Re: [atlarge-discuss] Some Simple Facts...

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 13:35:44 +1300, Joop Teernstra
<terastra@terabytz.co.nz> wrote:
>At 02:33 a.m. 8/01/2003, J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin wrote:

>Both Jefsey and David have sound idea's that are valuable. Both should be 
>able to work together and come to a good compromise. We would all benefit.

I've got no problems with Jefsey's ideas.  He just seems to react
badly when you do not agree with him.  As I've said many times I am
just keen for some progress to be made - I don't care too much about
where it comes from.

>If you are both truly anti-fascists, you will agree on a good set of Rules 
>that will hold the "leaders" in check, distribute the "power" , make sure 
>that the membership can always replace its' "leadership" with one of its 
>democratic choice.

Not at all.  What one needs very much so the last one - the ability to
elect and recall leadership.  Whether or not you have a "strong" or
"weak" Board is a matter of legitimate opinion.

Personally I prefer a Board that can actually do things but a built in
mechanism that allows the membership to veto decisions if enough
members object - I believe that works far better than having several
competing power blocs.

>(The Charter that David proposed is perhaps a bit too prone to irreversible 
>capture. More discussion on it is needed and I would caution against rushed 
>implementation)

I don't necessarily advocate the charter I wrote.  The summary one
done by Michael Geist is fine also.  In fact most of the proposed
charters are fine - I am more interested is us having a process so
that one of them can get selected rather than which one it is.

>So far, the only agreement we find among *our* members is that they agreed 
>enough with the contents of the original website to associate their name 
>with it and sign up as an icannatlarge member. They also agreed with the 
>election of a Supervisory Panel for the website.

The 2nd set of elections was for far more than just a website
supervisory panel IMO.

>I am offering the use of a reasonably secure Polling Facility.
>I can see that there is considerable concern about  how the polling 
>questions will be phrased. It is very difficult not to phrase them in a 
>"leading" way, consciously or sub-consciously.
>
>Either we leave this task to a 3 man Polling Commission, or we allow a 
>hundred questions, where all built-in bias will cancel out.
>
>I am willing to help bootstrapping a Polling Commission by taking 
>Nominations and prepare for an election in the Polling Booth.

I 100% oppose this.  For all its faults we do have an elected panel
and they are the only ones with authority to call votes.  It may take
longer and be frustrating but is preferable to unmandated action.

>(this Polling Commission is not your "executive".  All it does is be open 
>to the membership and pass on Polling Questions, both from the executive 
>down and from the grassroots up,  to a membership that *wants* to be polled.
>As its purpose is to create a division of Power, Polling Commissioners 
>cannot serve the icannatlarge in any other capacity)

This is fine if the charter allows for it but until we have a charter,
the only authority is the panel.  If we do not like it we can set up
our own organisation from scratch and try to recruit members for it.

>Along with this election, for the convenience of the members, will also be 
>presented the (seconded) questions of Richard and the (modified) questions 
>of Judyth.

As I have stated some of the questions are wildly biased and to hold
an unauthorised poll on them would not be productive IMO.

>I am not keen on administering the election myself and would like a 
>volunteer bootstrap Polling Officer to receive an admin account in the 
>Polling Booth until the Polling Commission is elected and appoints its own 
>Polling Officer.

The DNSO Secretariat has run all previous votes for us very
efficiently and I see no reason to not keep using them.

DPF
--
E-mail: david@farrar.com
ICQ:    29964527
MSN:    dpf666@hotmail.com

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