stds-802-mobility: RE: 802.20 Nominations and Elections

In my view, the rules do not foresee in granting people membership halfway down a meeting. Membership is established only at the end of a meeting, when the number of substantially attended sessions is tallied and meets or exceeds 75%. This particular vote will hence not be held by the members, since there are at that point none, but by the potential members. The potential members are those who either already attended 75% of previous sessions, or those who will have attended 75% with the current session included. Neither calculating 75% over a portion of the total number of sessions or calculating 75% over a fraction of the total number of sessions is acknowledged in the rules as a valid means of establishing voting rights.

It would be unprecedented, and in my opinion rather odorous, to use some freshly invented criteria to grant only a sub-group of the potential members the right to vote on the WG officials, which is after all a very important vote.

Best regards,

/Nico

-----Original Message-----
From: ext Mark Klerer [mailto:M.Klerer@flarion.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 5:30 PM
To: VanWaes Nico (NET/MtView); Mark Klerer
Cc: stds-802-mobility@ieee.org
Subject: RE: 802.20 Nominations and Elections

Dear Nico,

Thank you for your note expressing interest in the rationale I used in determining membership and granting voting rights at Session #1 of 802.20. The following note explains the logic I used in arriving at the participation requirements I specified.

Participation in the initial session of a new Working Group entitles the individual to membership in the Working Group. According to the LMSC Rules "[p]articipation is defined as at least 75% presence at a meeting". The "at least 75% presence" rule has been interpreted to be measured in the number of meeting intervals during a session. Furthermore, the assumption is that "sign-in during a meeting interval requires attendance during substantially the entire meeting interval" (see 802.16 web site http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/16/membership.html ). This leads to the conclusion that an interval participation credit is earned after attending "substantially the entire meeting interval".

Getting to particulars of the 802.20 March session; the session consists of 8 meeting intervals (Monday PM, Tuesday AM, Tuesday PM, Wednesday AM, Wednesday PM, Thursday AM, Thursday PM, Thursday Evening). To become a WG member with the absolute minimum threshold that does not violate the LMSC rules requires participation during 6 meeting intervals (precisely 75%). So after 6 meeting intervals membership rights have been earned. Anyone attending 6 meeting intervals in March will be a member and entitled to vote during the May session. This includes those individuals whose sixth session is the Thursday evening session.

To be a member in time for Thursday evening's election I have used the rule that you must have earned membership rights by then, i.e. you have already participated in 6 meeting intervals. You are a member even if you do not show up that evening to vote. On the other hand if you have only attended 5 sessions by then you are not yet a member because for the sixth interval you have not yet attended "during substantially the entire meeting interval". If you stay for substantially the entire interval you will be a voting member at the next session.

I have also looked at the option of considering 75% of the first 7 intervals - that still leads to requiring participation in 6 intervals.

I believe that this is an entirely fair and even-handed way of handling the granting of membership privileges and completely consistent with the LMSC rules.

Since receipt of your note I have also spoken to some of the SEC members and they have agreed that my interpretation of the rules is reasonable. If you disagree with my implementation of the rules, I would suggest that you contact the SEC ahead of the plenary meeting.

I look forward to your participation in 802.20.

Best Regards,

Mark Klerer

-----Original Message-----

From: nico.Vanwaes@nokia.com [mailto:nico.Vanwaes@nokia.com]

Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 3:33 PM

To: m.klerer@flarion.com

Cc: stds-802-mobility@ieee.org

Subject: Re: 802.20 Nominations and Elections

Dear Mark,

I was reading through the elections rules you posted and noticed a discrepancy with the 802 rules.

You cited the 802 Rules, which require 75% attendance (and payment of fees) for membership and the right to vote. According to the schedule, and as you noted, that would be 6 out of a total of 8 sessions.

However, you also stated that you would only allow those people to vote, who attend 6 sessions out of the 7 sessions preceeding the closing plenary. Since these people need to present during the closing plenary to actually vote, that will be their 7th session out of the total of 8, resulting in an effective attendance requirement of 7 sessions out of 8 or 87.5%.

This requirement as outlined is hence clearly in violation of the standing 802 rules and would in my opinion, if appealed, likely lead to the ballot being declared invalid.

Since all members have the right to vote, and in the case of a first plenary meeting, all anticipated members, the correct action hence is to prepare ballots for all persons who have attended at least 5 sessions out of those preceding the closing plenary, not 6.

I would appreciate if you could make this correction in the proposed procedure.

Best regards,

Dr.Ir. Nico van Waes

Systems Engineer / Algorithm Jockey

Nokia Wireless Routers