Ratification of Panel and IPC Bylaws

Ratification of Panel Bylaw Rules
(ending January 26, 2004)

Voting was open between January 21 and January 26 2004

The result:

Electorate: 864 persons.
Number of valid votes received: 80

66 voters (82.5%) voted in favour of the rules
7 disagreed (8.75%)

7 wanted amendments (8.75%)

Icannatlarge Panel Rules

Members' Web Site

1. The icannAtLarge shall maintain a web site under the domain icannatlarge.org administered on behalf of the membership.

2. The membership yearly elects an 11 member Panel responsible for web site content and administration.

3. The panel has the authority and the duty to update web site content to reflect the development of the organization, the occurrence of elections and appointments for office, public events such as meetings of bodies where the At Large interest is affected and other news of specific interest, to the members' attention.

4. The Panel will be responsive to reasonable requests from Members and will make a venue for such requests available in the web site's web Forum.

4a. Members have the right to make public petitions for specific updates and if these are seconded by at least two other members, the Panel must debate the petition on its mailing list and decide about publication on the web site.

5. Panel resolutions on web site content are final.

6. The panel will appoint a web master, responsible for the integrity and day-to-day operation of the site and its continued hosting.

7. The Panel will publish rules governing the rights and obligations of the web master and the forum administrator.

8. The panel will appoint a Forum Administrator, responsible for the creation of Forum topics and the moderation of the Forum.

Term of office. (8)

8a. Panelists will be elected for 12 months.

8b. Open positions will be filled via by-elections enabling staggering of the terms of office of the Panel members.

8c. Calls for Nominations must be made to the members-announce list within three weeks of any seat falling open.

8d. The Independent Polling Commission is responsible for Panel elections.

Quorum(9)

9. No Panel resolution is valid unless a quorum of at least seven members indicate their presence at any vote.

Panel Chair(10)

10a.In order to ensure the active participation by all Panel members, the Chairmanship will rotate among the Panel members.

10b. The Panel, by majority decision, may decide to exempt Panel members from Chair duties.

10c.If the Panel resolves to have a permanent chair or permanent chairs, this resolution must be renewed every 3 months.

10d. A permanent chair may not hold membership in any committees.

11. The Chair has the following rights and duties: *1. Set the agenda *2. Announce motions, ask for seconds on considered motions and allow debate within pre-set time constraints

*3. List motions and their status.

*4. Propose votes on motions within preset time constraints.

*5. Determine whether quorum is reached

*6. Publish numbered Panel resolutions *7. Vacate the chair not before the next chair in rotation has indicated readiness to take charge. *8. Moderate the discussion by moral persuasion.

*9. The Chair may appoint a list owner and administrator for a Panel discussion mailing list.

*10. The Chair shall not vote unless his vote is needed to break a tie at the end of the voting period.

*11. The Chair shall not chair the discussion on motions moved by himself but use the chair rotation system to achieve this.

Absence

12. Absence of Panel members. Panel members who, without asking to be excused or presenting a valid excuse, do not participate in 4 successive votes, can be removed from the panel by means of a no-confidence vote by the membership. Before this vote is held, the Panel member is invited to argue why (s)he should be allowed to keep the seat.

Members' mailing list (13)

13. The Panel is responsible for the hosting of a members-only mailing list and the maintaining of its public archive.

13.a The Panel is responsible for the hosting and archiving of all mailing lists of Working Groups created by panel resolution.

14. The Panel appoints a moderator to moderate the discussion on members' list and WG lists.

Vote for Independent Polling Commission mandate

The result:

Electorate: 864 persons.
Number of valid votes received: 82

50 voters (60.97%) voted in favour of the rules under B
30 (36.5%) voted in favour of the rules under A.

2 wanted their own rules

Text B:

The At Large Independent Polling Commission

Preamble: The Independent Polling Commission is created as a check and to to balance the powers of the web site panel, ensuring that the members' majority will is followed at all times.

Mandate

1. The IPC is responsible for Polling the membership on all questions that need resolving by vote.

1a. It will conduct monthly polls on request of the website Panel, of members who submit questions of which the formulation has the public support of at least 10 verified members, and on its own initiative, based on its reading of the mailing lists and other public fora.

2. The IPC is responsible for running all icannatlarge elections and by-elections, except its own.

2a. IPC elections will be conducted by an interim Polling Committee of the web site Panel.

Terms of office

3. The IPC's term of office will be for 12 months, with the exception of the first IPC, which has been elected for a 6 month's term.

3a. IPC commissioners can serve a maximum of 3 consecutive terms or 5 non-consecutive terms.

Quorum

4.The IPC consists of 3 Polling Commissioners, who must be present at all joint IPC decisionmaking.

4a. For temporary absences lasting less than one month, a proxy vote may be given to another Commissioner, but non-participation for more than two months results in loss of the position.

4.b. Vacant positions must be publicly announced and a by-election for a replacement must be organized by the Panel within 4 weeks.

4c. to prevent paralysis when the IPC is non-quorate, each elected Polling Commissioner may poll the membership on issues that (s)he considers to be in the organization's interest.

Independence

5. In order to ensure that the IPC is able at all times to gauge and publish the will of the majority of the membership, the IPC is independent from all other bodies or officers of the icannatlarge.

5a. It has the right to organize itself.

5b. It is independent to choose whatever means it deems most suitable to carry out its mandate to poll the members or ask for their votes in an election.

Announcements and publication

6. IPC commissioners make direct announcements of polls and elections to all members either jontly, following an IPC resolution, or, when that is not possible, in an individual capacity.

6a. Results of polls and elections are published by the IPC on the members' mailing list.

6b. It is the Panel's responsibility that both polling announcements and polling results are published on the icannatlarge web site.

text A was:

Polling Committee Charter and Structure

The duty of the Polling Committee (PC) is to organize, at least once a month, a poll of the members on current topics. These are topics requested by the membership, questions raised for polling by the panel or the PC itself.

The PC is also to organize elections when so required by the panel or the by-laws of the organization.

The PC is unrestricted in the number of polling questions and the content of those questions. The PC needs to poll on questions proposed by the membership. The PC can initiate polls more than once a month. The PC can not organize elections without a mandate from the panel or the by-laws.

These rules hereafter govern the PC's course of action.

Polling shall be done using the following rules:

1. Announcements

Announcements shall be made on the icannatlarge.org website. Email announcements shall be sent to the general mail list, the moderated members only mail list and the announce mail list.

The announcement shall contain the contents of the poll. The member announcement shall contain the contents of the poll plus a personal identifier used to identify the voter to the voting system and prevent abuse.

The outcome (results) of the polls shall be posted to the above mentioned lists and the icannatlarge.org website.

2. Method:

For polling the members will use an online web interface or email to voting software. This voting software should be open-source (GPL) software. The voting software shall allow full source access for watchdogs to assure no tampering. The software shall remove all identifiers from the votes that are made public except for the watchdog output. The software shall allow separate output for watchdogs and members, where the watchdogs receive raw-data.

During the vote, nobody but the watchdogs shall have access to the software except in a case of failure, in which case the system administrator is allowed access. The software shall confirm the votes made to the member voting.

3. Elections:

The announcement methods listed above will be used. The rules of the election will be stipulated by the Panel, the PC shall adhere to these rules. The voting method for elections shall be determined by the Panel, the PC shall adhere to these methods.

Polling Commission members:

The PC will consist of 3 members. These members will be elected and appointed by the general membership by a general election. The election for the PC will be held annually under auspices of the panel. Those eligible are those members that have been verified to the full satisfaction of the Verification Committee.

Candidates:

Candidates can be self-nominated or be nominated by members. If nominated by a member, seconding of at least 1 other member is needed. If self-nominated, at least 2 seconds are needed. All seconds must come from members of the organization. All nominations and seconds MUST come from members verified to the full satisfaction of the Verification Committee. Acceptance can only be then posted when nominations and seconding have been fulfilled according to these rules.

Nominations, seconds and acceptance or refusal will be posted to the general and moderated mail list as well as on the icannatlarge.org website under appropriate headers.

Nomination period is a minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 4 weeks.

No later than one week after nominations end, the election will be organized in accordance with the rules stipulated under 'Elections.' Elections will last a minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 4 weeks.

Within 7 days of the end of voting, the results will be confirmed by the Panel and posted to the icannatlarge.org website as well as sent by email to the announce and members only discuss list, as well as to the elected persons personally.

Objections to the outcome of the elections must be publicly posted within 7 days of the end of the elections to the members only discuss list. The Panel will rule within 10 days on objections to the election outcome.

Appeals of the Panel's rulings must be posted within 17 days of the end of elections.

PC members will be elected for a period of 12 months, with the exception of the first PC which will serve a term of 6 months, after which new elections will take place.

PC members can serve a maximum of 3 consecutive terms or 5 non consecutive terms.

PC members found not active in participation on this commission (which is measured by the other commission members and the Panel's reports) will be replaced by 'next in line' (next highest vote getter on elections for PC) by the Panel.

Last update 13 March, 2004. Questions, proposals or feedback about the website can be directed to the webmaster.

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