Dear All,
 
I cannot but deplore the developments and discussions that are available in
this conference. If this continues then the effort will die a silent death,
the discussion will slide towards a typical policy-cruncher gutter and be
washed away come spring when the snows melt (on the northern hemisphere).
 
RC's are going to lose intrest, several did hook-up here in anticipation
that something exciting was happening but it is the same discouraging
nagging all over again.
 
I've got all day to read this, but several participants not. They have a
job and other things in their life. Reading this conference, and others,
comes after most things of the day have been taken care of.
 
There has been a multi-disciplinary group from several regions and zones
which prepared a proposal ... over a year ago. Everybody who wanted to have
a say or was the least bit involved could have had the floor, if you didn't
take that opportunity then "tough shit on you".
 
There has been an ill-fated attempt close to a year ago to get the
referendum going. Except a small minority, probably most of them members of
the drafting-group, nobody cared to lift a finger and inform the IC of
their wish.
 
A year has gone by, there were close to 365 days to still discuss the
proposed changes and fine-tune them into something that might suit
individual tastes better, but the silence was deafening.
 
Only now, at this point when the process has been put in motion and the
ball starts rolling do discussions flare-up here that do the cause no good.
I'm very close to calling it a day and do something else.
 
The discussion, as I see it, is completely useless and the proposal does
not need to be re-invented nor discussed in-depth. It's there already.
 
The coming week-end I'm going to Ireland with my family for dinner but soon
after that I will publish the different ways and paths to help the RC's in
asking the IC to run a formal referendum for a policy-change based-upon the
version as will appear in next Monday's Fidonews. It will simply take an
"aye", "naye" or "abstain" where
"abstain" will be counted as a "naye".
 
At that moment there will be a clear view if the proposal as it stands will
go ahead for a vote or whether the drafters will have more work to do.
 
This is the way it will go. I'm sorry to butt in but the current discussion
is leading us nowhere. With my way of proceeding at least the effort gets
somewhere, even if it's square one.
 
Take care,
 
 \%/{at}rd Dossche
     IC

--- DB 1.58/001877