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The
history of the Re-Railing Proposal of Peter Hyde
* Preamble:
IDNO has
undergone a serious internal division and "flight of the centre"
which has effectively undermined the current management and democratic
structures. Further, the vote just concluded has not given a mandate
for EITHER the "direct democracy" option OR the "representative"
option in future structures.
This means
that there is not sufficient mandate to continue with or elect a new
"steering committee" right now, but that the concept of a
management committee nonetheless deserves inclusion in the ongoing drafting
of the charter, alongside a high level of direct democracy and membership
control of the executive.
However,
in the near term, there are several challenges which must be faced,
of which the most immediate is establishing a framework for making decisions
and forward progress. This proposal is a collection of specific actions,
some (not all) of which are interdependent.
* Primary
aims of the proposal:
This proposal
aims to put IDNO "back on the rails" by:
1. Providing
a fair, efficient, reasonable and democratic decision- making mechanism
until such time as the charter is completed and ratified
2. Ensuring
urgent business, such as an election for the Names Council delegate,
is completed as soon as possible
3. Putting
in place a mechanism for relatively rapid progress on the completion
and adoption of the charter
4. Beginning
to address issues arising from claims and concerns about the management
of IDNO, and hence significantly improving its standing among members
and the outside world
5. Providing
closure on recent events
* The Proposed Points
Section
1. Urgent business
1.1
That, in light of the vote results, the term of the existing SC should
expire immediately, with any and all unfinished SC business lapsing,
and that no new "steering" or "management" committee
be elected until the charter is ratified (assuming the charter contains
provision for such)
1.2
That this list elect an interim chair responsible for ensuring that
the conduct of discussions and votes (if taken on the list per section
2) is of a high standard in keeping with published IDNO list rules and
that motions, amendments and votes (if any) are managed clearly, with
correct priority, exemplary politeness, goodwill, firmness when necessary
and common sense at all times
1.3
That new nominations and membership-wide election be called for three
members of the Polling Committee at the earliest opportunity, preferably
before or at the same time as other membership-wide votes proposed here,
and that the new committee:
a) be
given the means (primarily, access to tools, lists and site) necessary
to carry out votes, said means to be available to all members of the
committee
b) operate
by consensus among its members, requesting a decision from the IDNO
list when tentative or in dispute on certain issues
c) be
responsible for accepting subjects proposed for a vote by the list,
accepting supporting texts and other content accompanying the vote,
accepting and publicising the start/end and the form of the vote (e.g.
single option vs. multi-option preferential, first or last vote counted,
cut-off date for eligibility to participate), communicating with members
about the vote, dealing with any management and/or support issues arising
from a vote, counting and announcing vote results to the list
d) that
any communications from the Polling Committee to members be signed,
simply, "IDNO Polling Committee"
1.4
That a "Charter Committee" comprising three people (preferably
with a range of views and some experience with constitutional issues)
be created by membership-wide election and be responsible for working
at a steady pace to rewrite/complete the charter in line with the outcome
of the current vote on democratic forms, and that it:
a) operate
by consensus among its members, requesting a decision from the IDNO
list when tentative or in dispute on certain issues
b) monitor
and attend to charter-related discussions and votes which may take place
on the IDNO list
c) operate
an archived mailing list of all its discussions with the archive available
to any IDNO member (but not to the public)
d) deliver
a "near-final" draft to the list by November 15, then (taking
account of the ensuing discussion) a "final" form to the membership
for potential ratification by the full membership by November 30 (these
dates subject to amendment by the IDNO list if required)
e) remain
in operation until after the vote, in order to offer at least one further
discussion/revision/ratification step in the event the initial vote
to ratifiy does not succeed
Section
2. Interim List powers
2.1
That this list operate as a form of "General Assembly" until
such time as the charter is ratified and its constitutionally defined
bodies have been voted in by the membership
2.2
That the list assume the following powers and general operating procedures:
a) to
make motions and take votes on the list itself, with no vote being deemed
closed until at least 24 hours after the chair has declared it underway,
and with the outcome of the vote being decided by a simple majority
of unambiguous votes cast via emails sent to the list
b) to
operate by consensus wherever possible, so that a motion may be declared
carried if only one or no calls for a list vote have been made in 24
hours since the motion and its second(s) have been acknowledged by the
chair, and provided that no amendments have been moved in that time
c)
to devolve a decision to the full membership whenever five or more individuals
have called for a full membership vote on a given issue within 48 hours
of a consensus or list vote decision being formally announced by the
chair
d) to
suspend a member or guest from participating on the list for a period
of up to 14 days, subject to a vote comprising at least
ten YES votes and with YES votes outnumbering NO votes by at least two
to one
e) to
recall the chair and require a new membership-wide election for chair
at any time that ten or more members have called for such an election
within a seven day period
3. Polling
Committee Kibitzing
3.1
That, until such time as a new Polling Committee has been elected, Arnold
Gehring oversee the work of the Polling Commitee as follows:
a) He
be invited to pre-approve the text of any emails prepared by the Polling
Committee for broadcast members during the voting process
b) He
be sent copies of any emails sent to PC members concerning any vote
and be invited to report actions taken by the PC as a consequence to
the list if he sees fit
c) He
be granted as much electronic access as he sees fit to the voting machinery
-- web site, database etc. for the duration of any vote and for 3 days
after the result has been announced
d) He
stand down in favour of his own nominee if, at any time, he is the subject
of one of the membership-wide votes then being conducted
== end
of "Rerailing Proposal"
The rerailing proposal was accepted with 4 votes against and 16 votes
in favour.
***
Arnold
Gehring is currently acting as Chair under the re-railing proposal of
Peter Hyde, ratified by the members.
The
List Assembly resolutions made under the RRP can be found here.
***
Preceding
the re-railing proposal:
After
an intense two week debate on the fundamental issue of how the Individual
Domain name Owners will be represented within their own organization
the following motion has been made by Joop Teernstra and seconded by
Domingo Baron, Chris Streatfield and Arnold Gehring:
1. That the fundamental question of a representative
vs. an
administrative role for the future Steering Committee be resolved
by a vote of the entire membership.
2. that such vote will be solicited in the form of 3 options
a. Direct
Democracy conducted in a General Assembly of Members.
b. A role
for the Steering Committee to carry out policy as representatives of
the members.
c. A mix
of both options a and b in various forms (Voters who prefer this option
should put forward their own idea's for a compromise solution on the
comments line in the Booth.)
3. that the proponents of any of these options within 24 hours provide
a text to argue their position for the voters and if this is not forthcoming
the ad hoc de facto Chair dealing with this motion will distill the
arguments from those that have been advanced on this list and provide
the right pointers to the list archive.
4. That the Polling Committee will poll the members forthwith with
these options with the text of the respective arguments included for
guidance.
The members
were ballotted on this issue starting 10 Oct.1999
The result
of this ballot was as follows:
Total votes cast for all options = 44.
Option
A; Bottom-up democracy received 19 votes, (43.18% of total)
Option
B; Representative structure received 19 votes, (43.18% of total)
Option
C; A mixture of both A & B received 8 votes, (18.18% of total)***
*** One
member emailed in to declare that he had made an error and accidentally
voted for two options instead of only one. The options selected were
A & C and the member wished to ensure that only option A was included.
In that light the vote for option C is reduced to 7 votes and A remains
unchanged. -----
Following this vote, the re-railing Proposal has, after discussion
and amendments, found the consensus of the discussion list and has been
up for your vote starting Oct 20, 1999. and ending Oct 24. 00:01 GMT.
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Please find earlier
voting results and nominations under this link
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