From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:09:39 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 2
Message 151       Tue Apr 14, 1992
L.ZETTEL [Len]               at 22:07 EDT
 
  Some of you who have not had the (mis?)fortune to attend 
 a standards meeting may have wondered what it is like.  If 
 you had showed up at one, typically you would have come into 
 a room with a hollow rectangle of tables.  Eight or nine 
 people would be seated there, each with a large three-ring 
 binder on the table in front of them, along with a spread of 
 papers, notes, coffee cup, and miscellaneous debris.
  Somewhere in the vicinity would be a table holding a 
 coffee urn or two, beverage paraphernalia, and assorted 
 gnosheries - Danish or what have you.  At another table there 
 would be piles of freshly Xeroxed proposals or other 
 documents needing committee action.  Somewhere nearby a 
 couple of people might be working at notebook computers, 
 creating yet more grist for the committee mill.
  If the Technical Subcommittee (TSC) is in session, Greg 
 Bailey will be presiding, keeping track of things with his 
 state-of-the-art database, a collection of three by five 
 cards.  These mark the progress of proposals through the TSC.  
 In the TSC everybody in the room gets not only to participate 
 in the often heated discussion, but also to vote.  The matter 
 on the floor is usually a proposal, and there is all the 
 usual machinery of parliamentary maneuver under Roberts' 
 rules - motions to amend, amendments to amendments, friendly 
 amendments, points of order, and what not.  
  When the smoke finally clears, the subcommittee will 
 have voted a recommendation to the Technical Committee (TC).  
 This will be either acceptance or rejection of the proposal 
 as amended.  Voting results come in two categories - clear 
 (say 10-2) or controversial (8-5).  If the proposal came from 
 a committee member, it might have gotten amended to the point 
 where what passed was the opposite of what was in the 
 original proposal.
  At some point the TSC will adjourn and the TC (largely 
 the same people) will convene to consider the TSC 
 recommendations.  (one of our favorite running in jokes is 
 for the TC to refer to "those turkeys on the TSC", and vice 
 versa).  At this point the gavel passes to Elizabeth Rather.  
 Things get a bit more formal.  Now, while everybody can still 
 join in the discussion, only members of the committee or 
 their official alternates can vote.  A session often starts 
 with a call for a show of hands of voting members present. 
 The secretary (Martin Tracy or Don Colburn) will start taking 
 notes on his laptop.
  Now each proposal acted on by the TSC gets considered 
 all over again.  Most often, a clear TSC action is confirmed.  
 Amendments, usually to clarify the language, may be offered 
 and passed.  Every now and then serious substantive 
 alterations are made.  If discussion goes on too long or the 
 TC vote is badly divided, there is a motion to recommit to 
 the TSC, and if that passes the whole thing starts over 
 another day.  After each proposal by someone not on the TC is 
 passed or rejected, someone is named (or volunteers) to 
 prepare a response to the proposer, which thanks them for 
 their interest and explains what we did and why as 
 diplomatically as possible.
  Just after the final adjournment, the TC chair, the 
 secretary and the document editor get together to compare 
 their notes on the amendments, reassignments, amendment 
 withdrawals etc. to make a final check and agree on what the 
 official result of each change to the standard was.  The 
 final final check comes when the next Basis comes out and 
 members compare the print with how they remember the meetings 
 went. 
  So there you have one participant's view of how it works 
 (worked).  Anybody want to add something? What did I miss?
                  -LenZ-
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