Subject: Re: Please vote yes - 1364.1 ballot
From: Paul J. Menchini (mench@mench.com)
Date: Fri Jun 14 2002 - 10:41:10 PDT
Cliff and all,
I had intended to weigh in on this earlier this week, but circumstances
prevented me from doing so until now.
> At 03:22 PM 6/12/02 -0700, Jim Lewis wrote:
>>Cliff,
>> One thing I would like to see change with the IEEE ballot process
>>is to make ballot comments public so if other people agree, they can
>>reinforce the comments the other balloters have made.
> I don't even get to see the comments until after balloting is
> complete.
>>Or after the initial ballot, the comments and responses become public
>>and a person is permitted to change their ballot based on the comment
>>and resolution of someone elses vote.
Let me point out that the process *does*, at minimum, make all comments
accompanying negative ballots visible to all balloters--see below. So,
there is most definiately and quite explicitly a chance for comments to
be considered and for balloters to change their vote in response to the
arguments of other balloters.
> As a Verilog Synthesis standards group, we have to respond to all
> comments and then send out for re-balloting. I don't remember if the
> IEEE requires all received comments be sent or just the changes
> made. I think it is just the latter. Considering how hard it is to
> address all comments from both yes and no ballots, I'm really quite
> glad that we do not have to send the comments to all balloters to try
> to explain what we did and why we did it, rehashing what the committee
> spent a lot of time addressing. If we had to please all non-
> participant balloters, it would take an even longer-forever to get an
> IEEE document passed.
The IEEE balloting process requires that *all* comments accompanying
negative ballots be recirculated to all balloters. Again, balloters are
then allowed to change their current vote upon receipt of the comments.
The DASC encourages *all* comments (including those accompanying
positive ballots) to be recirculated (and responded to). The intent of
both the IEEE and DASC requirements is to ensure that the resulting
standard is as technically strong as is possible and is truly a
consensus standard.
Remember that unanimity of the balloters' responses is not required,
only consensus. Nor are you required to rehash the deliberations of the
WG. You are merely required to respond, in a technical fashion, to each
comment. The comment can be as simple as "this issue was discussed and
rejected by the WG." If you wish to elaborate, you may of course do so.
Thus, I do not understand your comment that states that it is hard to
address all comments from both yes and no ballots. True, it is a bit of
work, but if your goal is to produce as technically strong an open
standard as you can garner, I would not think that it is onerous to do
so, especially since this step represents a small fraction of the work
already put into the draft.
In addition, the process requires that if changes are made as a result
of a ballot comment, only those changes must be recirculated (together
with the ballot comments). Any subsequent comments made in response to
the recirculation must pertain only to the modifications--any comments
at this stage pertaining to the unchanged portions of the draft are out
of scope and may be addressed simply by labeling them as such. So, as I
hope you can see, it is a terminating process.
Finally, speaking as the sponsor of this project, as a RevCom member,
and as a member of the IEEE-SA Board of Governors, the goal of
minimizing work by discouraging comments is, I feel, entirely
inappropriate and likely to be looked upon with disfavor if and when
this standard comes up for approval within the SA.
I will not comment on the rest of this exchange, as it primarily
concerns the technical details of the standard. However, let me
reiterate that a technical comment requires a technical response.
If you have any questions about or need assistance with understanding
and following the IEEE balloting process, I as the sponsor of this WG
am standing by to assist.
Regards,
Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Fri Jun 14 2002 - 10:52:46 PDT