Re: SUO: RE: Re: Gathering Questions (No vs. Abstain) -- resend
[ John - I'm having trouble posting to SUO for some reason, could you
forward this? -CW ]
I completely agree with John on this point of voting, and I believe
that is the interpretation that the IEEE was forwarding.
I think the point others are missing is that a motion can neither
pass nor fail. By this definition, SUMO and IFF were neither
accepted nor rejected. Some people need more time to consider the
motions, and then another vote can be taken for each.
-ChrisW
At 4:36 PM -0500 1/23/02, John F. Sowa wrote:
>Frank,
>
>You are only looking at one side of the issue:
>
>FF> Bottom Line: If you count Abstain responses as No votes, i.e.:
>>
>> Yes > No+Abstain
>>
>> Then Abstain responses count as No votes for the purposes of
>>decision-making.
>
>That is not what we (many of the people responding to you) have been
>saying. You have been ignoring the other side of the question.
>
>A majority in favor is determined by the following formula:
>
> Yes > No + Abstain
>
>A majority against is determined by another formula:
>
> No > Yes + Abstain
>
>This makes it very clear that an Abstention counts *equally*
>against both acceptance and rejection.
>
>In the case of SUMO, there was neither a majority of yes votes
>nor a majority of no votes. Therefore, SUMO was neither accepted
>nor rejected.
>
>For the purpose of decision making, we have a clear decision
>about what should be done:
>
> Continue work on SUMO in order to provide sufficient information
> to enable the abstainers to make an informed decision.
>
>As many of us said at the time of the vote, it was premature
>to propose SUMO as a candidate for the standard, but it was worth
>pursuing further. That is essentially what the voters said.
>
>John
--
Christopher A. Welty http://www.cs.vassar.edu/faculty/welty/
Vassar College Computer Science Dept. Voice: (845) 437-5992
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0462 Fax: (845) 437-7498