Re: [gnso-ppsc-wg] Your feedback requested - section 3.1 Participation

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

On 4 May 2010, at 08:37, Marika Konings wrote:

> 3.1. Participation
> 
> Members of a WG are expected to be active participants, either on the WG 
> mailing lists and/or in the WG meetings, although some might opt to take an 
> observer approach (monitor mailing lists and/or meetings). The WG Chair is 
> expected to make an assessment at the start of every meeting whether a 
> ‘quorum’ has been reached to proceed with the meeting and discussions. A 
> quorum has not been defined in exact numbers in this context, but should be 
> understood as having a representative number of WG members present. For 
> example, the Chair may decide that there is no quorum to make decisions, but 
> that there is a quorum to have initial discussions on a certain issue and 
> following those initial discussions encourage members on the mailing list to 
> share their views before a decision is made at a subsequent meeting. 
> 
> If there is lack of participation resulting in meetings being cancelled 
> and/or decisions being postponed, the Chair is expected to explore the 
> reasons (e.g. issues with the schedule of meetings, conflict with other 
> activities or priorities) and attempt to address them (e.g. review meeting 
> schedule). If there is no obvious way to address the situation, the Chair 
> should approach the Chartering Organization, GNSO Stakeholder Groups, or 
> Constituencies for assistance (e.g. request for additional volunteers to the 
> WG) on whether there is enough / sufficient interest from the community / 
> delay work.
> 
> Comments:
> 
> INTA: The Committee agrees that the process for participation set forth in 
> this subsection provides flexibility, but is concerned that the lack of 
> definition of what constitutes a "quorum" could create a lack of consistency 
> between operations and results of different WGs and could also result in a 
> failure to include the viewpoints of various constituencies (e.g., if for 
> some reason several members of a particular constituency are not able to make 
> a particular meeting and a vote on a critical issue is taken). Therefore, the 
> Committee recommends:
> 
> · Amending this subsection to define what constitutes a “quorum” with 
> specificity.


quorum is a concept that goes along with voting so i wish we had not used that 
word.

What i think is critical is that any decision be taken back to the list.  I 
also beleive in, though I am not sure it needs to be codified, tat any 
decison'made' in a previous meeting or on the list, be brogut up for a check in 
the next meeting.
e.g. we seemed to have a consensus on Irish whiskey being better than Scotch 
Whiskey in the last meting.  There was not objection to that on the list.  Are 
we still ok with this?


> 
> GD: Section 3.1 describes the expectations for participation by working group 
> members, and the role of the Chair in determining quorum.  Based upon 
> experience in previous working groups, we recommend setting a maximum number 
> of failed attempts to achieve quorum, at which point the GNSO Council would 
> intervene to reconstitute the working group, which may include a new Call for 
> Volunteers.
> 

I think this needs care.  If a groups is getting a lot of work done on the 
lists and just those who like to talk are attending the meetings  we may be ok. 
 if nobody is partaking anywhere, ten there may be a problem.