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The next sentence is not part of the voting rules but is just describing the
current composition of the EC.
The following discussion describes the rules and procedures to be
followed by the IAU FITS Working Group (FWG). These rules have
been established by the FWG Executive Committee (EC), which has the
right to modify them at any time. The EC also has the authority to
determine what procedures are to be followed in any circumstances that
are not explicitly covered under the existing rules. The EC currently
has 7 voting members consisting of the chairman
and vice chairman(if designated)
of
the FWG, the previous chairman of the FWG, and the chairmans of the 4
former
regional FITS committees (North America, Europe, Japan, and
Australia/New Zealand). In principle, tThe 'Designated FITS
Representative' to the Virtual Observatory Working Group (also
established by IAU Commission 5) is also a member of the EC, but at
present this member is also the chairman of one of the regional
committees.
The president of Commission 5 has been traditionally an observer
in the EC mailing list.The future composition of the EC will be arranged
in such a way to maintain a balance between different geographical areas,
disciplinary and wavelength areas, and a representation of major data handling organizations.
The EC typically makes decisions on a unanimous consensus
basis, but if necessary, a simple majority vote (currently, 4 out of 7
members) may be used to reach a decision.
1. Issues related to the definition of the FITS Standard
Preliminary Activities
Before a proposal that affects or is related to the definition
of the FITS Standard is submitted to the FWG for approval, it is
generally expected that the proposal will have been previously posted on
the
fitsbits@nrao.edu moderated mail distribution listsci.astro.fits news group
for comment from the general FITS community.
(Postings to sci.astro.fits are also mirrored on the fitsbits@nrao.edu
moderated mail distribution list, and vice versa).
In some cases an ad hoc special interest group many also be formed, with
its own dedicated email discussion forum, to help develop the proposal.
Once the EC agrees that these preliminary
discussions of the proposal have converged and have resulted in a mature
proposal that represents the consensus of a significant majority of the
participants, then the proposal may be considered for formal approval.
Public Comment Period
The first step of the official approval process will be a formal public
comment and discussion period to take place on the
fitsbits@nrao.edu moderated mail distribution list.sci.astro.fits news group.
During this period the members of the FWG, as well as members
of the regional FITS committees and members
of the general FITS community, may
all offer comments or suggestions regarding the proposal. The originators
of the proposal may make modifications to the proposal in response to
these comments. This public discussion period will normally last for
at least 4 weeks, and the EC may extend it as necessary to allow time
for the discussions to reach a conclusion.
EC Review
Once the formal discussion period on
sci.astro.fitsfitsbits@nrao.edu
has ended
then the EC must decide whether to proceed with the next step of
the approval process
of asking the regional FITS committees
to
vote on the proposal. To aid in making this decision, the chairman of
each regional committee, and the chairman of
the FWG will conduct
a confidential straw poll of
their respective
committee members to
determine if anyone is not ready to vote on the proposal (e.g., wants
to continue the discussion, or will be away during the proposed voting
period). The committee members will also be asked whether they are
contemplating voting against the proposal, and
if so, why. If any 'No' votes are indicated, then the EC will first
make every effort to broker a compromise that will satisfy all parties
before calling for a vote
by the regional committees.
The EC will consider
the following factors when deciding whether to call for votes
by the regional FITS committees:
Is the proposal clearly written and technically sound?
Have sufficient efforts been made to solicit comments
on the proposal from other interest groups and the general FITS
user community?
Have all the comments and suggestions that were made during the
Public Comment Period been adequately addressed?
In cases where it is relevant to do so, has a sufficient
amount of interoperability testing of the conventions defined within the
proposal been demonstrated. The amount of required testing, if any,
will depend on the particular proposal, but could, for example, involve
independent software implementations running on different types of
computer platforms.
These same factors will be considered by the individual members of
the regional FITS committees and
the FWG when casting their votes
for or against the proposal.
Regional Committee Votes
Once the EC has requested that the regional FITS committees vote on
the proposal, the chairman of each committee will be responsible for
collecting the votes via email within the alloted time period (normally
3 weeks). The committee members may vote either 'Yes, in favor', 'No,
not in favor', or 'Abstain'.
Anyone voting 'No' should give the reason(s) why they
feel the proposal is not acceptable.
A quorum of at least 2/3 of the committee members must cast a vote (Yes,
No, or Abstain) for the vote to be valid. If this quorum is met, then the
proposal is approved if at least 2/3 of the votes cast are 'Yes'.
After collecting all the votes,
the regional committee chairman will forward the vote tallies (without
associated names), along with the reasons for any 'No' votes, to the EC.
Final IAU FWG Vote
If all of the regional committees have approved the proposal,
then tThe
FWG will then conduct a final vote on the proposal.
If any of the regional committees do not approve the proposal
then the EC has the responsibility to
determine the best course of action to take at that point. If a
regional committee fails to conduct a vote within the required time
period, then the EC has the option to proceed as if the regional committee
had voted in favor of the proposal.
Before calling for a vote, the chairman of the FWG will first conduct
a confidential poll of the FWG members. If any of the members are considering
a 'No' vote, or if any member actually
votes 'No' without previously informing the chairman, then the voting
process will be suspended for up to 63 months to try to negotiate
a compromise that will lead to a unanimous vote in favor of the proposal.
This mandatory delay period is designed to ensure that minority opinions
are adequately considered and is in keeping with the tradition within the
FITS community of striving to reach unanimous consent on important
issues. If an acceptable compromise is not achieved within 63 months, then the
vote of the FWG may proceed.
The FWG members normally will have
3 weeks to submit their votes (either 'Yes, in favor', 'No, not in favor',
or 'Abstain') via email to the FWG chairman.
A quorum of at least 3/4 of the FWG members must cast a vote (Yes,
No, or Abstain) for the vote to be valid. If this quorum is met, then the
proposal is approved if at least 3/4 of the votes cast are 'Yes'.
As a validation of the voting process, the chairman will make available the date
and time of any email votes of 'No' or 'Abstain' so that members who did
not vote in favor of the proposal can verify that their votes were properly
recorded.
Once the voting has been completed, the
FWG chairman will announce the vote tallies (without associated names)
on the fitsbits@nrao.edu moderated mail distribution list.on the sci.astro.fits newsgroup.
If the proposal is approved by the FWG then it takes effect immediately
(unless the proposal itself stipulates a different effective start date)
and becomes part of the official standards of the FITS format.
2. Business or Procedural Issues
When the IAU FITS Working Group considers issues that are related to the
internal business or procedural workings of the FWG itself, it is not
necessary to first hold a public comment period
or call for votes by the regional FITS committees
as is required when considering issues related to the FITS Standard.
Instead, the issue is discussed/debated by the FWG members on the IAUFWG mail list,
and then, if required, the chairman will call for a confidential vote on the issue.
Each memberAll members
will normally have 3 weeks (unless a different time period is agreed
to before the vote) to send their votes of 'Yes', 'No', or 'Abstain' via email
to the chairman.
Normally (unless different voting rules are agreed to
prior to the vote) in order for a proposal to be approved by the FWG,
a quorum of at least 3/4 of the FWG members must cast a vote (Yes,
No, or Abstain). If this quorum is met, then the
proposal is approved if at least 3/4 of the votes cast are 'Yes'.
The 63-month delay rule in the case of any 'No' votes does not apply in this case when
voting on procedural issues.
As a validation of the voting process, the chairman will make available the date
and time of any email votes of 'No' or 'Abstain' so that members who did
not vote in favor of the proposal can verify that their votes were properly
recorded.
It has been agreed to limit the current decision to the minimal changes
to the voting procedure web page described above (i.e. deletion of references to RCs,
decreasing the 6-month delay to 3 months
and minor adjustments) without entering in this stage in changes about FWG
composition and nomination (these could be deferred to later) so that
the present FWG with the new rules can promptly vote on the Timing WCS proposal.
Although strictly speaking, according to point 2 of the
current rules,
the disbandment of the RCs is a procedural matter (and therefore would have not required
a public comment period on FITSBITS), and
even, according to the introductory sentence of the current rules, the rules
themselves are under the sole authority of the EC, who could have modified them with an
internal decision ...
Nevertheless, considered the peculiar nature of the matter,
We held a public comment period on the IAU FWG mailing list until September 30 2013
It has been at discretion of the RC chairpersons to hold an equivalent public comment
period on the internal RC mailing lists (whose membership is currently not
disclosed to the IAU FWG)
After this the FWG EC agreed on the final draft of the new rules.
Such text was posted on October 31 to FITSBITS for a further public comment period
until November 18. No new comments were raised.
The EC (with a majority of 5 vs 2) chose among the possibility of a simple
majority vote inside the EC, or a vote within the entire FWG, in favour of
the latter.
the entire FWG is therefore called to vote (in a reduced 2 week period, ending at
23:59 CET of 16 December 2013) according to the rules in
section 2 of the (current and new) rules
With the approval of the new rules, the RCs will be disbanded, and all web pages
on the IAU FWG site modified accordingly.
In particular the voted text above, without the deleted text and without
highlighting of the new text, will be inserted on the IAU FWG site.
sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/FITS/Proposal/newrules.html
:: original creation 2013 dic 17 13:48:27 CET ::
last edit 2013 Dec 17 13:48:27 CET