Editorial

Your editor looks into some meatier matters....
as requested

NOTE: Views are each person's own, and Fido Ed is just reporting things as asked or stated in reply; with Ed's comments for your perusal and further comments. Perhaps this may help pull enough sysops out of their furlined comfort zones to participate in a solution.

By: Ross Cassell
To: Ruth Argust

Hello Ruth!

DS>> His region went from being non-influential due to it's low number of sysops to being equally influential in spite of it's low number of sysops. Is that a good thing? Probably not. But maybe once and for all this network will settle on dying it's death via P4, or realizing it cannot afford to cling to it's past like a dinosaur and evolve into a real Sysops' network.

ED: Why can't the RCC decide things by majority if they want to??? I keep reading they all have to agree or it is no go on ANY vote. Why? Because some one put into P4 that it could not be changed? That is not logical and if only one RC objects to the will of the others, why don't you say, "You are out voted"! What could s/he do about it? How is it one region's vote is worth more than the other nine regions?

RA> I think this was an excellent post, Darrell, and certainly should cause some people to stop and think. I really can't add anything to it, you did cover it very well.

RC> The absence of a clear cut ZONEWIDE election POL or a ZONEWIDE any POL certainly isn't helpful.

ED: Stewart did that, unfortunately several misunderstood some postings and it fell apart.

RC> I think you have at some point in the past looked over the regional policy document for region 18? As you can tell, there is no ambiguity regarding how many situations are dealt with, especially regarding elections and all the other tangibles.. It is a very well written document, written as a result of the finest tradition of Fido-war-athons during its adoption.

RC> Surely you can agree, or I hope you can, that in the absence of clear cut zonewide guidelines that no matter what would or could have been whipped up in a pinch, someone would have been "upset". You know one option in this current situation was to appoint an interim and have the general election later, how many would have been "upset" over that notion, not to mention all worked up over whomever may have been appointed the interim?

ED: Maybe too many cooks in the Z1C kitchen. All of this could have been avoided had the present ZC appointed a Pro-Tem Z1C with a March deadline for a completed election.

RC> The catch-22 here is you can please some of the people some of the time, you cant please all of the people all of the time.

ED: So go with the majority, be it Sysops or their RC. There are two or more sides to everything in life, in war, in politics, and in Fido. IF this is a sysop organization, then listen to the majority of the sysops. IGNORE those that want to do otherwise, for they have their own selfish interests at heart, and not the will of the sysops.

RC> Well after all of this is over, we need to adopt some sort of formal zonewide election guideline or document or whatever so that we can be prepared for these scenarios... Instead of pissing away valuable time bitching about the what-if's like what we did this time.

ED: Agreed!

RC> For if I had been the one to resign as R18C, by 01/05/2001, my region would have known what to do, how to do it, and when to do it without a single question and before anyone asks, the region 18 policy document was ratified by the sysops of this region via a sysop level vote.

ED: Could it be extended to cover all Zone one Regions? Could the Z1C send it to the RCs for ratification in their region?

RC> So when work commences on a zonewide document and I will strive for one, regardless if I get elected Z1C or not, be prepared for varying ideas, lots of arguing and throughout the process nothing set into stone until the sysops of the zone agree to what's in it. Fair enough?

ED: Fair enough. Should be easy to adopt any region's sysop ratified policy for the business of any region. If it is good for one region, then it is good for all as they all work in fidonet to move the mail.

==
Ross
E-mail: rcassell@home.com ICQ = 5305939