RE: [802SEC] Ballot Resolution Process
Bob,
One question that I do not see any official direction for: Is official
comment resolution required if the ballot fails? The operating rules (and
your description below) are clear about comment resolution when the ballot
succeeds. But it seems that the requirements are predicated on a successful
ballot.
-Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of RDLove
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 1:00 PM
To: 802 SEC
Cc: Hawkins, John
Subject: [802SEC] Ballot Resolution Process
I have been asked to explain the ballot resolution process / protocol to
IEEE 802.17, and have developed the attached explanation. I would
appreciate any feedback, positive or negative, and any suggested changes to
improve the documents accuracy, and readability.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Robert D. Love
Chair, Resilient Packet Ring Alliance
President, LAN Connect Consultants
7105 Leveret Circle Raleigh, NC 27615
Phone: 919 848-6773 Mobile: 919 810-7816
email: rdlove@ieee.org Fax: 208 978-1187
Comment Resolution Protocol
After all comments on a standard draft are submitted and compiled the
Comment Resolution group gets first crack at addressing them. Every voting
member that wants to be a part of the comment resolution group may do so.
Non-voting participants may also be allowed to be a part of the group, based
on the discretion of the chair. Understand that being a part of the group
may involve traveling to an additional meeting or two, and/or participating
in teleconferences, in addition to time spent studying the comments.
Comments are normally grouped for ease in reviewing them.
The comment resolution group attempts to understand each comment and
seriously address both the words and any underlying concern that they
believe is behind the comments. It is still the duty of the commenter to
recommend the replacement text, or specifically what must be done to resolve
the stated issue.
If possible, the comment resolution committee should send their proposed
comment resolutions to the original commenter (whenever they do not simply
accept the proposed change). Sometimes schedule pressures preclude this
possibility prior to the entire working group reviewing the proposed
comments. The working group gets the opportunity to review the proposed
comment resolutions and any email postings that may support or challenge
some of the proposed resolutions. The entire working group gets to vote to
approve the comment resolutions on a comment by comment basis (If there is
no objection, then no vote is taken. If there is no request to review a
comment resolution, then it is assumed that there is no objection to it.)
For those comments that are stated to be mandatory to change a vote from
Disapprove to Approve, the commenter is asked to approve the working group's
approved comment disposition. (In some working groups, the commenter is
asked to approve all comment resolutions.)
Based on comment resolution, some votes may change from Disapprove to
Approve. If after the comment resolution process is complete, at least 75%
of voting members that cast an Approve or Disapprove vote, now vote Approve,
the ballot is said to have passed.
Note that at any point, a commenter may withdraw a comment. In that case,
it is as if that comment had never been submitted. The withdrawal of a
comment may cause a voter to change his/her vote from Disapprove to Approve.
What Happens Now?
If the draft does not garner at least 75% approval after comment
resolution, the ballot has failed, and a new draft is prepared for ballot.
If the draft does achieve a 75% ballot resolution, then we begin the next
steps:
Assuming technical changes were made to the draft during the ballot
resolution process, and/or, if there are still unresolved negative votes, a
revised draft is prepared based on the approved changes to the text. That
draft now goes out for “recirculation ballot”, a period that could be as
short as 10 days. Along with the draft, all Technical Required Comments
that have not been addressed to the commenter’s satisfaction are also
circulated. The working group has a chance to include an explanation as to
why the ballot comment was not addressed to the satisfaction of the
commenter, and include that remark with the comments circulated along with
the draft. The commenter has the right to also state why the proposed
resolution falls short of what is required, and have those remarks
circulated as well.
During the recirculation, each person that voted on the originally balloted
draft has a chance to change their vote based on changes made to the
document, and based on the information obtained by reading the Required
Technical Comments that were not addressed to the commenter’s satisfaction.
(Note: The recirculation process does not grant voters the right to now look
closely, for the first time, at portions of the document that were not
changed, but were just not reviewed well during the original ballot period.)
If someone that voted on the initial draft does not respond to the
recirculation vote, then the voter’s Approve, Disapprove, or Abstain on the
initial ballot remains unaltered.
All comments made during a recirculation vote are handled the same way that
comments were treated during the initial vote on the draft. In addition,
the voter list for recirculation remains unchanged during the entire
recirculation process.
If, following the recirculation ballot, there are no new Negative votes, and
no new comments that result in technical changes to the draft being made,
then the Working Group ballot process is complete and the draft can proceed
to LMSC Sponsor level ballot.
If there are new unresolved comments, or further technical changes made to
the draft as a result of comment resolution, then another recirculation must
take place. Recirculation ballots continue until there are no new negative
votes, and no technical changes to the draft as a result of comments made.
At this point the draft is ready for LMSC Sponsor level ballot. Normally
ballots sent to LMSC Sponsor level have an approval rating at the working
group level of at least 95%.
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