Re: SUO: Re: Gathering questions and issues with IEEE motion
At 11:41 2002-01-22 -0500, John F. Sowa wrote:
>
> I like what seems to be to be a sound basis for an emering consensus:
> the suggestions by Matthew West, as extended by Tim King and further
> supported and clarified by Jon Awbrey.
>
> Following is Tim's extension to Matthew's suggestion:
>
> Voting options = Yes, No, Abstain (no opinion), Abstain (not
> participating)
>
> Active members (registered to continue membership) = Yes + No +
> Abstain (no opinion) + Abstain (not participating)
>
> Voters = Yes + No + Abstain (no opinion)
> ...
> Majority: Yes / Voters > y%
The lines above are the nature of the problem. I agree with Jon Awbrey's statment: (paraphrase) "an abstain is neither pro nor con" ... the purpose of registering an abstain is to neither support nor oppose a motion/ballot. With the above rules, voting "Abstain (no opinion)" has the same effect as a No vote, thus an Abstain doesn't count has having "no opinion".
Also, as Jim points out, there may be conflicting law and there is conflicts/inconsistencies in the IEEE response ... not to mention that Robert's says that Abstains are non-votes (they are responses, but not votes) and are not included in determining the outcome. Furthermore, Computer Society P&Ps conflict with your above suggestion.
The obvious solution, which we've all come to the same solution N times is:
Yes > No
means a vote passes and Abstains don't count.
> I hereby move that Tim King's extension with this clarification
> be adopted for all future votes to be taken by the SUO group.
FYI, procedural stuff requires 2/3 approval.
And, because IEEE has made for a good number of conflicts / incosistencies in their current response (which is why some people are complaining), we won't be able to take *any* votes until this is all clarified (Jim has been trying to get clarification).
The simplest solution is to have IEEE look at this issue again because they've been terribly confused in their thinking in their latest response.
-FF
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