On Saturday, November 29, 2014 11:26:00 AM UTC-6, la selpa= 'i ku wrote:

What I don't under= stand is why, after achieving such a high consensus,=20
we still cannot seem to call the question of existential import settled= .

Is this not a de= mocratic institution/committee?

BPFK is bou= nd by th= e Baseline Policy of 2002, from which it draws its charter, to pursue n= ear-consensus when considering changes to "baseline documents":

<= br>

Changes must be approved by consensus, with specific procedures to= determine consensus decided by the byfy subject to Board of Directors revi= ew. In general, a single objector shall not be presumed to deny consensus.<= /div>

There's been a tradition of interpret= ing this as "consensus-minus-one". There is little guidance on the determin= ation of who is counted towards/against consensus. The committee is bound t= o respect a notion of "open membership", which seems to extend to anyone wh= o participates in committee activity. The Policy explicitly says that the c= hair of BPFK must seek approval of the Directors if the chair wishes to det= ermine membership in some other fashion.

It's wort= h noting that the very consideration of such a change, as well as the order= in which it is considered relative to other committee business, may be res= tricted by the Policy. In 2003, when BPFK was chaired by Nick Nicholas, i= t was so interpreted by lojbab:

the byfy shoul= d NOT be considering any proposals for changes to the baseline documents (w= hich fall under the final task) UNTIL it has finished the primary, secondar= y, and tertiary tasks.

This interpret= ation does not seem to have been consistently enforced since that time, but= the Policy from which the intepretation was derived has not been amended.<= /div>

To return to the question of how to settle an issu= e like the one at hand: It appears to me that the only way to record a deci= sion like this is for the chair to declare the matter decided. The declarat= ion would, according to the Policy, be open to recall by the Directors on q= uestions of consensus. The Directors or the President might also challenge = a decision on the basis of other restrictions imposed by the Baseline Polic= y, such as the order of committee business.

Is it = any wonder that, given the extent to which the authority of BPFK has been u= ndermined, both pre-emptively and after the fact, the chair might be reluct= ant to make such declarations?

I submit that the c= urrent arrangement has long failed to achieve the objectives it was explici= tly intended to forward, that it is no longer consonant with the will of th= e lojban-using community, and that it is time to consider another way forwa= rd. To that end, I hope that when baseline policy is raised at the annual m= eeting of LLG (currently in session), that members of this committee as wel= l as the general body, will consider a measure to provide BPFK with a new c= harter.

mi'e la mukti mu'o

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