RE: stds-802-16: 802 Rules Change ballots underway
Hello Roger,
Follows my opinion on the issues raised.
(1) move the SEC Closing Meeting to 1-6 pm on Fridays
I strongly object to that. While appreciating the willingness of SEC members
to work late on Friday, the next step will be that the Working Groups will
stretch the closing plenaries till Friday noon. In the past the SEC closing
meetings were on Thursday night, then it shifted to Friday morning, and now
to Friday afternoon. I want to remind to my US colleagues that to reach
Israel by Saturday evening, meet my family and be at work on Sunday (a
workday in Israel) I have to depart from US about Friday noon the latest
from most places in the US.
Same, by the way, is relevant to Interim meetings. In 802.16 meeting in
Finland it seemed natural that no meetings will be held on Friday so that US
people will get home by weekend.
In the past I tried to attend the SEC closing plenary, at least for the few
items that interested me. This goal becomes more and more elusive. It hurts
the openness of the process in SEC.
I consider the creep in conducting business later and later on Fridays
inappropriate and uncourteous towards non-US members (just to remind that
IEEE is an international organization). For all the reasons stated I
strongly object to the motion.
(2) add a second SEC vice chair
Without knowing the workload on the Vice Chair, a second VC seems more like
a backup position rather than an acting one. I would recommend designating
one of the SEC members as a Second Vice Chair rather than inflating the SEC.
(3) permit email voting in WG (other than Letter Ballots)
The proposed change in rules lacks two things: a definition of response
time, and a mechanism of raising motions to be resolved by email voting. Can
I decide on June 20th that I want to move that Wavelet modulation be removed
from 802.16h and send a motion to the reflector? How much time will be given
to respond (2 minutes)? What is the mechanism for having discussion
(probably email to the reflector), keeping some thread of discussion and
limiting discussion (rather than have 183 emails, 160 of which with useless
rhetoric between 3 members)?
Another issue is that committee work is usually a focused and planned
effort. Having motions dripping between meetings will cause all of us to be
on alert all the time and increase the fraction of time spent on committee
work. I have some other work to do between meetings.
Technical work is usually done by relatively small subgroups of experts.
Having quorum requirement on email technical votes will cause many of those
to fail due to lack of interest, and then somebody will come with
"membership loss" rules etc.
I would like to remind that there is another tool for technical progress
between meetings, and that is teleconferences. Those are seldom used in
802.16, but in 802.11, for example, many issues are promoted by
teleconferences.
To summarize, email voting mechanism is a tool which needs to be in place
(especialy for urgent issues such as response to external events), however
the current motion does not detail the safeguards for its proper use and
more work is needed to define those. I speak against the motion in its
current form.
Respectfully,
Naftali Chayat.
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger B. Marks [mailto:marks@boulder.nist.gov]
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 1:36 AM
To: stds-802-16@ieee.org
Subject: stds-802-16: 802 Rules Change ballots underway
The 802 SEC is in the process of balloting on three rules changes.
The voters are the SEC members, including me. The ballots all close
on 8 June. Comment resolution is scheduled for the July meeting.
Here are the three issues, briefly described, along with a link to
the email announcement of the ballot:
(1) move the SEC Closing Meeting to 1-6 pm on Fridays
Sure: http://ieee802.org/secmail/msg02043.html
(2) add a second SEC vice chair
Sure: http://ieee802.org/secmail/msg02095.html
(3) permit email voting in WG (other than Letter Ballots)
Sure: http://ieee802.org/secmail/msg02040.html
I have uploaded the text of the three changes to the WG upload directory.
I will be discussing these at the Opening Plenary at Session #19, and
I welcome your comments at the meeting or by email (preferably to the
reflector).
Roger