[r-t] Methods Committee terms of reference

[Don Morrison]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 3:56 PM, Mark Davies <mark at snowtiger.net> wrote:
> Don - perhaps you've forgotten, but you were involved in the
> original crafting of these TOR, on the "rules" subgroup back at the
> beginning of February! You also commented when I forwarded a
> reasonably complete draft to this list on 2017-02-11. The wording
> hasn't changed substantially since then.

​​I obviously haven't forgotten: I cited that discussion just an hour or
two ago.

However, my earlier prospecting in archived mail did not turn up the
message* to which you refer, for which I apologise. You are absolutely
right that it did indeed include the "provide and maintain the Council's
definitions and requirements" language. I'm embarrassed I missed that at
the time -- I think I must have been so focused on how wrong it was that
the methods committee continue to be the All Powerful Oz of Everything,
which as you note I did complain about then, that I missed the nasty
details of the wording: had I noticed at the time I am certain I would have
jumped up and down then just as now.

However, it was not a draft, or at least it did not so appear to me; rather
it was a rough plan, equivalent to the proposal to propose
something/consultation document that was originally passed around prior to
the actual draft language appearing for the other motions, simply laying
out roughly what you intended to put in, not the exact wording. Had it
appeared to be the actual proposal I'm sure I would have scrutinized it
more carefully.

On the other hand, "adjudicate" is brand new. And at the time I did fuss
and fume about "arbitrate" -- it has now been made far worse with
adjudicate.

I continue to believe this is a terrible motion, going in exactly the wrong
direction, and urge you to withdraw it. Adding the real work of the
committee, such as libraries and tools, is a great thing. But not so great
as to justify heading off in the wrong direction and making the committee
even more of a dictator of what folks may or may not ring than it has been
in the past.

If you think CRAG will solve the problem, that seems all the more reason
not to head off in the opposite direction for the limited time before they
get there.


* Doubly embarrassing since Graham's message this morning was, in fact,
part of the same thread and so it would have been trivially easy for me to
find it if I'd noticed that at the time!


-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"For me there's nothing offbeat. What passes for normal is very
strange to me."
   -- Peter Sellars, program notes for _The Children of Herakles_
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