[wfc] Fwd: [Iaufec] disbandment of the Regional Committees, THIRD step

[Rob Seaman]

Hi Arnold, et al,

Interesting.  Regarding the shutdown, NOAO just got a reprieve until at least 3 November.  Regarding obsolescence, recent discussions about dramatic changes to the FITS standard might suggest otherwise ;-)

Rob
--

On Oct 16, 2013, at 8:37 AM, Arnold Rots <arots at cfa.harvard.edu> wrote:

> Dear friends at the WFC - the Regional North-American FITS Committee,
> 
> I am forwarding a recent message from Lucio Chiappetti, the chair of the
> IAU FITS Working Group, who is inching closer to move our committee
> into obsolescence.
> He has posted a revision of the voting rules for the IAU FWG and will
> announce that on FITSBITS, but I thought you should have some
> forewarning on this.
> He sent one more message on the subject which I will also forward.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>   - Arnold
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Arnold H. Rots                                          Chandra X-ray Science Center
> Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                   tel:  +1 617 496 7701
> 60 Garden Street, MS 67                                      fax:  +1 617 495 7356
> Cambridge, MA 02138                                         arots at cfa.harvard.edu
> USA                                                   http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at lambrate.inaf.it>
> Date: Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 8:46 AM
> Subject: [Iaufec] disbandment of the Regional Committees, THIRD step
> To: IAU-FITS Executive Committee <iaufec at nrao.edu>
> 
> 
> Dear members of the IAU FWG Executive,
>                                         with some delay I am proceeding to
> the next step of the procedure to change the IAU FITS WG voting rules,
> i.e. preparing the final draft for submission to FITSBITS.
> 
> First of all I would like to know how many of the IAUFEC members are
> affected by the US Government shutdown. I would appreciate an explicit
> acknowledgment via private e-mail by Bob, Bill and Arnold that they can
> receive this message via the exploder, and interact.
> 
>   - if any one of them does not reply, the deadline to pass to the next
>     step will be extended until they come back on line
> 
>   - conversely if everybody replies before the deadline of end October
>     and we can freeze a draft earlier, we could submit it to fitsbits
>     as soon as it is ready
> 
> I have prepared a new draft taking into account the comments received so
> far by the IAUFWG. The revised version (with links to the older ONES) is
> at the usual place
> http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/FITS/Proposal/newrules.html
> 
> Please note what follows:
> 
>   - the buttons to hide "deleted text" now hides also "comments", so one
>     can have an idea of what the final text will look like
> 
>   - I received several comments agains the "co-optation" of members of the
>     EC, and some general comments about membership of the IAUFWG, terms of
>     service etc.
> 
>     I believe we should proceed quickly to the definition of new voting
>     rules ("without regional committees") and apply them ASAP to vote the
>     Timing WCS proposal.
> 
>     Therefore I strongly suggest that we confine now to this
>     relatively simple voting rule change, and DEFER any matter about
>     composition of the EC, nomination of FWG members, and more complex
>     "weighted" voting rules to LATER DISCUSSION
> 
>     This is indicated by the text hilighted in red on the page
> 
>     Also (as a comment states) the introductory sentence is not to be
>     taken as part of the voting rules, but merely describes the current
>     composition of the EC.
> 
>   - I would however encourage Preben Grosbol to present a formal proposal
>     for various "member categories" (points 5/6/7 of his Sep 23 message)
>     and eventual "weighted" voting rules.
> 
>   - I would like to stress to Don Wells that I fully appreciate the sense
>     of the 6-month rule to instigate unanimous consensus. On the other
>     hand many people may have the impression that we are very slow to
>     decide on anything (possibly because we are busy otherwise) ...
>     that's why I suggested going from 6 to 3 (somebody even advocated
>     2) months for "re-thinking" ... we could as well decrease the voting
>     period from 3 weeks to 2 (but I guess not shorter than that because of
>     conferences, observing campaigns, holidays ... or events like the
>     shutdown)
> 
>   - concerning mailing lists, after the poll I conducted I drew a
>     compromise among the various suggestions and will act ASAP autonomously
>     as described at the end of the web page. So it is possible that persons
>     who were on the mailing lists just ex officio without being currently
>     members will receive this as the last message.
> 
> Please read the page
> http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/FITS/Proposal/newrules.html
> as soon as you can, and give me (public replies on this mailing list)
> suggestions about things to change (including comments to be "disclosed"
> or removed) etc.
> 
> Lucio
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> 
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