HANDBOOK FOR COMMITTEES
Article 11: Standing and Ad Hoc Committees
Article 7: Binding Votes of the Membership
Article 12, ¶2: Charter Amendments
How a Standing Committee is Convened
The thread that calls for a committee to convene must be started in the Business Room, and volunteers post there that they want to be on the committee. If it is expected that the committee work will result in a vote by the membership, it is helpful to leave the first post of that thread blank for the eventual ballot.
• A thread should be started by a Ranger to convene a Charter Amendment Committee if the Ranger has exercised Extraordinary Powers under Article 3, ¶5.
• A thread should be started by the Mayor to convene a charter Amendment Committee if the quorum as calculated from a moving average falls below 20%
• A thread to call for a Charter Amendment committee or a Binding Vote committee may also be started by any member. If that member is the Mayor, a committee will convene. It that member is a Ranger, one other Ranger must concur and a committee will convene. If that member is an ordinary member, five other members must concur and a committee will convene.
• The Election Committee is convened by the Mayor on August 29 of each year to run the Mayoral election.
• A thread calling for a Technical or Business committee can be started by any member. These two committees are generally ongoing, and the administrator of record (Alandriel) may call for volunteers whenever they are needed.
The persons who call for the committee, and those who concur, should be willing to serve on the committee.
Rules that Apply to All Standing Committees
Volunteers have to be taken in order until the committee has the proper number and composition.
Any committee may ask to meet in the Jury Room for discussion and especially for preparation of any ballots. However, the Business Room thread that convened the committee should be left open so that members can post comments to the committee, If a ballot is presented to the membership for discussion and vote, it should be placed in that same Business Room thread. Ideally, there will be only one Business Room thread for a particular committee topic so that the discussion will not become dispersed.
If committee work results in a vote by the membership, there are always ten days of discussion followed by ten days of voting.
• The ballot should be posted around the 20th of the month so that the vote will begin during the first week of the following month during the normal voting cycle (unless the Mayor has declared an emergency).
• The committee is allowed to revise the ballot based on member comments, and even withdraw the vote entirely based on member comments. Care should be taken, though, that changes are truly representative of member wishes.
• If the vote is a binding vote or ratification, a quorum must be calculated and announced before voting begins. The Mayor will help you obtain the quorum number.
• Votes should close at the last second before midnight GMT at the end of the last day of voting and should be started as close to midnight GMT as possible at the beginning the first day of voting. A vote that begins at midnight GMT on June 27 begins later than that from Europe to Australia and earlier than that in North America. The following schedule should be pasted in the first post of the thread so that people know when the vote ends. (The date shown is given only as an example.)
West Coast, North Am ... 4:00 pm, August 6
East Coast, North Am ... 7:00 pm, August 6
GMT ... last second before midnight, August 6
England ... GMT, August 6
Cont. Europe and S. Africa ... 1:00 am, August 7
India ... 5:00 am, August 7
East Australia ... 9:00 am, August 7
[Add one hour for countries on Daylight Savings Time]
All Binding Vote and Ratification threads (both Jury Room and Business Room) are moved to the History Forum after completion, and links to those threads should be entered in the appropriate History Forum Directory. Ballot results must be entered in the first post if the vote was conducted by PM or email.
Composition of the Various Committees
All committees have an odd number of members.
• Charter Amendment Committee
No fewer than seven, no more than thirteen members. The Mayor and one Loremaster must be members.
If the committee was convened after the exercise of Extraordinary powers by a Ranger, it will also include:
• the current Ranger who was involved in the incident and one other current Ranger;
• one former Ranger;
• a minimum of two volunteers from among the rest of the membership.
If the committee was convened by an initiative of the Mayor or two current Rangers, it will also include:
• the two current Rangers who brought the initiative;
• one former Ranger;
• a minimum of two volunteers from among the rest of the membership.
If the committee was convened by an initiative of the members, it will also include:
• one current Ranger;
• one former Ranger;
• a minimum of three volunteers from among the membership, one of whom will be a member who brought the initiative;
• and if five or more volunteers are accepted from among the membership, two of them will be members who brought the initiative.
• Binding Vote Committee
The general principal is that the number of people required to call for the committee must be matched by an equal number of additional volunteers.
If the committee is convened by the Mayor or by two current Rangers, the committee will be composed of:
• one Loremaster to ensure that the vote is consistent with the Charter;
• the Mayor or the two Rangers who requested the vote;
• volunteers sufficient to bring the size of the committee to five members.
If five members requested the vote, the committee will be composed of:
• one Loremaster to ensure that the vote is consistent with the Charter;
• the five members who requested the vote;
• five volunteers, one of whom must be a current Ranger.
• Election Committee
The current Mayor and two members chosen by the Mayor. They may not be candidates for office.
• Committee for Technical Support
Three members with technical expertise. The current committee is Alatar, Jude and Dave.
• Committee for Business Matters
Seven or nine members, one of whom is the administrator of record (Alandriel) as a practical matter because she must convey information between the board and the server host. The anticipated main task of this committee will be to oversee our move to an independent server and to transfer ownership of the board to the members.
• Ad Hoc Committees
Can be be convened at any time with any number of members to deal with any topic if a majority of Rangers agree that the topic is appropriately handled by a committee.
The Kinds of Vote You May Use and Their Majority Requirements
1. A simple poll for which the board software tallies the vote and a specified percentage wins. 67% approval is required to win.
2. A poll in which the board software tallies the vote and the percentages associated with successive responses which increase or decrease in stringency are aggregated until 67% approval is reached and the response associated with that percentage wins.
3. A secret ballot submitted by PM or email, using either a two-choice format, or an instant runoff format. If it is a two-choice format, 67% approval is required to win. If an Instant Runoff Ballot is used, 51% approval is required for a runoff choice to win.