🚀 go-pugleaf

bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:


>From: paw@coos.dartmouth.edu (Pat Wilson)
>>Funny - I've been on the nominating comittee for Usenix (a multi-million
>>dollar non-profit corporation), and _they_ have mechanisms in place
>>for allowing members to nominate people for the Board.

>You've gotten the wrong impression here somewhere, members of SUG can
>certainly nominate other members to run for the board. In fact, that's
>the only way anyone gets on the ballot. The persons nominated have to
>qualify, of course, just as with Usenix. Qualification is primarily
>that they have to have been a member of SUG for 24 out of the last 30
>months, and they cannot work for a workstation manufacturer. In fact,
>SUG's requirements for nomination are less stringent than Usenix',
>Usenix as I remember requires that 5 members in good standing sign a
>petition for a nomination, we don't, one member can nominate, I don't
>even believe there's any restriction preventing someone from
>nominating themselves.

When were the qualifications put in place?  I seriously doubt I'd been
a SUG memeber for 2 years at the time I ran for the Board (1990) - was
I "approved by 2/3 vote of the Board"?  I don't recall Usenix having
membership requirements for nominees (other than that they must be
Usenix memebers), though I do see the sense in that.  From what I gather
about the particular incident in question, *6* SUG members nominated the
person whose name was removed from the ballot.

I did manage to find some Bylaws - they're in the Winter 1991 ReadMe.
Will someone from SUG please save me the trouble of having to type them
in (assuming that these are the current ones)?

>As Stan pointed out, if there's anything to be disappointed about
>regarding this election it's that the membership did not bother to
>nominate eligible candidates, even after several calls for nominations
>(if we didn't allow members to nominate why do we make all those
>public calls for nominations??? Go look in your README's if you save
>them, here on this group also.)

I've found one very small request for nominations, on page 39 of the 
Spring/Summer 1992 ReadMe.  I don't archive comp.org.sug.  Who was 
Nominating Committee chair?  I'd contend that it's their job (or should
have been) to ensure sufficient candidates for the election.  As I've stated
before, I was "recruited" to run in 1990, and one might assume that I
might have been interested this year, if only to make the slate appear
less sparse.  In any case, I find it unfortunate that you're turning
people away (because they don't meet some dubious "qualification") in
one breath, and moaning that you don't have enough volunteers in the
next...

I do believe that there's something seriously broken here, whether it's 
the fact that exceptions are made for some but not for all or that so 
few people are interested in volunteering.  I'm *still* disturbed at 
the large number of people who have left the Board in the past year.

>Let's try again next year.

I'm not sure I'm content to let this go yet.  Even assuming there's
been no impropriety, this whole thing's left a bad taste in my mouth.

--
Pat Wilson
Systems Manager, Project NORTHSTAR
paw@northstar.dartmouth.edu