Hi all, When I read the constitution so many years ago for the first time, there were some things that stuck, and others that didn't. One of the things that stuck was a particular power of the DPL which I hadn't seen used in, like, forever. And when I wanted to send a private mail to our current DPL about that subject, I noticed that my reading of the constitution may have been in error.
Section 3.1.2 of the constitution reads as follows: [...An individual developer may...] 2. Propose or sponsor draft General Resolutions whereas section 5.1.5 reads as follows: [...The project leader may...] 5. Propose draft General Resolutions and amendments. I had always, probably incorrectly, interpreted the lack of the words "or sponsor" in that sentence as meaning that a GR proposal from the project leader doesn't actually require sponsors. That interpretation probably would have made sense if the word "draft" wasn't in that sentence: in that case, non-DPL DD's could propose "draft" GR statements, which would become "proposed" GR statements upon acquiring enough seconds, and "GR" statements once they had been voted upon. Had it not used "draft", then the Project Leader could bypass the "draft" phase in that order. But at any rate, that's not what it says. Having thought about it this way for years (without ever having seen it happen, of course), I do believe this is actually not that bad an idea, as it would allow a DPL to fast-track a vote on an important issue: recall that any accepted amendment resets the discussion period, as per A.2.4; to avoid unnecessary delay in the procedure, the DPL could use that power to bring an amendment on the ballot immediately, without having to wait a few days for more formal seconds and thereby risk what I'll call "accidental filibustering". If people do not think I'm crazy, I'd like to propose a formal amendment to make this reading the official one. At any rate, ignoring what may be no more than a silly brain fart on my end, there's still a bit in there which could use some clarification: as written currently, and ignoring the procedure under A.1, it would appear as if non-DPL developers don't actually have the right to propose amendments. This is obviously in error, and I think it wouldn't hurt to fix that. Thoughts? -- The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by the following formula: pi zz a
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