members shall have
forty-eight hours to add an endorsement or withdraw a previous
endorsement. At the end of this period, if the motion has the
necessary number of endorsements, it shall be voted on. The
vote is begun as soon as feasible and is conducted online over
a period of ten days. If within thirty days from the date that
the item was posted the author does not request a vote or the
necessary number of endorsements have not been obtained, the
motion is considered to have lapsed and is not eligible for
voting.
d. Simultaneous voting on two or more motions is permissible,
subject to limitations of the voting software. However,
two motions may not be voted on simultaneously if one
is contradictory to or implies a modification of effect
to the other. In such a case, the motion posted first shall
take precedence in voting order.
e. A motion will be considered to have passed if more
votes were cast in favor than against, except as provided
for bylaw amendments.
f. For voting purposes, a day will run midnight to midnight, local
Grex time. In the event of continuous system downtime of 24 hours
or more, the voting period will be adjusted to compensate.
|
remmers
|
|
response 44 of 71:
|
Mar 13 22:04 UTC 2004 |
(Since (c) now specifies an end to the endorsement period, I changed
(b) to make that the deadline for withdrawing an indorsement.)
I'm not expecting the endorsement process to be a big deal. I'd think
that any motion that has a chance of passing would have no trouble
getting the required level of endorsement.
Perhaps the language of the proposal makes the increase in complexity
appear greater than it actually is. If this passes, the process of
making a proposal is the same. A member proposes something, and
people discuss it for a couple of weeks. The difference is that
there's a burden on the proposer to convince enough other members
(about 7 at current membership levels) that the issue is worth a
vote.
|
other
|
|
response 45 of 71:
|
Mar 14 23:32 UTC 2004 |
Question:
If, after twenty-nine days from the posting of a motion, the poster
presents final wording and requests a vote, according to the wording
of this amendment, there would only be one day available in which to
gather the necessary endorsements to bring the motion to vote.
This presents an apparent conflict between the thirty day and 48
hour limits. Is this intentional or an oversight?
|
remmers
|
|
response 46 of 71:
|
Mar 15 18:04 UTC 2004 |
It could have been more clearly worded, but my intent was that the final
wording must be submitted no later than day 28. I think the current
language implies this. The proposal specifies that endorsements are
counted at the end of the 48-hour period following posting of the final
wording, and that this period must occur within an overall 30 day time
frame.
|
richard
|
|
response 47 of 71:
|
Mar 17 06:46 UTC 2004 |
This "10% of the voting membership" seems highly arbitrary--
1. Why 10%? Why not 5% or 25% or whatever. What is the significance
of 10%?
2. Given that Grex's voting membership numbers can change day to day,
or even hour to hour, depending on who joins and whose membership
lapses .etc, the number of votes needed to constitute 10% also change?
So that what would be 10% on the day a resolution is proposed might not
be 10% on the day the numbers are counted. This I think could put the
treasurer in an awkward position if a member resolution has ten percent
support to go to a vote by one count but not by another, since it is
the treasurer who maintains the "official" count. If the treasurer
adds a member at 10 p.m., does that mean that the 10% threshold is
suddenly higher at 10:01 p.m than it was at 9:59 pm?
Basically, if one wanted a resolution to come to a vote, and sees the
number of endorsements just below ten percent, he/she could just cancel
their membership temporarily. And urge others to cancel their
memberships, so that the overrall membership list is smaller and the
number of membership endorsements constituted is more than ten percent.
I think the 10% number is too arbitrary and that the idea of
requiring "endorsement thresholds" for a member to put a member
question to a vote is counter to the spirt of Grex being a free and
open board where all members have an equal importance. Suddenly all
members won't have an equal chance to have their voice heard, they'll
have to get ten percent of the membership-- whatever ten percent is on
that given day or given hour-- to agree with them before the whole
membership can vote on what they have to say.
Not everyone reads the Coop conference or keeps up with these debates.
Some members will only address the matters in question when they come
up to a vote. I think the ten percent rule is effectively giving more
influence to those who actually read Coop.
IMO this isn't a necessary amendment and causes more trouble than it is
worth.
|
richard
|
|
response 48 of 71:
|
Mar 17 06:53 UTC 2004 |
Not to mention that this idea, which is essentially to have a vote on
whether to put something to a "vote", is pretty bureacratic, and seems
against the non-bureacratic nature of Grex. Why add a rule
unnecessarily? Whats next, an amendment to say that some arbitrary
percentage of members now have to endorse the wording of a member's
amendment proposal, before members can vote on whether that amendment
should actually be voted on? And does the treasurer or voteadm have to
print out the entire item and count up the responses, and figure out
which responses are from voting members and which are not, in order to
figure out whether there is ten percent there or not?
This isn't what Grex is about, this adopting of more rules to add on to
more rules
|
richard
|
|
response 49 of 71:
|
Mar 17 07:05 UTC 2004 |
If the idea of this proposal is to prevent too many things from coming
to a member vote, and thus making the voteadm job too hard, why not
just do as follows:
Say that no member may submit more than one resolution for a member
vote in any quarter, defined as a season. The coop conf shall be
rolled over every season like Agora, and if you have submitted a member
resolution in fall coop, you may not enter another one until winter
coop.
OR just say that voting on member resolutions can only happen at
certain times of the year, like the first two weeks of every quarter.
Unless by unanimous vote of Grex's board, it is decreed that
an "emergency" vote must take place outside the usual schedule.
Either way, this avoids the "lets have a vote on whether to have a
vote" stuff
|