11 May 1999: Terms of Reference for IE Usenet Committee

From: swinny@cix.co.uk (Rob Felton)
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 23:38 +0100 (BST)
Subject: RESULTS - Terms of Reference for IE Usenet Committee PASSES 21:8
Newsgroups: soc.culture.irish,ie.general,ie.news,ie.announce

RESULT OF CALL FOR VOTES

Summary: Terms of Reference for IE Usenet Committee

Terms of Reference for IE Usenet Committee PASSES 21:8

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Voting closed at 23:59:59 BST, 18th April 1999.

Proponent: alex@medianet.ie (Alex French)
Votetaker: votequestion@swinny.cix.co.uk (Rob Felton)
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Distribution:
ie.general, soc.culture.irish, ie.news, ie.announce

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The Results:

The results follow below in the following order:

1) Result
2) Particulars of the Vote
3) Votetakers comments
4) Voting and Appeal guidelines
5) Rationale & Newsgroup charter

PROPOSAL - Terms of Reference for IE Usenet Committee

For this vote to be valid a criteria of 20 votes had to be met - 29 valid 
votes were received and so the vote passed this criteria.

YES     = 21  = 72.41%
NO      = 8   = 27.59%
ABSTAIN = 0   = 00.00%

YES beat NO by a majority of 13 votes.

For this vote to be valid a criteria of 66% vote for YES had to be met - 
YES won with 72.41% of the vote and so the vote passed this criteria.

Therefore the proposal met both criteria and so PASSES.

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The Particulars of the Vote

YES VOTES

Arthur Green       ajgreen@iol##EI
David Wolverson    davidw@indigo##EI
Joe Doyle          sanjose@clubi##EI
Brian O'Byrne      bobyrne@iol##EI
pauline mccaffrey  mccaffrp@tcd##EI
David Wolverson    davidw@indigo##EI
Stephen Hanafin    stephen@kilkenny@ten
Derek O'Neill      elf@iol##EI
Gareth Martin      gar@indigo##EI
Stephen Drumm      sdrumm@iol##EI
Robert Fahey       shinji@qamex@ocm
Tom Cosgrave       tpc@indigo##EI
Diarmuid Collins   dcollins@s3two##EI
Juan Flynn         jjjuan=nm@maths.tcd##EI
Dermot Frost       dfrost@maths.tcd##EI
Michael Collins    michael@netsoc.tcd##EI
Alex French        alex@medianet##EI
Matthew Sammon     hibernia@clubi##EI
Adam Comerford     adam@netsoc.tcd##EI
Gerard Cunningham  abardubh@wwa@ocm
helena kim         helena@netsoc.tcd##EI


NO VOTES

Aoife Tierney           aoife@binky@ten
Raymond Leger           ray@esat@ten
Shakira Ni Cheallaigh   shakira@orca.ucd##EI
Conor Foley             conor@dspsrv@ocm
Joe Power               joe@vendor##EI
Dave Rynne              dave@esat@ten
Chris Higgins           chris@esat@ten
alan pearse             twenty@iol##EI

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Votetakers Notes:

I apologise a delay in realising the results - this is due to a number of 
reasons within real life.

There were no problems with the vote and so it passed without incident.

And can I please wish the irish hierarchy good luck in the future and I 
hope the Committee - Good Luck!!!!

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This vote was conducted by a neutral third party member of UKVoting.
UKVoting is a group of independent votetakers who count votes on CFVs in
the uk hierarchy and for other parties including the irish hierarchy. 
The rules under which this vote is taken are posted
regularly to uk.net.news.announce or can be found at the following URL:
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/uk/voting

The UKVoting web pages can be found at http://www.ukvoting.org.uk/

There is a five day discussion period after these results are posted to
the relevant newsgroups.

Allegations of irregularity should be sent to ukvoting@ukvoting.org.uk.

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RATIONALE: 
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The Terms of Reference below are based on the UK Usenet Committee ToR,
available from http://www.usenet.org.uk. These have been modified
based on suggestions by ie.* readers, Irish Usenet administrators and
members of the UK Committee.

The motivation in proposing this committee is to have the ie.*
hierarchy overseen by a committee composed of both ie.* readers and
Usenet administrators, rather than the present situation of control
residing in a single ISP (Esat Net). Esat inherited this position from
EUNet, which held it for historical reasons.

While there is no implied criticism of Esat's stewardship of ie.*,
there is increasing feeling that if the ie.* hierarchy is to grow
alongside the Irish Internet community, a lot of work needs to be
done. Specifically, the rules for creating a new ie.* group need to be
documented and made widely available, guidance on group naming should
be available and FAQ lists should be set up for existing groups.

Many people seem to feel that a mixed group representing the interests
of ISPs and users alike would be the best way forward.

Please note that the ToR below are purposefully vague in some areas.
It is intended that a committee would, as its first job, propose a
more complete set of rules which could be voted on by ie.* readers.

Note that at this stage people should *not* be nominated for the
committee. Before this can happen we, the ie.* readers, must decide if
a committee is necessary at this stage.

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PROPOSED IE USENET TERMS OF REFERENCE 
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The remit of the IE Usenet Committee is to provide leadership in
policy concerning the ie.* news hierarchy.

The committee is concerned with issues such as naming, voting and 
management of the hierarchy.

It will monitor the naming of new groups to insure they fit in with an
acceptable structure.

The committee has no control over individual articles in ie.* groups
or on their content. The committee will not moderate groups with the
exception of the group of record (see below).

It will ensure that the rules for group creation are documented,
followed and applied.

It will ensure that a list of Frequently Asked Questions is compiled
for each ie.* group by the readers of that group and it will ensure
that these lists are publicly available.

It will appoint, and oversee the work of, the person to act as
Control.

Initial Duties

Once elected, the committee shall create an official ie.* group of
record. This will be used to propose new groups, nominate new
committee members, etc.

Membership

There shall be two classes of member of the Committee.

1. News Administrator Members

A News Administrator is a person responsible for administering or 
overseeing the Usenet system on a large site. Any site with 100 or
more Usenet users shall be considered "large" for the purposes of this

document.

The Committee shall include, as Newsadmin members, 3 such news 
administrators.

2. Open Members

An Open Member is any person who is a reader of ie.* newsgroups. An
Open  member may not be a News Administrator, as defined above.

The Committee shall include 3 Open Members.

Term

One third of each elected class of member shall retire each year (if
more than one third have not already served a full 3 years, the choice
shall be made by lot). Retiring members shall be eligible for
re-election. Other vacancies that may arise shall be filled at the
next annual election.

Control

The person appointed as Control must be an elected News Administrator
member of the Committee.

He will moderate the group of record and  shall be the sole person
entitled to issue valid 'newgroup', 'rmgroup' and 'checkgroups'
control messages for the ie.* hierarchy. He will perform all other
duties necessary for the efficient management of the ie.* hierarchy.

Elections

1. Each year during January, Control shall post to the group of record
a call for nominations for the News Administrators and Open classes of
members. Nominations shall remain open for two weeks, and each
candidate must receive 2 nominations.

2. If the number of persons nominated in any class exceeds the number
of vacancies, an independent vote taker will be appointed by the
Committee, and he shall be responsible for conducting a vote. Voting
shall take place during February. The CFV shall be posted in the group
of record.

3. Separate votes will be conducted for each class of member.

Rule Changes

Any changes to these rules, or those in the companion documents, shall
be proposed in an RFD. RFDs for rule changes shall be discussed in the
newsgroup of record for a minimum of 21 days, and this will be the
definitive record of discussion.

If the change is trivial, or an obvious consensus has emerged, then
the RFD may be accepted without a vote. However, if a petition to have
a Vote is posted in the group of record by 2 or more people, then the
matter shall be decided by vote.

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Thanks

Swinny - Rob Felton
Co-Ordinator, UKVoting (mailto:ukvoting@usenet.org.uk)