Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: EXECUTION of DECUS Standards
From: tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:49:07 CST
Reply-To: tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The McCall Pattern Co., Manhattan, KS, USA
Nntp-Posting-User: tp


In article <1992Dec15.192557.13119@cpu.com>, gwlester@cpu.com (Gerald W. Lester)
writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.151045@mccall.com>, tp@mccall.com (Terry Poot) writes:
>>
>>It should perhaps be made clear to the membership that they only get to vote
>>>on the membership of the BOD. Other representative units of DECUS are
>elected
>>solely by the leadership. It should be made clear up front that members who
>>>are not leaders have no voice in how things are done other than by their BOD
>>>votes. This might avoid some of the confusion. 
>
>	It might avoid some confusion, but the statement is **WRONG**!!
>At least the L&T and 3P SIG chairs are elected by the general membership at
>their respective Open SIG Steering Committe meetings members (not restricted
>to leaders) present.  I believe that L&T does put a restriction that DEC
>employees can not vote, but I'm not sure.

I was unaware of this, and I applaud them. They are at least making an effort.
However, if memory serves on the numbers, symposium attendance is 10% or less of
the membership. Furthermore, those meetings are scheduled against technical
sessions that an attendee may be loath to skip, or even against each other,
making it impossible to participate in several. I'm glad, however, to see that
some effort has been made. Hopefully things will improve as other avenues become
available, and hopefully DECUS will work towards making them available.

>>DCS is a closed system. It is only available to the leadership. (I could also
>>argue that DECUServe is a closed system, but I know I'm a minority in that
>>opinion.) However, DCS membership isn't open even to people willing to pay,
>>>only to the leadership.
>
>	Several (most?) of the groups have shared conferences with DECUServe.
>Some of the leaders actually read this newsgroup.

Not being a DECUServe user, I don't completely follow this. If i read it
correctly, that means there are parallel conferences. This would mean that
members are still not given access to the DCS discussions. It's good that a
vehicle for communication exists, but I'm not sure I agree that leadership
needs, as a matter of course, to carry on discussions away from the prying eyes
of the membership.

>>Reactive representation is even slower than full democracy. I don't get a
>>>chance to vote on an issue by voting out a member of the BOD very often. 
>>>Besides, I've yet to see anyone disclose the voting records of the BOD. I
>>>asked once, and as expected, no answer.
>
>	I have, occasionally, seen BOD votes published in DECUScope.

Now that you mention it, I might have as well, but they are few and far
between.

>	You are very much a minority.  The news letter subscription was about
>2% of the membership and a good number of subscribers had/have either or both
>DECUServe or DCS accounts.

Do you know the percentage, by any chance? That's something I've been curious
about from time to time. BTW, as far as the newsletters, I'm glad Joel Snyder is
exploring alternate delivery mechanisms. I wish that had been done before they
newsletters were killed.

>	For some, (I will admit not all) things this has been done.  But it has
>lately been done with focus groups to reduce cost.  The poller's that have
>done
>the groups state that they are statistically representative of the members.

Via random sampling, or just by polling people they know? If the latter, it does
little to address the problem of DECUS being perceived as closed. Even if the
opinions were properly representative, this does nothing to increase involvement
from the membership.

>>I'm a volunteer, and my only representatives are the BOD. ...
>
>	This would then be a problem with how the VMS SIG is organized.  Please
>flame them on this issue.

Why do you identify me with the VMS SIG? :-) VMSnet is there because the first
working group chair put it there. I probably identify more firmly with L&T
overall, being an application programmer who is very interested in tools.
However, my project deadlines correspond with annoying regularity with the
symposia schedule, so I can't make more than 1 out of 3-4 symposia. I didn't
know I could vote on things at symposia. Again, lack of communication down to
the membership. 

The newsletters could have been an effective vehicle to disseminate such
information. For instance, the ballots for SIG representatives could have
appeared in the newsletters, allowing for mail in ballots for those who couldn't
attend symposia. Given that the newsletters are gone, such things could happen
electronically. I note that you don't mention any such activity, even on
DECUServe. And what about the net? I get more info on what DECUS is up to in
this newsgroup than through any official channel (like the standards, issue, for
instance). Yet there has so far been indifference or downright resistance to
such activities.

>>So if Charles and I vote to make Loren our representative, will he get to
>vote
>>on the MC? I didn't think so.
>
>	No, you need three other DECUS members to form a SIG.  Then you can
>elect represetatives who can vote, at least at the SIG council level.

I'm sure it isn't quite that easy. :-)

>>In a representative democracy, every decision is open to public debate. ...
>
>	Not quite true, but close enough (try getting in on some of the debates
>held by the National Security Council or some Senate sub-committes dealing with
>>"security").

I hope there are no analogs to this in DECUS. What decisions are made that it
would be considered dangerous to allow the membership to be aware of? :-)

>>My, wouldn't that be gracious of our mythical sig chair? But the implication
>>>is that most of them wouldn't bother, right? That's the impression I'm
>getting >>from all this, anyway.
>
>	Most of them DID NOT bother.

That's what I thought. Again, lack of communication fostered by the many layers
separating decision makers from those affected.

>	I tend to agree, but unlike the U.S. goverment, DECUS can not (to
>please the vocal voters) spend money that it does not have.

Granted, but it often comes down to priorities. I'm not sufficiently familiar
with the DECUS budget to say where cuts should otherwise have been made, but I'd
be surprised to see that these were the least important activities DECUS
undertakes. Someone mentioned those woods meetings. I'd consider them a real
strong candidate for cutbacks. Another idea would be to dump DCS and put the
leadership onto DECUServe with the rabble. That would do some good, in addition
to maybe saving some money, though I don't know enough about that setup to know
if there would be any real savings to that.

>	<< Much was cut, there were several layers of quotes>>

Thanks for your responses, and for clarifying some of my misconceptions. I'll
defend my misconceptions only to the point that I doubt I'm alone, and so they
in themselves make my point about the need for better communications.
--
Terry Poot <tp@mccall.com>                   The McCall Pattern Company
(uucp: ...!rutgers!depot!mccall!tp)          615 McCall Road
(800)255-2762, in KS (913)776-4041           Manhattan, KS 66502, USA