Matthias Urlichs wrote:
Hi,
John H. Robinson, IV:
i had always understood quorum as the minimum number of participants to
conduct business.
[Matthias's comments rearranged...]
Sorry, but I don't like that. With a quorum, the people against a proposal
need to actively solicit support for their objection if they want to
defeat it. That's good democracy. Defeating the proposal by walking out
is bad democracy.
In parliamentary terms, "conducting business" means "making decisions by
vote". Normally, a measure can't be defeated by lack of quorum. If
there is a lack of quorum, no vote can be held -- or if a vote is held
before quorum is determined to be lacking, the vote isn't binding.
Bringing this quorum principle over to Debian, the most straight forward
rule would be that if there aren't enough participants in the balloting,
then the status is reset to what it was before the vote -- i.e., nothing
is defeated, nothing is passed, nothing is decided. Another ballot is
advertised and distributed (perhaps after a short period), and another
vote is held.
That may not be the best option -- there may be better solutions, like
dimising the ballot options without prejudice, requiring the proposers
to repropose them (if the proposals were dead, that shouldn't be
possible), or defaulting to "further discusion", etc.
> OK. Let's say we have a quorum of 90 and a supermajority of 2:1.
70 people are for the proposal, 30 against => the proposal wins.
70 people are for the proposal, 10 against, the remaining 20 refuse to
vote => the proposal fails.
What do you mean "the proposal fails"? Is it dead, and can't be
resurrected? Is it up for "further discusion", with a future revote? I
feel that a lack of quorum shouldn't be able to kill a measure, but
forcing another vote on the issue after further discussion is fine, IMHO.
IMHO.
