On Mon, Dec 18, 2000 at 03:41:21PM -0600, Norman Petry wrote: > ... we have formed a joint committee to develop a proposal, which we > will probably present to Debian for internal discussion in about a > month's time (I'm just guessing on the timeframe; we haven't discussed > this).
This looks pretty good, overall. A month is an awful long time for us to wait, however -- we're already a couple levels down in indirection, postponing one issue to handle another. Is it possible to split your proposal into two pieces, so that we can get around to modifying the constitution to explicitly state how to deal with DFSG requirements a bit sooner? You've got some open-ended questions in there, and not everything is relevant to the DFSG issue. Also, while it's great that you have formed a separate group to keep the traffic off of debian-vote (I'm kind of embarrassed about the volume I had a part in), I think it would be very appropriate for you to keep us updated (maybe once a week) about your progress: [1] It would allow feedback from people who don't have time to get heavily into the discussion, and [2] It would help keep the discussion live, so we don't have to worry about official timeouts from lack of discussion. > 1. SIMPLE MAJORITIES SHOULD RESOLVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMBIGUITY: ... This looks like an ok proposal. > 2. ELIMINATE TWO-STAGE VOTING This looks like it could be an excellent proposal. > 3. CLARIFY REPORTING REQUIREMENTS This looks good. > 4. ELIMINATE PREMATURE TERMINATION OF VOTING BY SECRETARY It's my understanding that if uncast votes could change the outcome, the outcome is in doubt. I wouldn't want to eliminate this, though maybe it should be clarified. > 5. CHOOSE NAME OF NEW VOTING METHOD My opinion: if the method is substantially different, and is recognizable under some other name, change the name. This isn't something I'd agonize over. > 6. CREATE GLOSSARY OF VOTING TERMS Cute idea. > 7. TREAT ALL AMENDMENTS AS INDEPENDENT PROPOSALS I like this. It's possible to treat independent proposals as amendments (strike all text and replace with ___), the U.S. Congress does something like that on a regular basis. But more simpler and more understandable is good. > 8. REQUIRE SIMULTANEOUS DECISIONS As long as people can withdraw their proposals (and, presumably, other people can repropose them, if they care), this is an excellent choice. > 9. PREVENT EXPIRY OF MOTIONS DUE TO INACTION BY SECRETARY: Currently ,the > Secretary or his stand-in (chair of technical committee) can kill any motion > by not distributing ballots to voters within the 4-week interval prior to > automatic expiry (yes, this has happened). Should the secretary have this > power, or should it be restricted in some way? See A.5 Open question. Personally, I think the period should be longer. Maybe 4-weeks plus required discussion period. There has to be some kind of timeout, however. Cleaning up the other problems will (hopefully) make it a lot easier deciding when to issue a ballot. [Deciding "when" also needs a timeout, of some sort.] > 10. STATE INTERPRETATION OF TRUNCATED BALLOTS Yeah, this is good. > 11. EXPLICITLY ALLOW EQUAL RANKINGS As long as there's something like a casting vote, this is ok. > 12. RESOLVE CIRCULAR TIE PROBLEM Yep. This is one of the ones I was trying to address. > 13. SIMPLIFY AND IMPROVE TIEBREAKER Yep. This is also one that I was trying to address. These are related, I think. > 14. CONSIDER FINAL TIEBREAKER Open ended question. Personally, I don't see the advantage of replacing a random number generator with a competent person. Maybe if we were a government, we'd need a lottery system to break ties, but we're not. > 15. RESOLVE SUPERMAJORITY PROBLEMS Yep. I tackled this one. Since you're already eliminating two-stage voting, this is pretty much required. > 16. DISCUSS QUORUM REQUIREMENTS Open ended question. > 17. 3:1 SUPERMAJORITY EXCESSIVELY HIGH Open ended question. Any supermajority can be thought of as excessively high. Thanks, -- Raul
