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This time for real.
I know that a committee was already self-organizing in another thread, but it seems to have gotten swept away by other things in the thread, and no committee formulation thread was created. So just consider this as moving that to a place where it is easy to see, and if people would volunteer one more time in this thread it would be appreciated. I'll update the committee list in this first post.
Estel also started a thread for this purpose some time ago, and that also seems to have died a natural death because people discussed divergent improvements in the thread but without setting up a committee and going to the jury room and creating goals for what would be done.
Whether anyone wants to see me be the one to call for a charter amendment committee is something I will talk about later. Technically I have to be on any charter committee that forms now because technically this is the charter committee that should have formed after I invoked extraordinary powers in December, 2005.
We are arguably required to amend the charter for all three reasons above. Whether or not River needed to invoke Extraordinary Powers is questionable, imo, but I invoked them in December of 2005 and no committee bothered to show up and do the job at that time in spite of TED's best efforts to get it going. Our quorum is way below 20% of registered members by now ... have we even got 60 people regularly posting here much less voting? And finally, I'm still a member of this board and I can call a committee if I want to.
Quote: ¶2: Amendments to the Charter[/size]
Ratified by the membership August 8, 2005
A committee to Amend the Charter can be convened under three circumstances:
• A Ranger has exercised Extraordinary powers requiring review in accordance with Article 3, ¶5. The committee will decide whether the circumstance is anticipated to occur again with sufficient frequency to justify an Amendment to the Charter;
• An Initiative to amend the Charter is brought by the Mayor, or by two current Rangers, or by five members regardless of their status;
• The quorum as calculated from a moving average falls below 20% and the board must reconsider participation requirements for Binding Votes and ratification of Charter Amendments.
(So can CG. And if people want to work on his issue, we'll just avoid that issue in the committee I'm calling for and they can do their own thing.)
So, I propose a charter amendment committee for the following purpose:
The following charter elements would not be addressed by this particular committee:
• OUR MISSION STATEMENT
• OUR KEY PRINCIPLES
• OUR ADMINISTRATIVE AND GOVERNANCE PROCEDURES
Article 1: Board77 is a member-moderated board
Article 2: Member Rights and Responsibilities
Article 6: Age Restricted Forum
Article 8: Policy on Thread Deletions
Article 9: Policy on Forum Readability
Article 10: Goals
• RESOLUTIONS OF THE MEMBERSHIP
The committe would propose whether to repeal in their entirety the following elements:
• OWNERSHIP OF BOARD77 -- repeal and replace with short description of current ‘ownership’ and payment arrangements
• OUR ADMINISTRATIVE AND GOVERNANCE PROCEDURES
Article 4: Office of the Mayor -- repeal and transfer responsibilities to the rangers (includes amending other paragraphs of the charter that are affected)
Article 5: Dispute Resolution in the Outside Forum[/size]
..... ¶7: Hearings to Remove an Elected Official
Article 11: Standing Committees and Ad hoc Committees
.....¶3: Election Committee
.....¶4: Committee for Technical Support
.....¶5: Committee for Business Matters -- this content probably belongs under the new “ownership†description, if anywhere
The committe would propose how to simplify and improve the following elements:
• OUR ADMINISTRATIVE AND GOVERNANCE PROCEDURES
Article 3: Rangers (Administrators)
.....¶3: Selection of Rangers -- if considered necessary
.....¶5: Special and Emergency powers of Rangers
.....¶7: How to Contest the Decision of a Ranger
.....¶8: When is a Ranger Removed from Office -- if considered necessary
Article 5: Dispute Resolution in the Outside Forum
.....¶3: Hearings and Selection of a Jury for Hearings
.....¶4: Procedure for Hearings
.....¶5: Procedure for Hearings on a Ban
.....¶6: Procedure for Hearings to Remove a Ranger
.....¶8: Appealing the Decision of a Jury
.....¶9: Offenses That Merit a Penalty
Article 7: Binding Votes and Initiatives of the Membership
Article 11: Standing Committees and Ad hoc Committees -- Articles 7 and 11 can probably be just collapsed into one because we only need to preserve initiative and voting rights as charter elements, not spend a page detailing how to do it
Article 12: Ratification and Amendments -- if considered necessary
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The charter requires me to be on its decimation commitee, and so I am willing to do it. I don't feel qualified, however, to make proposals for specific changes because I don't post here often enough, and am unlikely to be spending lots of time posting anywhere in the immediate future. I'm involved right now in a book collaboration and am trying to reorganize my life after caring for elderly parents for 14 years.
But I know what steps have to be followed to go from idea to concrete proposal, like creating a thread where all committee names are in one place that doesn't have other conversation in it (above), drafting the agenda for approval (above), and then doing the actual proposals in the jury room where people are undistracted. I don't mind assembling the donkey work of this sort, and I don't mind telling you what things in the charter looked perfectly clear to me but were obviously incomprehensible to the posters trying to use the charter, and therefore should be simplified. But what you want the final product to look like is really not for me to say and I'm not going to argue with anyone about what should or should not be in the charter.
Because the amount of amendment needed at this time is so extensive, i.e. whole sections needing to be removed, my one and only substantive suggestion would be that the old charter have it's thread title changed to "Old Charter" and be locked and moved to Michel Delving forever. And the new charter be repackaged and reordered and renumbered as the committee sees fit, so that basically you have a new constitution to present to the members.
edit to add: personally, I think this can be done before Christmas if people just decide to do it.