Identification of problems

[srivasta at acm.org]

>>>>> In article <20030214202240.GA7247 at wile.excelhustler.com>, John Goerzen <jgoerzen at complete.org> writes:

 >> You do not seem to understand a word of what I said. What motions
 >> of the board are we over turning? The board voted to create

 > If we were to put the ban on the e-mail voting veto into the bylaws
 > and a ban on weekday board meetings, that would be:

	We can put no such thing in the by laws, we can recommend
 changes to the board. The board then changes the by laws. If the
 board wants to over turn its own motion, do they not have the right?

	The board instituted this ctte to fix what is
 wrong. Obviously things are broken; and by holding what came before
 as sacrosanct, and diffidently never asking the board to consider
 changing the way things were done means we sholl accomplish nothing,
 and we may as well stop now and not waste anyones time.

 > Resolution 2001-11-26.iwj.1: Email Voting Resolution
 > 2002-05-07.wta: Regular meeting schedule
 
 >> a by laws change committee not to have spiffier by laws, but to
 >> ensure the board did not fal l into a state of impotence and
 >> inactivity again.

 > That is definately one of our top priorities, agreed.

	Good. I do not presume to know, before we give it due
 consideration, the amount of changes that may be required to affect
 that. 

	Artificially limiting ourselves may preclude the most
 effective solutions from even bering tabled.

 > The same ones as above.  The board decided on the meeting schedule
 > and the e-mail voting procedures.  Neither of those is codified in
 > the bylaws.


	And nothing precludes us from recommending to the board that
 a changed version be in the by laws; they can, and shall, over ride
 older motions as they see fit. We should not ever discard working
 solution cause the board may have passed a motion at some time in
 the past.

	The boared is, I hope, amenable to passing new resolutions if
 they see the benefits of doing so.

	Otherwise, I suspect we shall be more toothless than we need
 to be.

 > No, that is clearly not all that we are about -- as you can see
 > from the discussion already here.  I think there is need for some
 > major overhauls in certain areas -- but then it is a committee, and
 > if everyone else disagrees, we may come out with only "tweaks".  I
 > don't see anything inherently wrong with that.

	Not wrong. Failed our charter, we shall ahve. And fairly
 toothles. I expect greater things of  this committee.

 > I took "if we do not address the problem of making board effective
 > at conducting business (like handling the veto rule for email
 > resolutions) we shall have failed our charter" to mean that your
 > position was that if bylaws committee did not strike down that
 > rule, we will have failed our charter.

	It was an *EXAMPLE*. We shall ahve failed our charter if we
 leave SPI just as liable to fall into impotent inaction if we do not
 provide mechanisms to prevent that from happening, and, I suspect,
 mere tweaks shall not cut it.

 >> What exactly _is_ your agenda?

 > I spelled that out pretty clearly.  My agenda is:

 >  * To duly undertake the work mandated in our charter;

 >  * To not use the bylaws committee to gratuitously overrule actions
 >    of the Board in a permenant way;

	Can't happen. The by laws ctte merely recommends to the
	board, and we are not brain dead. Any attempts shall be voted
	down, so this agenda item is a no-op anyway.

 >  * To make sure that the recommendations we put forth allow
 >    flexilibity to handle routine business without requiring
 >    additional amendments.

	Quite.

 > I understood your remarks to threaten the last two of those, and by
 > extension, the first.  Your most recent e-mail, combined with part
 > b of your earlier e-mail (which cited weekday meetings as a failure
 > in the bylaws), led me to that belief, given that neither weekday
 > meetings nor e-mail voting is specified in the bylaws.

	I find such a lack of giving me the benefit of even a
 modicum of intelligence insulting. Incidentally, I think your second
 point is not fully thought through: you seem to assume this ctte come
 s up with a fully formed by laws that go into effect. This is far
 from the truth: we shall recommend changes, with our rationale;
 the board has the final say.

	manoj
-- 
You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat. The
First Law Of Thermodynamics What ever you want is going to cost a
little more than it is worth. The Second Law Of Thermodynamics You can
not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing. The Third
Law Of Thermodynamics
Manoj Srivastava     <srivasta at acm.org>    <http://www.golden-gryphon.com/>
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