Re: Alternative (H2)

[Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>]

    Date:        Sun, 1 Jun 2003 11:27:40 -0400
    From:        RJ Atkinson <rja@extremenetworks.com>
    Message-ID:  <951715DE-9445-11D7-B3B5-00039357A82A@extremenetworks.com>

  | H2 does precisely what you seem to wish, because it ensures that some 
  | decision is obtained -- by defining what happens if the CB doesn't reach a 
  | conclusion to confirm.

That isn't the way I read it.

        Regardless of which decision rule the confirming body uses, any
        candidate that is not confirmed under that rule must be rejected.

That, to me, leaves open the possibility of the rule not being
applied, that is "we haven't failed to confirm X, we just
haven't considered X yet".

  | Between a default of confirm or a default of reject, 
  | reasonable people could make different choices, of course.

Yes, in my initial suggested text, I said PQRSed, because at the
time I had no opinion which was better.

Since then I have decided that "default confirm" is the better
choice, as that means that the respect that a decision of the
nomcom should be offered is being retained - it should take a
positive decision of the confirming body to reject someone
(and it avoids one possibility of deadlock caused by a deadlocked
confirming body that simply won't approve anyone the nomcom sends
because of some internal conflict in that body).

  | (I do believe that we are tripping over words here; the joys of 
  | different dialects of English. :-(

Maybe.

  | Please resend that proposed text (with or without letter)
  | as I did not see that note from you.

OK, here it is (again) (with the PQRSed that was in the previous
version replaced by "confirmed").   Call it J if you like...

	4. The confirming body decides whether it confirms each candidate.
	   That decision must be made within a reasonable timeframe.
	   Failing a decision, the slate of candidates, or any candidate
	   not explicitly confirmed or rejected, will be considered to have
	   been confirmed.

Upon reflection (now), I'd probably actually just say (so call this one J
instead...)

	4. The confirming body decides whether it confirms each candidate.
	   That decision must be made and reported to the nominating
	   committee within a reasonable timeframe.   Failing a decision,
	   any candidate not explicitly confirmed or rejected, will be
	   considered to have been confirmed.

  | So far, to the extent I'm understanding your meaning, it appears that H2
  | does what you desire.  Hence I am confused somewhat by your comments.

H2 makes lots of assumptions that are unjustified.  It assumes that the
confirming body has "members", it assumes that it makes decisions by voting,
or by some other rule (that is, it assumes that it needs a rule for making
decisions) and more.   None of that is warranted, and none of it is necessary.

We just say to Z - please tell us if these people are OK.   Z says "yes" or
"no" or doesn't reply (within a reasonable timeframe) at all.   That's all
that matters to us.   Here, we're just trying to work out what happens in
the third of those cases - do do that we don't have to fictionalise a
decision from Z, we simply say that the candidate(s) are confirmed (or perhaps
rejected).

kre