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[Quinn Wood <wood.quinn.s AT gmail.com>]

Abstract

Proposal procedures are currently poorly written, in a way that would
and should not work in any bureaucratic decision-making process.
Proposals should be ready for execution as-proposed, and ready for
execution at the time of proposal. Discussion of submitted proposals
should be used to assist voters in making informed decisions whether
or not to support or oppose the action, not to allow community members
to provide input on how they feel the proposal should be complete or
modified. This input should have been gathered before the proposal if
the author felt it was necessary to successfully win the vote or
address the identified problem. Upon proposal, and upon approval by
majority vote, internal committees should be created to modify the
proposal to better address the problem if necessary. If this kind of
behavior were to take place in a corporate board meeting or
legislative congress, the persons responsible would be removed from
their their positions in the organization or the organization would
fail to to its job.

Necessity

Discussion on how to complete incomplete proposals or modify proposals
usually results in a failure to address the identified problem, a
reduced sense of community, and action being taken without notifying
the community or asking for community input. Without more clearly
defined changes to the existing procedures, this will continue.

Effectiveness

If proposals are expected to be complete and ready to execute before
being proposed and discussion is expected to be used to help voters
understand what they are voting on, proposals will be more likely to
be deliberate and actionable, the community will be more likely to
participate in the discussion and voting process, and a stronger sense
of community will result. The following rules are proposed:

"Proposals must be submitted only when complete and ready to execute.
Proposals that seem incomplete or not ready to execute may be ended
prematurely by a motion to table the proposal until future notice,
which must be seconded. This motion may be overruled by a second
motion and second, which cannot be overruled. Once a proposal has been
tabled, it may not be discussed further except upon re-submission. One
individual may not take part in all four processes (proposal to table,
second to table, proposal to overrule, and second to overrule.)

"Discussion of proposals is to allow prospective voters to make an
informed decision about what they are voting on and what the
consequences of their votes will be. It is not a time to suggest
improvements to a proposal. If a voter identifies part of a proposal
which make their decision for them, they should express this in a
civil fashion to ensure others who agree vote accordingly. Those
responsible for a proposal may address such concerns, but may not make
major changes to the proposal without tabling the proposal and
resubmitting it with the changes."

A flow chart outlining this procedure is here: http://i.imgur.com/sWIECRI.png

Proportionate

The author does not identify any problems that would be created by
these changes to the voting procedures.