Re: [atlarge-discuss] FW: Provisional Membership Committee- REPORT Part 1

["Ron Sherwood" <sherwood@islands.vi>]

Good evening, Joanna:

Thank you for your careful analysis of the PMC report and the conclusions
that you draw.

I did not realize that your previous report was in fact a "draft" for
markup.  Although on re-reading it I note that you had written "thanks for
the feedback".

As you will see from the membership committee correspondence, most of the 24
hours was spent with very few members in attendance.  I asked for a
chairperson, Sotiris proposed a chairperson, his proposal was seconded, but
in discussion it was stated that we had no need for such an office because
of the small number of participants and the short duration of our mandate.
I, by default, attempted to bring some order and action to the committee.
Some members actively addressed the issues while others spent their time
questioning the legality of what we were doing, wanting to re-verify the
membership of the committee and addressing other matters outside of our
mandate.

After getting little accomplished, I suggested that since the Panel was in
session and had greater access to the input of the eleven Panel members than
we did, that we simply report our areas of concern to the Panel and suggest
that the Panel, with its validated authority, demand that its members comply
with the three simple requirements of: validation, commitment and
introduction to the membership.  I asked for a vote on this issue and the
response was that nothing could be proposed or seconded or even discussed
without a chairperson. Not even the proposal or seconding of a chairperson.
This behavior is not untypical of the membership of this organization, but
makes progress very difficult.

I then suggested a simple report as outlined above and asked for people to
respond with input (just as you did this morning, but more clearly and with
some urgency because of the minimal amount of time left to us).  Two members
responded with clear input and supportive votes.  Others declined to vote
and sign off on anything.  Based upon that I told the membership that I
would present the report as my understanding of what we had determined and
what our concerns were.  I had asked many times "Does any member of this
committee believe that a non-person has been elected to the Panel?"  Non
responded that they had that belief therefore I reported that the committee
believed that all elected Panelists were real persons.  We did not have the
time or the means of dealing with one Panelist who had not posted to any
forum. I also reported that fact.

The other two requirements remained unmet by some panelists and that too was
reported.  When I asked for people to sign off on the document.  There were
few who even responded to the request. When I asked for supportive or
negative votes I received two supportive votes and no negative votes.  This
was obviously insufficient to sign off on the document as the will of the
Panel, so I represented it as simply my report on what I perceived had
happened, and listed those committee members who had participated at some
point in the proceedings and those who had not.  I had absolutely no way of
knowing who was attending but not posting and who was not in attendance at
any particular time.  Only one attendee said he was to be away for 1 hour.
(It subsequently turned out that four hours later, after the session was
closed, he returned to complain that he did not agree with the report.)

The report was sent to all committee members for approval and modification
as appropriate. The document was modified to include _every_ response.  The
committee session was extended for 30 minutes beyond its mandated time in
order to accommodate the changes and the presentation of the final draft.
It was then sent to the Panel and to the discuss list.

The following morning, I found that some of the Panel members who had failed
to attend the latter part of the meeting had complained that they did not
agree with the report.  This included two who had attended and who's
eleventh hour comments had been added to the document as addenda.

Please note that none of the complainants had taken any kind of leadership
position in the committee meeting, nor had they proposed any kind of report.
No-one offered any alternative document. The members who actually attended
the meeting full time and had made positive contributions, were presumably
satisfied with the report to the extent that they made only positive changes
to it.

This was essentially an impossible task to complete. The best that could be
accomplished under the circumstances was the very limited report that you
are now able to use as a foundation for your fine and constructive analysis.

Please assume the chair of this committee, Joanna.  We need you.

Ron Sherwood

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joanna Lane" <jo-uk@rcn.com>
To: "Atlarge-Discuss@Lists. Fitug. De" <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 7:57 PM
Subject: [atlarge-discuss] FW: Provisional Membership Committee- REPORT Part
1


> I apologize in advance for this boring but important post. This is Part 1,
> which covers my review of the PMC Report as submitted to the Panel. Part 2
> is my own analysis of verifiable information received by the PMC as a
whole
> and follows this shortly.
>
> _____________________________________
>
> Unfortunately I was unavailable Saturday June 6th when the Provisional
> Membership Committee "met" to undertake the ID verification of the top 11
> Candidates and 7 replacement candidates of the 2003 Panel Election, on
which
> the report to the Panel was based.
>
> However, as a Member of the Committee, I did receive all copies of the
> private exchanges and reviewed these later, together with a copy of the
> report submitted to the Panel, which draws various conclusions and claims
> consensus of the Committee, with exceptions noted by some members.
>
> The result of my review is that I found no conclusive evidence that a
> consensus decision was reached amongst Committee members to substantiate
> some of the claims being made or implied in the report. Furthermore, while
I
> found that the majority of Candidates had indeed been verified to be who
> they claimed to be beyond reasonable doubt, there are some notable
> exceptions. That is not to say these candidates could not be verified to
> satisfy remaining doubts given more time, but it does mean to say that
> doubts remain with respect to some elected Panelists, as well as
replacement
> candidates, which can be attributed largely to the very limited response
> from the candidate themselves.
>
> In addition, I found that while those members of the Committee who had
> objected to some of the claims being made in the report, had their
> dissenting voice added to the notes at the bottom of the report, the names
> of others who had not even seen the report, were added to the bottom as if
> they had somehow followed the process from start to finish and signed off
on
> the final document. So those who had not responded either negatively or
> positively to the conclusions reached, were nevertheless added as if they
> were endorsers to the report, but without their knowledge or consent. I
> consider this aspect of the report to be misleading the Panel. Even though
> it does say the names relate simply to participation in the committee, the
> distinction between those who had participated for some of the time and
> those who had participated fully and reached a consensus agreement was not
> adequately made. Since the report was published, one member who did sign
off
> on it, has indicated they found it difficult to follow, and are now
perhaps
> having second thoughts.
>
> Having myself now reached the conclusion that not all the Candidates were
> verified beyond reasonable doubt (which I repeat is not to say they could
> not be given more time) I have my own analysis of the data and sent a
draft
> of this more than 12 hours ago to all PMC members for comments, errors and
> omissions, prior to publishing on the public list. I suspected I had
missed
> something because my conclusions did not agree with the published report.
>
> In order to be sure to reach as many PMC Members as possible, I allowed
> considerably more time for comment on my draft than was allowed for the
> total Saturday work session on which the PMC Report was based by the PMC.
At
> the time of writing I have not received a single amendment to my draft, so
I
> am posting it "as is" for the membership to draw their own conclusions.
>
> Just before I do this, let me stress that I think the PMC is a *very good
> thing*, and that whatever the shortcomings I may be exposing, it is not
done
> with the intention of laying blame on anybody or intended to demean the
> standing of the PMC. On the contrary, as I have stated previously, this is
> one area which is new territory to explore for the At Large Movement and
> even if this first attempt is not the perfect result we all wish to see,
it
> is certainly a step in the right direction. Public Recognition of ID
> Verification as a step necessary to the well-being of this organization,
is,
> in my view, a *huge* step forward, whatever the result of that process on
> this occasion.
>
> Let's use this experience to develop a process which cannot so easily be
> pulled apart next time.
> Peace,
>
> Joanna
>
>
>
>
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