22 Mar 2004: Amend Committee Guidelines (Permanent members) v2
From: Mark Goodge <m.goodge@nospam.ukvoting.org.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 20:54:12 +0000
Subject: RESULT: Amend Committee Document (Permanent Members)
- Q1 FAILS, Q2 PASSES, Q3 FAILS
Newsgroups: uk.net.news.announce,uk.net.news.management,uk.net.news.config
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RESULT: Amend the committee document regarding the status of Permanent
Members - Q1 FAILS, Q2 PASSES, Q3 FAILS
(Please note that, due to the known ability of the "swen" virus to
harvest addresses from news postings, all email addresses in this
results posting, including the votetaker's "from" and "reply-to"
addresses, are spamtrapped or munged.)
Voting closed at 23:59:59 GMT, 7th March 2003.
Proponent:
Proponent: David Mahon <dmahonRFD at amigo dot co dot uk>
Votetakers:
Mark Goodge <m dot goodge at ukvoting dot org dot uk>
Distribution:
uk.net.news.announce
uk.net.news.management
======================================================================
The full results follow below in the following order:
1) Information on the ballot
2) Results
3) Individual Vote Details
4) Votetaker's Comments
5) Voting and Appeal Information
6) Rationale and Proposal (from the CFV)
======================================================================
INFORMATION ON THE BALLOT
Voters were asked to vote on three separate proposals:
Question 1:
Do we abolish the Service Provider members? YES/NO (NO is the status quo)
Question 2:
If we do not abolish the Service Provider (Permanent) members, do we
Update the network topology description? YES/NO (NO is the status quo)
Question 3:
If we do not abolish the Service Provider (Permanent) members, do we
A) Allow the committee to select / replace them
B) Elect them on a regular basis
C) Something else (Re-Open Discussion)
D) Status Quo
======================================================================
RESULTS
There were 54 vote emails received.
Question 1:
YES: 13
NO: 41
NO is therefore the winner.
Question 2:
YES: 40
NO: 7
ABSTAIN: 7
YES beats NO (SQ) by more than 12 votes, and is therefore the winner.
Question 3:
This was a multi-option vote. Multi-option votes in the uk.* hierarchy
are decided by a two-stage procedure. All options are first compared with
votes for the status quo, and any which are not preferred to SQ by the
required margin of 12 votes are eliminated. The remaining options, if any,
are then evaluated by the Condorcet method.
STAGE 1
Option D (SQ) equalled Option A with 25 votes each
Option D (SQ) beat Option B by 39 votes to 15
Option D (SQ) beat Option C by 36 votes to 17
Therefore, Option D (SQ) wins and there is no need to proceed to a full
Condorcet count.
======================================================================
INDIVIDUAL VOTE DETAILS
Notes:
1. For questions 1 and 2, voters were asked to vote Yes (Y), No (N) or
Abstain (A).
2. For question 3 Voters were asked to rank the options from 1 (highest)
to 4 (lowest). Equal rankings are allowed, and any unranked options are
considered to be ranked below all ranked options.
3. Voters used a variety of different marks (or lack of them) to indicate
unranked options. Irrespective of the actual character used, all unranked
options have been represented in the table by '-' (dash).
4. The votes column shows the ranking given by the voter to each option.
For example:
A B C D
voter 1 1 2 3 4
voter 2 - 2 1 -
Voter 1 ranked option A first, then B, and then C and then D.
Voter 2 ranked Option C first, then B, and left the other options unranked.
Q3
Name Email Q1 Q2 A B C D
==== ===== == == =======
Adam D. Barratt vote+pro+perm+2004-02?adam-barratt@org@uk N Y 2 4 3 1
Alan Fleming af?etrigan@org N Y 3 4 1 2
Alan LeHun UKvote?lehun@clara@co@uk N Y 1 4 3 2
Alastair alastair_voting?hotmail@com Y Y 2 1 3 4
Andrew Hodgson andrew?hodgsonfamily@org Y Y 2 1 3 4
Annabel Smyth annabel?amsmyth@demon@co@uk Y Y 1 2 4 3
Anthony Gold bigfoot?davros@org N N 2 4 3 1
Barry Dorrans barryd?idunno@org Y Y 4 1 2 3
Barry Salter xcomg?southie@me@uk N Y 1 4 3 2
Brett Paul Dunbar brett?dimetrodon@demon@co@uk N Y 2 4 3 1
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk?dsl@co@uk N Y 2 3 4 1
Charles Lindsey chl?clerew@man@ac@uk N Y 1 4 3 2
Chris Croughton chris?keristor@org N Y 2 4 3 1
Clive Feather clive?davros@org N A 2 4 3 1
Clive R Robertson commstruct?clive@org@uk N Y 2 3 4 1
Dave Johnson requiem?freeuk@com N Y 4 3 2 1
Dave Mason xcomg2?sarnie@org@uk Y Y 4 1 2 3
Dave Mayall dave?research-group@co@uk N N 2 4 3 1
David Mahon dmahon_vote_xcomg2?amigo@co@uk Y Y 3 1 2 4
DavidUri daviduri?bigfoot@com Y Y 1 4 2 3
Edward King eaking?ulape@org@uk N A 1 - - 1
Graham Drabble graham@drabble?lineone@net N N 3 4 1 2
GT Kingston tkingston?dsl@pipex@com Y Y 2 1 3 4
I J Clifton ian@clifton?chemistry@oxford@ac@uk N Y 1 2 3 4
Iain iain?deepsea@force9@co@uk Y Y 3 1 2 3
JBM jpb8?duke@edu N A 2 4 3 1
Jeff McGhie jeff?mcghie@me@uk y y 4 1 2 4
John Reid john@reid?jazza@demon@co@uk N Y 1 4 3 2
kat kat@news?ntlworld@com N A 1 3 4 2
Keith Lawrence adsl?perrydell@com N Y 1 4 2 3
Kim Andrews somerat?hotmail@com n y 1 2 4 3
Mike Fleming mike?tauzero@co@uk N Y 3 4 2 1
Molly Mockford xcomg2?mollymockford@me@uk Y Y 1 4 3 2
Neil Ellwood neil@ellwood2?btopenworld@com N N 3 2 4 1
Owen Rees owen@rees?tesco@net N N 1 4 3 2
Paul Booth paul?grumpy@co@uk N Y 4 1 3 2
Paul Carpenter paul?pcserv@demon@co@uk N Y 1 4 3 2
Paul Cummins paul?cummins@ie@eu@org N Y 1 2 - -
Paul Harper paul?harper@net Y Y 2 1 3 4
Pedt pedt?dontspame@com N Y 2 4 3 1
Pekka P. Pirinen ppp?pirinen@demon@co@uk N Y 1 4 2 3
Pete Fenelon pete?fenelon@com N Y 2 3 4 1
Pete The Gardener pete_the_gardener?hotmail@com N Y 1 4 3 2
Peter Parry peter?wpp@ltd@uk N Y 2 4 3 1
Peter Robinson pmrobinson?gmx@net N A 1 4 3 2
Peter Smyth psmyth?ukf@net N N 3 4 2 1
Philip Powell philip?blencathra@org@uk N A 2 4 3 1
Richard Clayton richard?highwayman@com N N 3 4 2 1
Richard Letts richard-vote?illuin@org N Y 2 - - 1
Roy Ellor roy?ellor@vispa@com Y Y 3 1 2 4
Steve Firth voting?malloc@co@uk N Y 2 4 1 3
Thomas Lee tfl?psp@co@uk N Y 1 4 3 2
Tim Sharrock tim?sharrock@org@uk N A 2 4 3 1
Wm tcnw61?tarrcity@demon@co@uk N Y 1 2 3 1
======================================================================
VOTETAKER'S COMMENTS
As it turned out, this was a pretty simple vote to conduct. Very few
people misread the voting instructions, and there were no invalid votes.
======================================================================
VOTING AND APPEAL GUIDELINES
This vote was conducted by a neutral third party member of UKVoting.
UKVoting is a group of independent votetakers who count votes on behalf
of the uk.* hierarchy and other 3rd parties.
The rules under which votes for the uk.* hierarchy are taken are posted
regularly to uk.net.news.announce or can be found at the following URL:
<ftp://sunsite.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
uk.net.news.announce.
Allegations of irregularity should be sent to control at usenet dot org dot uk.
======================================================================
RATIONALE AND PROPOSAL FROM THE CFV
RATIONALE
In the guidelines it is stated that "The UK Network is topologically a
star network, with a few central sites on an "inner ring" who feed news
to their own branches, and with relatively little cross-communication
between branches away from the root. Inevitably, those few central sites
are in a position to control what goes out to their own branches, and
are therefore classified as Major Service Providers."
This is plainly quite untrue and several years out of date. There is no
such "star network" and by the same definition used above, there are no
"Major Service Providers". It needs replacing.
In addition, because there are no "Major Service Providers", when I
brought up the idea of removing / updating the description, the question
of need of these "Permanent Members" was brought up once more. These
members are unelected, often unheard of in uk.* usenet and are
accountable only to (and represent) a small group of ISPs who have been
chosen based upon historical reasoning rather than current news
distribution. There is no quotable procedure for their selection,
removal or replacement.
There are several options and I think it is best we divide them into
three questions.
Question 1:
Do we abolish the Service Provider members? YES/NO (NO is the status quo)
Question 2:
If we do not abolish the Service Provider (Permanent) members, do we
Update the network topology description? YES/NO (NO is the status quo)
Question 3:
If we do not abolish the Service Provider (Permanent) members, do we
A) Allow the committee to select / replace them
B) Elect them on a regular basis
C) Something else (Re-Open Discussion)
D) Status Quo
A & B also involves a change of name from Permanent members to Service
Provider members.
END RATIONALE
PROPOSAL
In the committee documents, principally
<http://www.usenet.org.uk/committee.html>
Question 1:
Replace the section
"There shall be two classes of member of the Committee.
Permanent Members
The UK Network is topologically a star network, with a few central sites
on an "inner ring" who feed news to their own branches, and with
relatively little cross-communication between branches away from the
root. Inevitably, those few central sites are in a position to control
what goes out to their own branches, and are therefore classified as
Major Service Providers.
The Committee shall include, as Permanent Members, one representative of
each Major Service Provider, up to a maximum of 4 permanent members.
Open Members
An Open Member is any person who is a reader of uk.* articles. There
shall be 9 Open Members."
with
"There shall be 9 Committee Members."
Remove all references to Permanent Members from any other committee
documents and change all reference in the committee documents to "Open
Member" to the generic "Member".
Question 2:
Replace the section
"Permanent Members
The UK Network is topologically a star network, with a few central sites
on an "inner ring" who feed news to their own branches, and with
relatively little cross-communication between branches away from the
root. Inevitably, those few central sites are in a position to control
what goes out to their own branches, and are therefore classified as
Major Service Providers.
The Committee shall include, as Permanent Members, one representative of
each Major Service Provider, up to a maximum of 4 permanent members."
with
"Permanent Members
Although the UK Network may once have been a star network, this is no longer
the case. There are many news servers each of which has multiple connections
to others forming a mesh-like network. There are no central sites in a
position to control what comes in and out of the network as a whole.
The Committee shall include, as Permanent Members, one representative of
up to 4 Service Providers - a maximum of 4 permanent members."
Question 3
OPTION A
Replace the section:
"The Committee shall include, as Permanent Members, one representative
of each Major Service Provider [up to 4 Service Providers], up to a
maximum of 4 permanent members."
with:
"The Committee should include, as Service Provider Members, the
nominated representatives of up to 4 such providers, who shall each hold
office for a period of 3 years. Whenever a vacancy exists (through
retirement, resignation, unavailability or for any other reason) the
elected members of the Committee should invite a provider that is well
respected within the UK Usenet community and plays a significant role in
the propagation and distribution of Usenet, to nominate such a member."
Change all references in other documents to "Permanent" members into
"Service Provider" members.
OPTION B
"The Committee shall include, as Permanent Members, one representative
of each Major Service Provider [up to 4 Service Providers], up to a
maximum of 4 permanent members."
with:
"The Committee shall include, as Service Provider Members, the elected
representatives of up to 3 such providers, who shall hold office for a
period of 3 years. At each annual Committee Election, all Service
Provider members who have served a full 3 year term shall retire from
the Committee. If at this point there are no vacant seats then the
longest serving member(s) will retire (ties to be broken by lot) to
create a vacant seat. Retiring members shall be eligible for
re-election.
Change all references in other documents to "Permanent" members into
"Service Provider" members.
Also change
"The committee has the authority to co-opt members for the Open class.
A co-opted Open member shall retire from the Committee at the next
election after their co-option. The Committee SHALL NOT issue an
"Intention to Co-Opt" notice for the Open class from the date that the
call for nominations for the election is issued until the newly elected
members have taken their places as Committee-Elect members."
To
"The committee has the authority to co-opt members.
A co-opted member shall retire from the Committee at the next election
after their co-option. The Committee SHALL NOT issue an "Intention to
Co-Opt" notice from the date that the call for nominations for the
election is issued until the newly elected members have taken their
places as Committee-Elect members."
And change
"Each year during September, Control shall post (on behalf of the
votetaking organisation) to uk.net.news.announce a call for nominations
for the Open class of members. Nominations shall remain open for three
weeks, and each candidate must receive 4 nominations; each nominator may
nominate at most as many candidates in each class as there are places
within that class in the election."
To
"Each year during September, Control shall post (on behalf of the
votetaking organisation) to uk.net.news.announce a call for nominations
for the Open class of members. Nominations shall remain open for three
weeks, and each candidate must receive 4 nominations; each nominator may
nominate at most as many candidates as there are places in the election.
At the same time, nominations may also be made for the Service Provider
class of membership. Prospective Service Provider members should
nominate themselves directly. Their eligibility to stand in this class
will be checked by UKVoting. To be eligible, a Service Provider should
be responsible for a news server that peers directly with at least 10
other news servers"
OPTION C
ROD
OPTION D
Status Quo
END PROPOSAL
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