[Rets-dev] Governance Document

[Matt Lavallee]

As H.L. Mencken once said:
"No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating
the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."

I, too, considered the "safety net" of the general assembly, but the governance
doc seemed to indicate that Subscribers (rightfully) have more power than the
non-subscribed participant base.
I apologize that I only read the doc once for content and points, and can't cite
specific examples.  In particular, this seemed to be the case in Workgroups, as
it related to quorums of Subscribers.

To paint with a broad brush, I'd say that the general assembly would be unlikely
to decline the results of a specific workgroup -- even if there were a number of
dissenting Subscribers in the assembly.  Therefore, if the results of a
workgroup can be "stuffed", then that is likely all one organization needs to
impose their will.

Again, it may not even be a solvable problem.  Perhaps disclosure of affiliation
at the formation of the workgroup, then again when presenting the results, would
be enough to allow the masses to make an informed decision.

-Matt


On Tuesday, August 07, 2007 at 5:37 AM, Gregg Petch wrote:
>
> Matt,
> 
> The Governance Workgroup was very concerned about this as well. We
> explored several models to eliminate the possibility of any one
> organization being able to "stuff" the vote. At the end of the day we
> arrived at the conclusion that by setting voting eligibility
> requirements to ensure active participation in the community as long as
> individuals meet this requirement they should have the right to vote.
> Your example below of a workgroup consisting of a large representation
> from a single organization is a good one. The way that this gets
> balanced is to have active participation from the entire community on
> workgroups. In my opinion it is not fair to penalize individuals who are
> volunteering their time to the community just because of company
> affiliation. While the possibility may exist of some unbalance on
> workgroups the vote by the General Assembly should provide the necessary
> checks and balances in the voting process.
> 
> I look forward to discussing this with the community this week in
> Chicago.
> 
> Gregg
>