[cabfpub] [EXTERNAL]Re: Discussion Period to End/Voting to Begin on Ballot 219 v2: Clarify handling of CAA Record Sets with no "issue"/"issuewild" property tag

[Kirk Hall]

Well said, Gerv.  

My main issues are (1) we could have a lot of phantom ballots that way - they have numbers, but are abandoned (lack of support, too confusing) and never voted on.  A pre-ballot (without number) avoids that.  (2) Also, as we saw today with Ballot 219, if a ballot stays in discussion period for an extended time, we will have to do calendar calculations to see if it passed the 21 day deadline for starting a vote...  there may be accidental cases where the deadline is missed and the ballot has to be abandoned and restarted with a new ballot number.  That means we have another / duplicate phantom ballot left behind.  I'd rather avoid that by testing the water first with a general discussion and/or pre-ballot.

In the end, it's up to each member to choose the preferred approach for his/her ballot.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gervase Markham [mailto:gerv at mozilla.org] 
Sent: Monday, April 2, 2018 12:21 PM
To: Kirk Hall <Kirk.Hall at entrustdatacard.com>; CA/Browser Forum Public Discussion List <public at cabforum.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL]Re: [cabfpub] Discussion Period to End/Voting to Begin on Ballot 219 v2: Clarify handling of CAA Record Sets with no "issue"/"issuewild" property tag

Hi all,

In a very rare intervention, as architect of these changes to the Bylaws, I would say that the point of them is that we no longer need "pre-ballots" (unless perhaps the proposer does not yet have two endorsers and so also does not have a ballot number) and also no longer define the length of "discussion periods" up front. The way I anticipated it working was:

* Proposer posts ballot, with number and two endorsers.

* People discuss as necessary, with no explicit time limit. They take the time to craft the ballot into the right form, however long that is.

* Ballot is updated as appropriate as we go along (large or small) by the proposer posting new versions with a distinguishing version number.

* If no new version is posted for 21 days, ballot (and ballot number) expire. Any further effort to pass the measure means you start again.

* Otherwise, at any point when 7 days have elapsed without a new ballot version being posted (i.e. the ballot is considered 'stable' by the
proposer) they can start the 7-day vote by posting the final ballot form (which must be identical to the last version discussed) with a clear notice to that effect.

* If people feel it's still under-discussed or not the way they want it yet, they can vote No. It's up to the proposer to judge the mood of the group as to when they call a vote.

The meta-goal was to prevent all sorts of faffing with dates and periods for discussion.

Gerv