Re: Proposed Process Change Regarding TAG Participation Rules

03.11.2014, 16:37, "Daniel Appelquist" <appelquist@gmail.com>:
>>  On 3 Nov 2014, at 15:04, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
>>
>>  On Nov 3, 2014, at 13:07 , Daniel Appelquist <appelquist@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>  On 3 Nov 2014, at 12:53, Brian Kardell <bkardell@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>  Whilst I think this is a better situation than we have now, as no special elections
>>> would be triggered, I still think it falls short, especially since many (including me)
>>> feel that the multiple participants constraint is artificial in the first place.

Sure. On the other hand there are many who think the constraint is not at all artificial, and are instead concerned that it doesn't go far enough toward limiting the ability for a small group of like-minded organisations - one community among the many out there - to capture the entire TAG in terms of what does and what doesn't get on the agenda, and potentially how the questions there are approached…

>>> As an example, if in the last series of TAG elections a group of candidates have agreed to run on a certain platform, publicly stated this platform, and been successful in their campaign to garner A.C. votes, win seats and change the agenda and focus of the TAG. They didn’t need to be in the same company to do so.

Right. That isn't a feature.

>>>  To my earlier point about appointed members, can we make a distinction between appointed and elected members (and assume that the Director can manage the potential conflicts of interest)? This could also help to manage the diversity issue I have brought up.
>>  Let’s chat about Tag membership.  I think we might have three kinds of members:
>>
>>  a) elected (the eTag)
>>  b) appointed by the director (the aTag)
>>  c) invited by the elected (+appointed?) delegates (the iTag)
>>
>>  If the elected members feel that they can handle an invited member from the same company as one of them, I think that’s fine.

There are people who have a concern that electing lots of people who live in the same kind of environments and face the same kinds of issues and don't face or really understand issues that are relevant only in other parts of the world. Dan and others have clearly stated they are not people who have such a concern.

Being one of those people, I have a further concern that if the TAG becomes a group of like-mined individuals reinforced by people selected by those individuals, the problem is made worse.

The current setup allows anyone not elected to participate on an apparently equal footing. Letting the elected members give additional force to paticipants seems to me a very *bad* mechanism for building global trust.

>> Since I expect the Tag mostly to work through unanimity, this is fine.  It might help the iTag to feel that they are ‘real’ Tag members if we formalized class (c), perhaps.  In cases of real conflict, I guess I would expect the eTag to have more weight than the aTag, and them to have more weight than the iTag, but honestly, if the Tag gets stuck in a debate that that’s polarizing, maybe we have asked the wrong question.

I don't think it follows that we asked the wrong question. Given the diversity of opinions out there on many of the fundamental issues about how the world should work, if the TAG doesn't polarise from time to time, then we probably selected the wrong TAG.

> I think this formulation makes sense. And yes, we do normally work through unanimity. My suggestion is that before we start trying to rethink the shape of the TAG we agree to the point on which there seems to be emerging consensus (allowing TAG members to serve until the next election period in case of affiliation change) and then debate other points after we have made that change.
>
> Make sense?

Depends what you think you can get...

FWIW I could easily live with the proposal given some kind of STV voting for the TAG. Under the current system I think turnover - even at the price of an election, and losing smart people whose companies are only backing them when they get one of the annointed seats at the table - is a feature. But let's see how this plays out - I could probably live with the emerging proposal despite my belief it is a seriously sub-optimal outcome.

(If you don't believe that having a seat on the TAG gives a significant amount of power, how do you explain why companies care so much that they won't always support people who the TAG invites to continue participating as a general member of the public?)

>>>  If it’s what on offer, I can live with it, but I’d prefer something stronger, considering that I have supported Noah’s original proposal which would have allowed for multiple participation from a single member.

Given STV voting, I could probably live with more participants from a single member.

Something else I would support is allowing multiple candidates from a single member to run, with only the highest-scoring one actually elected. Or given STV would make me more inclined to support Noah's proposal maybe two.

And increasing the TAG to 12 seats (9 elected) also seems worthwhile, if they are going to keep on the current path of reaching for more work...

cheers

--
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Tuesday, 4 November 2014 10:40:12 UTC