Sorting out confusing messages Re: P1788: PLEASE VOTE
George, P-1788,
On 10/7/2010 19:43, Corliss, George wrote:
Baker and all,
On Oct 7, 2010, at 7:12 PM, Ralph Baker Kearfott wrote:
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.
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Where inconsistencies occur, I'll assume
that the motion passed latest (if not simultaneous) supersedes
the earlier motion.
I agree with that interpretation. We surely want to be able to change our collective minds.
> However, as Arnold has pointed out, a consequence of that is that nothing is ever really decided,
> and we might never move from square one.
That hasn't happened yet. However, if that happens, so be it. We would then be collectively
saying that we do not want a standard.
In my opinion, this electronic meeting has become confusing.
>In a face-to-face meeting, there is only one motion on the floor at a time.
>That is too slow for an electronic meeting, but I do not even know how many motions
>are in various states of proposal/discussion/motion right now, and I am trying to pay
>attention daily.
Have you looked at Juergen's summary of motions at
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1788/private/Motions/AllMotions.html
lately? It is an excellent way of keeping track.
In my opinion, we need (acting) Chair and Technical Editors to take a more aggressive role in
aggregating various proposals/motions into more coherent alternatives.
Perhaps, instead of advancing four inconsistent motions, someone should form ONE motion
with several alternative paragraphs (or several sets of several alternatives).
> Instead of voting Yes/No, we would vote {1: A | B | C}; {2: A | B}; etc.
Ideally, the "someone" is the union of the proposers of the inconsistent motions,
> but it may need to be someone else.
That sounds good in theory, but how do we do it? In an in-person meeting, the chair
controls when motions are made. Furthermore, the same issues we have with four
motions COULD occur at an in-person meeting, too. One possibility would be to
have all motions cleared through the chair or acting chair first, and the
chair solicits alternatives, with, say, a week delay, before they are officially
processed. However, that is less transparent and puts more power in the hands
of one person, something I don't like. Finally, I still have some confidence
we can sort out this business with comparisons -- it just might take a while.
By the way, I'm glad you are talking about improving the email procedures, rather
than bemoaning the lack of in-person meetings. We recently had an in-person meeting,
with roughly 20 or 30 people attending. (Guillaume has the minutes.) You, George, weren't
there. Neither was Arnold.
Whatever, I think a wiki (or similar) MIGHT help organized the discussions.
Juergen had set up a WIKI earlier, but abandoned it when IEEE set up the official
web pages, mailing list, and mailing list archives, sortable by thread. Perhaps
we could revisit this, but it might be hard fitting it together with the
official IEEE mailing list and web page structure. We could suggest IEEE
provide an integrated WIKI, but how much additional dues do you want
to pay to IEEE?
Best regards,
Baker
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R. Baker Kearfott, rbk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (337) 482-5346 (fax)
(337) 482-5270 (work) (337) 993-1827 (home)
URL: http://interval.louisiana.edu/kearfott.html
Department of Mathematics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
(Room 217 Maxim D. Doucet Hall, 1403 Johnston Street)
Box 4-1010, Lafayette, LA 70504-1010, USA
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