SUO: Re: SUOP Topic :> Definition Of Issue
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JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
Matthew,
You are getting way ahead of the stepwise refinement process
that is the conventional wisdom for effective minded folks,
and this is one of the reasons that I recommended setting
out a few general principles of procedure at the outset,
to which we might have the opportunity and some chance
of giving voiced assent, before getting down to the
brass taxons of detailed enabling and implemental
procedures. Call it the "declarative approach"
to procedural programmes, if you will.
As it happens, I am acutely cognizant and constantly aware of the Principle
under which I am so persistently trying to call this Issue to your attention
in whatever way I can, and it's a little thing that I and all my friends like
to call the "First Rule Of Logic" (FROL) and its Corollary, as you find here:
| F.R.L. First Rule of Logic
|
| 1.135-140. G-c. 1899-1
|
| 135. Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason,
| that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring
| not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows
| one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of
| the city of philosophy:
|
| Do not block the way of inquiry.
|
| [From unpaginated ms. "F. R. L.", c. 1899.]
| http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm
| JA: Inquiry. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg00671.html
Of course, the practical implementation of any given principle of conduct
within a particular social setting and constrained by a concrete context
of application will involve many qualified points of detail that demand
the "letters" to fit the "spirit", but unless there is general assent
on the principle, haggling over bytes of code is likely to be futile.
So, again, I suggest that the proper sort of non-over-hasty procedure
requires us to settle these issues of general principle, about what
we are trying to achieve, before we can even talk about how.
Toward a more organized discussion, I reply to your remarks
about "Who should be able to raise issues?" under this head.
JA: I have a question.
JA: At the present time, it is already the case that anybody
whatsoever can raise issues, voting member or not, indeed,
list subscriber or not. Therefore, Matthew's proposal
represents a change in the de facto and established
working procedures of the SUO Group. Consequently,
it seems to me that it would require a formal vote
on this issue in order to alter this policy.
JA: Is that correct?
MW: It will require at least one formal vote to
approve the Procedures Document in any case.
Yes, I understand. I also understand that provisions frequently
getted passed as "riders" on a bill, when those provisions would
have almost no chance of being passed solely on their own merits.
So I thought that I should make a separate Issue of this issue.
and thus single it out for special attention.
MW: However, at the moment there is no mechanism for raising
formal issues that have to be recorded and status managed.
At present you can raise anything you like and it can be
ignored (apart from being in the SUO record).
I'm well aware of the usual way that this forum handles Issues,
that is to say, chiefly through their decapitation into issues.
MW: That would still be the case if we retained the restriction
on who can raise formal issues. Indeed I would expect that
formal issues would normally be raised following some
informal discussions.
This issues of Issues, informal and Formal,
is one that requires another cup of coffee.
Jon Awbrey
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