Re: [ga] Message from the Chair

["Roberto Gaetano" <roberto.gaetano@voila.fr>]

About the discussion on membership.

Ellen Rony wrote:
>
>  That notwithstanding, the assertion of what constitutes
>membership in the GA does not belong in a discussion of mailing list 
rules
>because it is an overarching principle .
>


I did probably generate some confusion because I answered to a previous 
posting of yours thinking you meant that the membership should not be 
discussed in this mailing list.
I understand now that you mean that we shall start a separate thread. 
Sorry.


About the "naming convention".

>I continue to maintain my stand that the nomenclature chosen, 
ga@dnso.org
>for the filtered version of the list and ga-unfiltered @dnso for the
>everything submitted version contains a bias.  The more descriptive,
>unbiased approach would be to name the two lists ga-filtered@dnso.org 
and
>ga-unfiltered@dnso.org, so that people could decide for themselves 
which
>version they felt was the one true version on which they choose to
>participate.  Otherwise,  believe people will subscribe to the shorter 
name
>on the assumption that it is the general all-inclusive version.
>


There's a question of "naming" and a question of "usage".
I personally believe, but I may stand corrected by statistics once we 
will have them, that the "filtered" list will be the "work" list, i.e. 
the one where most of the debate will take place anyhow, and that most 
of the people will subscribe to, while the "unfiltered" list will be 
like a "log", that people may want to check only under specific 
circumstances (like to check if a filtering action was justified).

I will not fight to death for the name (I am not very sensible to the 
form), but my first assumption is that the shorter name should go to the
 most used list.

>And that raises the question of how we respond to messages if I am 
reading
>the unfiltered version and you are not.  All headers would have to read

>ga-unfiltered@dnso.org, would they not?  Now there's a  reason to give 
the
>shorter name to the all-inclusive version.
>

I am assuming that whatever you specify, it goes to the "unfiltered", 
and then to the "filtered" IIF it passes the filter, no matter what you 
subscribe to.

>
>BTW, if you assert that mail sent to the announce list is considered to
 be
>published to the GA membership, then ga-announce@dnso.org = the GA
>membership, does it not?
>

This sentence is, I believe, taken from the Bylaws, and serves the only 
purpose of a disclaimer: people are free to subscribe to "announce", 
therefore the DNSO will not make any additional effort in reaching 
people individually.
Sort of what most countries do when legislation is passed: it is 
published in some official site (www.dnso.org, in the case under 
examination) and in some official magazine (ga-announce, in the case) 
that you can subscribe to.

Under no circumstance would governments imply that the legislation does 
not affect you if you are not a subscriber or if you did not check the 
site. Similarly, the DNSO considers to have "reached" the community with
 the two actions.

>The problem with having a number of lists comprising the GA membership 
is
>that there is no one place to gather.  You will never be able to have 
an
>all-inclusive discussion for the GA, take any votes, or make any 
decisions
>if you don't bring all the voices together on one list.  Right now 
there
>are, arguably, at least eight lists that could collectively comprise 
the GA
>(consitituencies, GA, GA-announce).  How can you gain any consensus on
>issues from that distribution?  It's like the  horse that was designed 
by a
>committee:  we know it as a camel.


OTOH, either we assume that the "active core" of the GA will remain of 
the same limited size as today, or we have to admit that one single all-
comprehensive mailing list will be unmanageable, and we have to figure 
out different solutions.

Of course, the question of voting is different: to send a ballot on a 
list does not necessarily means that this list behaves as a discussion 
list. In practice, you can well have a list of subscribers, union of all
 mailing lists, that the "votemaster" only can post to, and the ballots 
will go to the sender only and not "Urbi et Orbi".

Regards
Roberto