Re: [802SEC] [802-11WG] Updated P&P Revision Ballots
Mike,
First, thank you very much for the thoughtful comments. Respectfully, I
think I have to disagree with the idea voting rules should be delegates
down to the Working Groups. You are not just a member of 802.11. You
are also a member of the LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC or IEEE 802).
As a Sponsor within the IEEE Standards Association, LMSC is required to
have rules for membership. Right now, those rules are such that
membership in LMSC is through membership in the Executive Committee
(EC), or Membership in a Working Group (WG) or Technical Advisory Group
(TAG). LMSC should have (my opinion) a consistent membership
requirement regardless of what sub-committee membership is gained
through. For that reason I believe a consistent set of membership rules
in each sub-committee is required.
As for the idea of cross-group attendance credit, I somewhat agree.
Right now, there is no formal encoding for that in the rules, although
many WG Chair do cooperate with each other and count participation in
another 802 committee on behalf of their home committee as participation
in the home committee. They also grant voting rights to each other and
waive attendance requirements. The LMSC P&P explicitly permits this.
Right now though, participation in higher functions of the LMSC (EC
meetings, LMSC Plenary, and tutorials) do not count for attendance
anywhere. I feel that has to be fixed, and I may try and introduce a
line to do so.
One area where I do disagree with you is that I believe attending 802.16
purely because I am interested in 802.16 should not count towards
membership or attendance in 802.11. It happens I am an 802.11 member.
However it also happens I am not attending 802.11 this session, I'm
attending 802.16. Formally, I logged into the 802.16 attendance records
yesterday morning that I was attending 802.16, even though I spent a
large chunk of time in 802.11. My purpose in attending 802.11 yesterday
was on behalf of my duties to the Executive Committee. And I beg Roger
Marks (Chair of 802.16) indulgence to allow me to fulfill my EC duties
and still count that as participation in 802.16. Otherwise I would have
no way to build up participation credits in 802.16 and become an 802.16
member. However I firmly believe that my participation should only
count in ONE group - not two or in this case 3 (802.16, 802.11, and EC).
So I did not sign into 802.11 yesterday morning, even though I was
there.
Right now, membership in any LMSC subgroup is primarily through
attendance. Voting rights come through membership. If you are a
'member' of a group, you have voting rights. There are times when some
individuals do have voting rights in multiple groups, and have earned
that either though participation (it is an added effort to participate
in each committee so they earned it) or through indulgence of the chair
(for strategic reasons, usually to facilitate interactions between
specific subcommittees). So I think having voting rights in multiple
groups is okay. However attendance should only count in one group for
one time. Which group it counts for should depend on specific
situations, many of which are too specific/complex to justify a formal
encoding in our P&P. At least that is my opinion.
Anyway, I welcome further dialogue. By the way I'll put a piece of text
out on the reflectors (EC/802.11) that I recommend for allowing
attendance credits in WG/TAG for participation in LMSC level functions.
Regards,
Mat
Matthew Sherman, Ph.D.
Senior Member Technical Staff
BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
Office: +1 973.633.6344
email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ***** IEEE stds-802-11 List ***** [mailto:STDS-802-11@ieee.org] On
Behalf Of Mike Moreton
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 8:01 AM
To: STDS-802-11@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802-11WG] Updated P&P Revision Ballots
--- This message came from the IEEE 802.11 Working Group Reflector ---
Matt,
A bit of a long response I'm afraid...
There's a concept called "subsiduarity". This says that in any complex
organisation you should only do things centrally where there is a clear
benefit to doing it there. Uniformity for uniformity's sake is not an
end in itself - there has to be some obvious, concrete benefit as well.
The justification for subsiduarity is that every bit of applicable
research shows that groups are most motivated when allowed to set their
own rules and methods of working. So any rule imposed from outside has
to have clear benefits to outweigh the reduction in motivation it will
cause.
If we apply this to the 802 P&P, I fail to see any benefit from having
the same voting entitlement rules for all WGs. It's uniformity for
uniformity's sake, and if you believe in subsiduarity that's just plain
wrong.
Yes, it makes it slightly easier for people moving from one group to
another, but in reality that is an unusual occurance, and it is arguable
that people moving to a new group should be forced into putting a little
bit of effort into learning how the new group works.
So the voting entitlement rules as they stand should be removed from the
802 P&P, and WGs should be allowed to set their own voting entitlement
rules.
Of course, the other alternative is to look at how voting entitlement
could be improved so that having a common set of rules brings real,
practical benefits.
The first option would be to retain the rules, but say that they only
have any effect where the WG has not adopted its own entitlement rules.
This way they would be a fall back for new WGs. (Actually this probably
applies to pretty much all of the 802 P&P applying to WGs, but let's not
get into that...).
Another option would be to recognise that people who make technical
contributions to more than one group are immensely valuable in keeping
802 together (much more so than a 1 hour presentation on Mondays...) and
that the rules should reward such behaviour, rather than punishing it as
they currently do.
I would like to propose that attendance in any 802 WG count for
retaining voting rights in any other 802 WG, but that a member can only
have voting rights in one 802 WG at once. The only way to change the WG
you have rights in is to gain rights in the new WG (by the normal
attendance rules) at which point you lose rights in the old group.
This encourages cross-group working. While in principle someone could
still be a voting member of a WG they haven't attended for years, few
people would actually do this because it would mean they had no rights
in the group they actually do attend.
In order to further encourage cross-group working, a voter in any 802 WG
should have the right to speak in debate, make letter ballot comments,
and propose and second motions in any WG, not just the one in which they
have voting rights. The only thing they can't do is vote, and after a
few 802 meetings you learn that the right to vote itself is relatively
unimportant.
Mike.
________________________________________________________________________
_______
IF YOU WISH to be Removed from this reflector, PLEASE DO NOT send your
request to this CLOSED reflector. We use this valuable tool to
communicate on the issues at hand.
SELF SERVICE OPTION:
Point your Browser to -
http://listserv.ieee.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=STDS-802-11 and then amend
your subscription on the form provided. If you require removal from the
reflector press the LEAVE button.
Further information can be found at:
http://www.ieee802.org/11/Email_Subscribe.html
________________________________________________________________________
_______
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.