The New MDS Website

Members of sds/mds spent many hours hashing out democratic listserv administration procedures for New Left Cafe, so I think it is a good place to start.

New Left Cafe was started as the "official" sds/mds discussion forum, early in 2006. It was redesignated as "unofficial" in the fall of 2006, in consideration of the fact that sds/mds did not have a constitution or bylaws or any agreed method for making anything "official" yet (other than a resolution of an sds convention). NLC remains an sds/mds free speech forum.

To adapt and adopt the NLC procedures, we could conduct a discussion here and either vote on this website (if the site is ready to handle it) or vote at the New Left Cafe administrative listserv.

Printed below are the NLC motion/voting procedures and these are available online also at http://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/nlc-a/listprocedure . All subscribers to NLC may subscribe and unsubsribe to the NLC-admin list to participate in discussion of motions and votes, as they choose.

Members of sds/mds may subscribe to New Left Cafe at
http://lists.riseup.net/www/subrequest/nlc . And NLC subscribers may subscribe to NLC-admin at http://lists.riseup.net/www/subrequest/nlc-a .

Solidarity,
Monty Reed Kroopkin

List Procedure

What follows is the current working structure for the NLC Administrative list (NLCA), which is responsible for the unofficial SDS/MDS listserv New Left Cafe (NLC). Participation in NLCA is open to all NLC subscribers.

A policy may be proposed under this structure by posting it to NLC and NLCA. If such a proposal receives two "seconds" and no opposition on NLCA in the four days after it is presented, it will be considered approved. If it receives opposition, it will be debated for another three days and then put to a vote on NLCA. If it passes that vote it will be adopted. If it doesn't pass that vote, it will be either set aside or returned to the floor for further debate. A proposal may only be amended by its original author, and only at specified times in the consideration process.

I. Presenting Proposals for Consideration

Any NLCA subscriber may formally propose a new policy or a change to existing policy by posting such a proposal to NLC and NLCA.

To be considered a formal proposal, such a post must include the phrase "NLCA PROPOSAL" in its subject header, and include a link to this document in its body.

We strongly recommend that list members present their ideas informally on NLCA before posting them to NLC as formal proposals, so that other list members can offer any suggestions or advice they may have.

II. Initial Consideration

If a proposal receives two statements of support and no opposition on NLCA during the first four days after it is proposed, it will be adopted as NLC policy.

If it does not receive two statements of support during the first four days, it will be set aside.

If any member of NLCA expresses opposition to a proposal during its first four days, debate on that proposal will be extended for another three days.

III. Amendment

The person who formally posts a proposal to NLC and NLCA is considered that proposal's author. Only the author of a proposal may amend it.

If a proposal is amended more than 24 hours after it is originally posted, it will not be eligible for adoption by consensus under the four-day rule, and must be approved or rejected by NLCA poll.

IV. Extended Debate and Voting

At the conclusion of the initial four-day discussion, if a proposal has not been adopted or rejected, it will be "locked" to further amendments. Debate will continue for another three days.

After that debate, the membership of NLCA will vote on the proposal. Each list member will have the opportunity to support one of three outcomes: [a] adopting the proposal, [b] rejecting the proposal, or [c] extending debate further.

Voting will be conducted on the NLCA list, and will be open for 48 hours. List members who do not expect to be online during a vote may announce in advance that they have given another member their proxy. No list member may hold more than one other member's proxy in any vote.

NLC members who join NLCA while a vote is in progress will not be entitled to participate in that vote.

V. Adoption and Rejection of Proposals

Any proposal that receives the endorsement of a majority of the list members at the time of voting or of at least 67% of the members voting will be adopted as NLC policy.

Any proposal which is rejected by a majority of the members voting will be set aside.

Any proposal which is not accepted or rejected according to the above rules will be returned to NLCA for another four days of discussion, followed by another vote.

Any proposal that has not been accepted or rejected after three votes will be set aside.

A proposal that has been slated for further debate in a vote may be amended by its author during the 24 hours after the vote. After that point the proposal will be "locked" until the end of the next vote.

VI. Fine print

All time periods in these procedures will be calculated as 24-hour increments, beginning at the end of the hour in which the proposal was posted on NLC. (If a proposal is posted to the NLC at 9:43 in the morning EST on a Tuesday, in other words, the four-day initial consideration period will end at 10 am the following Saturday, the extended debate, if necessary, will continue until 10 am the *following* Tuesday, and the straw poll will be conducted between 10 am Tuesday and 10 am Thursday.)