>>>>> "Russ" == Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> writes:
If other people would like to see the option allowing secretary
decisions to be placed on hold removed, I will remove it.
The specific class of decisions that are related to the rest of the
proposal are unlikely to need to be placed on hold.
Russ> Maybe "mechanism" rather than "option"? Option implies to me
Russ> that it might be some sort of up-front choice the voter has to
Russ> make.
But it is an up-front choice today.
If you have an encryption subkey, you get to participate.
If you don't then you do not.
I used the word option specifically to capture that right now it is an
up-front choice.
Russ> Here's the sort of situation that I'm worried about:
Russ> * Some GR is proposed and is discussed for a couple of weeks.
Russ> * Near the end of the discussion period, the Project Secretary
Russ> says that this vote requires a 3:1 majority. * Some
Russ> developers disagree and propose a GR to override that
Russ> decision. * That GR gets 2K sponsors.
Russ> Now, under this new text, the Project Secretary's decision is
Russ> "put on hold." However, the constitution requires that the
Russ> Project Secretary start a vote on the GR because its
Russ> discussion period has ended. So what does putting that
Russ> decision on hold *mean*?
I guess the secretary would need to interpret the constitution. If I
were secretary, I'd say that the discussion is done, but that we cannot
hold the vote until the issue surrounding the super-majority is
resolved.
Another fine option would be to conduct the vote but to determine the
outcome later after the super majority is resolved.
I guess that since we've identified this particular conflict we could
resolve it explicitly one way or another.
I don't think no matter how hard we try we will be able to resolve all
the conflicts in the constitution, so I am more interested in making
sure there are mechanisms to interpret and build up experience over
time than to try and make sure things are unambiguous.
Unfortunately, even more than other decisions, project secretary
decisions are very often timely.
I agree that the specific class of decisions--decisions about how votes
are conducted--that contemplated the proposal of 4.1(8) are not timely
in this manner.
And so I'd be okay removing my change to make secretary decisions able
to be put on hold if that would gain broader support.
Unfortunately, I think that just moves the problem around.
Let's say there's no language talking about putting a decision on hold.
What do we do if someone overrides the decision about what super
majority is required ?
We're still left with a mess.
And if we decide to remove the language about being able to override the
secrety entirely, in one of the situations where people really care, we
just end up in extra-constitutional territory fairly quickly.
IN other words, I think we are exposing and acknowledging mesiness that
was already inherent in the system. Even with things like calling for
the vote, I suspect that in practice a secretary would delay the vote
while there was a discussion in full swing about some secretary
decisions, text in the constitution not withstanding.
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