Re: IAOC Request for community feedback

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

Dale,

On Nov 1, 2012, at 9:38 AM, Dale R. Worley wrote:

> There seems to me to be a "constitutional" issue that has not been
> addressed, and may well bedevil us in the future:  In any collective
> body, there is a concept of a quorum, which is set high enough to
> ensure that the actions of any meeting represent the opinions of the
> body as a whole, and which is set low enough that the expected level
> of absences will not prevent business from being done.
> 
> The current crisis is (apparently) due to the chronic absence of *one*
> member causing *chronic* failures of the IAOC to achieve a quorum.
> This suggests to me that the quorum of the IAOC is too high to allow
> it to reliably conduct business -- after all, any of a thousand
> accidents can cause one member to be absent for a long period of time.
> 
> What are the quorum rules of the IAOC?  Should they be revised?

The rules for a quorum are defined in the IAOC administrative procedures.  They can be found in Section 3 at:

  http://iaoc.ietf.org/docs/IAOC-Administrative-Procedures-9-16-2010.pdf

The issue with a quorum is not if a single member can not attend a meeting, it is what happens if there are also a few members who for reasons like travel can not attend.  This has happened once since the last IETF meeting.  Having one person missing over a long period of time makes it harder to obtain a quorum, it doesn't make it impossible.  It would be a bigger problem if another member could not make a number of meetings (for whatever reason).

There are a number of other reasons why a missing member is a problem.  They may have specific responsibilities they are not performing (in this case, IAOC liaison to the NomCom and IETF Trust chair), membership on subcommittees, and, of course, one less voice in discussions in the IAOC and IETF trust.  Having fewer people increases the work load on everyone else and creates less diversity in views and expertise.

Bob Hinden
IAOC Chair





> 
> Dale