Hi Dale,

I have just gone over this Echo and found a few messages that I must have
missed. The volume of traffic had postings in between my replies, so some
things are out of order... 


 PK> I think this was one of the reasons why many RC's gave up, there was
 PK> just  total confusion over WHICH document was being voted on. Too 
 PK> many options were posted and that led to some confusion. My 

 DS>    There was one major proposal that was being published as the
 DS>    consensus of a large group of workers.  Others did float other
 DS>    possibilities, but there was never really more than one document
 DS>    under consideration.

Thats not the way I saw it. I saw several postings in the echo, some with
just the modifications (and 2 versions of that), some as a complete
document but in multiple parts.


 PK> 2. The IC rallies the RC's in an RC (+IC) only Echo.

 DS>   Almost -- it was not an RC only echo, it was the IC's echo -- and he
 DS>   more or less forbade moving it to the RC only echo.

IMHO the IC echo with so many people present was a fatal mistake. It looked
like war broke out with all the different requests for changes to the
document. Very confusing.



 PK> 3. When enough are there, the IC distributes the document to the
 PK> RC's. This  can be done as a posting in the Echo and/or offer it for 
 PK> pickup from a SINGLE distribution site.

 DS>    Done -- Bob Short posted it in the echo, and in fidonews.

No, not as cleanly as it should have been. The first posting was a sumary
of the changes. That summary was NOT for consideration by the RC's.
According to Policy they MUST consider an entire document, not parts of
one. Eventually we did see a complete document. That is the one that was
rejected.


 PK> 4. The RC's review the document and say YES or NO to a referendum.

 DS>    They should have -- but too many of them did not say anything.
 DS>    Enough were there, but they went away without casting a vote.

There was something like a 2:1 vote against the new document. Even if 100%
of the votes had been FOR the change, the total votes were below that
required (>50%). 


 PK> IMHO, once a new document is sent to the IC, there should 
 PK> be no further "general discussion" about the document in 

 DS>    Difficult to squelch discussion in any fido echo.

True, but in an RC only echo any discussion would have been between people
that needed to be present to discuss it. In an Echo accessed by many, it
only clouded the process.


 PK> any areas related to the *C structure that needs to make a
 PK> decision. They need to make that decision based on a CLEAN 
 PK> table, not one littered with crumbs. If the RC's need to 
 PK> ask a question, then that should be put to the rep and 
 PK> he(she) may refer back to the group (if they exist) for a 
 PK> response.

 DS>   we were there to answer any questions, and did so on multiple
 DS>   occasions.  As well as to correct mis-statements that some made about
 DS>   what the document said.

I saw too many people making comments to work out who was speaking for what
group or not. Considering that a number of people were discussing changes
to the docuemnt to put forwrd to the RC's, it was hard to workout what if
anything had actually been put forward.


 PK> Every RC I talked to indicated they would have voted YES to 
 PK> that. Unfortunately I only received replies from about 25% 
 PK> of them.....;-(

 DS>   Then why didn't they even respond to that proposal when it was
 DS>   presented to them more than  three years ago -- before the last
 DS>   proposal even began.

In the past 5 years that I have been an RC, I have been totally UNAWARE of
any proposal being put before the RC's, except for the one in Feb/March
this year. NONE of the other RC's that I communicated with about this
"rumor" were aware of a referendum at that time either. I know
Frank Vest contacted me about such a proposal sometime back, but I NEVER
saw nor heard anything further about it. That one disappeard into the thin
air it arrived with.


 PK> BTW, were you aware that Ward indicated he had received a 
 PK> total of 6 other Policy proposals AFTER the last attempt? 
 PK> There is certainly enough interest in changing Policy, we 
 PK> just have to find the right combinations to get the process to work.

 DS>   I had not seen that -- wonder how they differ from what was
 DS>   considered?  Perhaps one such proposal was the one Ward presented
 DS>   after he was no longer IC?

I doubt it, Wards comment on this came just after the last attempt had
failed and long before the recent fiasco. I understand from Ward that they
convered a wide variety of issues, but few of those looked even reasonable
to Ward. I never heard anything more about them...

Its ironic that for a communications based group of people we do sometimes
seem to communicate poorly with each other.........;-(

Cheers...........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01