[Mpi-forum] [EXTERNAL] Re: Voting in July (and beyond)

[Richard Graham]

This is being blown way out of proportion.   A very specific question was raised about the voting rules, one for which we had always made an implicit assumption about what the rule is, and even though we made an attempt a year+ ago to define precisely what the rules were, we did not cover this case.  So, to give an answer, we had to make an explicit call on what abstain means, in the context of simple majority, and not in the context of what we happened to be doing - a proposal was brought forth for discussion, and without alternative suggestions, it is hard to make an alternative choice.  While some may view this as a change in rules, this was in fact a clarification.

The reality is that we are operating within a framework that was setup many years ago to be somewhat vague - purposefully.

This seems like a good topic to bring up to the Steering Committee.

Rich

From: mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org [mailto:mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org] On Behalf Of David Solt
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 2:45 PM
To: Main MPI Forum mailing list
Cc: Main MPI Forum mailing list; mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org
Subject: Re: [Mpi-forum] [EXTERNAL] Re: Voting in July (and beyond)

I'm not blaming you for trying to put forth some reason, but I question why a group of logical people didn't question what you put forth.   I disagree that the quorum at the meeting was that no==abstain.   I think the consensus at the meeting was to go along with what was put before them, which happened to be no==abstain.    The question is why was no==abstain brought forth at all:

>From Rich:
Let's clarify what happened here.  I was approached off line by someone that wanted clarification of the rules, with the specific intent of preferring to abstain in some instances, and have it have the same effect as no, rather than voting no explicitly.  With the fact that there were several items on the voting agenda that we knew would be close, a decision had to be made as to what "simple majority" means, so we discussed this with all folks in the room and there was no disagreement that simple majority meant more than 50% of the votes.  We did delay the votes until all vote eligible members that were supposed to be present arrived.

It all comes back to this.   Someone pushed for no==abstain to make sure that the controversial issues would not get passed and that's where I feel wrong doing took place.   After that I blame myself and I blame us as a group for allowing this to happen, but this was just wrong.

Dave






From:        "Barrett, Brian W" <bwbarre at sandia.gov<mailto:bwbarre at sandia.gov>>
To:        "Main MPI Forum mailing list" <mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org<mailto:mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org>>
Date:        06/14/2012 12:46 PM
Subject:        Re: [Mpi-forum] [EXTERNAL] Re:  Voting in July (and beyond)
Sent by:        mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org<mailto:mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org>
________________________________



Hang on a second...  I wasn't trying to justify one way or the other.  I
really did't care what the rules are.  I followed the operational
procedures Jeff gave me and the voting rules Rich gave me (ie, the same
ones he gave everyone in the room).  I tend to agree with Dave Goodell; we
had a self-reinforcing belief system because the votes were never really
close.  But if the quorum at the meeting had said that you need 3.14 times
more yes votes than no votes to pass, that's what I would have done.

Brian

On 6/14/12 10:57 AM, "David Solt" <dsolt at us.ibm.com<mailto:dsolt at us.ibm.com>> wrote:

>I believe that years of Jeff stating the
>voting rules at each meeting would be sufficient to correct those people
>who had the incorrect interpretation of the voting rules.   When it
>was asked in Japan why we even have an abstain vote, Brian couldn't even
>give a logical explanation.  He said something about it providing
>further feedback to those bringing the proposal, but that only makes sense
>for straw votes.   You can try to convince me that some people could
>theoretically have been confused by how votes are counted because they
>have not been active in the Forum, but you will be hard pressed to
>convince
>me that the people pushing for abstain=no in Japan didn't know better.
>
>Dave
>
>
>
>From:
> Dave Goodell <goodell at mcs.anl.gov<mailto:goodell at mcs.anl.gov>>
>To:
> Main MPI Forum mailing
>list <mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org<mailto:mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org>>
>Date:
> 06/14/2012 11:27 AM
>Subject:
>   Re: [Mpi-forum]
>Voting in July (and beyond)
>Sent by:
>   mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org<mailto:mpi-forum-bounces at lists.mpi-forum.org>
>________________________________________
>
>
>
>On Jun 14, 2012, at 10:53 AM CDT, David Solt wrote:
>
>>> At the Japan meeting we took consensus from the room because there
>was
>>> no clear ruling on this known to *anyone* in the room.
>>
>> I disagree.  I felt there was a clear ruling on this and stated
>that at
>> the Japan meeting.
>
>Perhaps my "anyone" statement was slightly too strong.  Nonetheless,
>I don't recall many (any?) others with a similar level of conviction.
>
>> I don't know how people can be so out of touch with
>> what goes on at the meetings to not know how we have been voting for
>
>> years.
>
>
>The way that this happens is that both interpretations of the rules have
>always yielded the same result in the past.  Only at the Japan meeting
>did we encounter a set of votes that would result in different outcomes
>under each interpretation.
>
>As Jeff has repeatedly pointed out, the voting rules web page is
>ambiguous,
>and reading it tends to just confirm the reader's view, regardless of
>which
>view that is.  Years of voting in which the results match up with
>someone's interpretation (true for both interpretations) further
>reinforces
>a particular viewpoint.
>
>-Dave
>
>
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--
 Brian W. Barrett
 Dept. 1423: Scalable System Software
 Sandia National Laboratories






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