Unfortunately, there are times when Mr. Petersen is not available for an extended period of time, or chooses not to act.

One only has to go to this post in this thread by ElmhurstNick to see a case where TB and Mr. Petersen chose not to act and let a TB member disappaer for a time.

This is one case where if TB or Mr. Petersen chose not to act in this situation, the membership needs to be able to remove the dead wood and replace it with someone who can function as the membership's representative.

Sorry, I don't agree.

Frankly, I don't see the big deal. The US Senate is an important body. When Tim Johnson and Ted Kennedy got very, very ill and disappeared for months, nobody was making a huge deal over not being represented in those states, and 50% of their senators were missing.

We're talking about likely, at most, 1-of-9. What's the big deal, anyway?

I'd tend to agree with you on this, but this is precisely why I would dislike your solution. I feel rather unconfortable about someone who seriously or constantly violates FT rules to be in charge of FT policy, in exactly the same way as I would feel uncomfortable about having my MP being found guilty of a serious criminal offence and yet still being allowed to remain an MP or having someone sitting on the board of an association and making policy for that association while being in breach of one of the core rules of the association.
To me, being a TB member carries a special responsibility over and above that of an ordinary member. With the power to make policy comes certain responsibilities, and abiding by the ToS is part of these responsibilities. OK, we are all fallible so the occasional minor breach must be condoned but repeated and/or serious breaches are another matter. I do not feel to comfortable about TBers wanting power for themselves and yet not being willing to accept corresponding responsibilities.

Seen from my perspective, your solution is not so much of a compromise as going all the way towards not recognising at all any particular responsibility of TBers to abide by the ToS.

Do you honestly believe that many TB members don't want to be able to post on the open forums? That, after all, is the reason why they belong to FT.

Depriving them of that right, but allowing them to participate in TB, would in no way encourage them to violate the TOS.

From a legal stand point, Federal Courts ruled in 1967 that members of Congress are not subject to state recall provisions, I believe they were trying to recall Senator Frank Church of Idaho. It simply is a tool that is unavailable to their constituencies.

The recall is a tool that has been existed in many different bodies going back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631 and Massachusetts Charter of 1691.

Typically, there are two main schools of thought with recalls, the first, and the one I support, is it provides a way for people to retain control over elected officials who are not representing the best interests of their constituents, or who are unresponsive or incompetent. This view holds that an elected representative is an agent, a servant and not a master.

Opponents typically argue that it can lead to an excess of democracy, that the threat of a recall election lessens the independence of elected officials, that it undermines the principle of electing good officials and giving them a chance to govern until the next election, and that it can lead to abuses by well-financed special interest groups.

The fewer the people that are voting, the more important a single vote is. One vote can make a very big difference for or against a single measure.

It is the ultimate failsafe, and it is supposed to be very difficult for the membership to actually use.

"Right"? Use of a private internet bulletin board is a privilege, not a right. That privilege applies to all participants.

No, but that is like saying that a criminal conviction is enough for an MP and there is no need for them to resign from Parliament if convicted. In other words, you do not recognise any particular responsibility of TB members to abide by the ToS, whereas I would and this is where the crux of the debate is on that issue. I do not think that there is a single person that has suggested that TB members should have a total immunity from abiding by the ToS. That would be simply outrageous.
What we diverge on is whether their TB mandate should be totally unaffected by ToS violations or whether they should, like elected officials in just about any institution, be subject to certain eligibility requirements concerning compliance with basic rules.
Your position is very clear: you think that their TB mandate should be totally unaffected and that there is not or should not be any incompatibility whatsoever between being a TB member and constantly violating the ToS whereas my position would be that there is or should be such an incompatibility.

FWIW - NickB & lin821 basically have expressed my thoughts re: the proposal - and bless their hearts, are much more eloquent and precise in expressing them than I could ever hope to be. So when they post, just put a +1 after what they say :)

Cheers.

Do you want to compare this to your MP? Okay, let's do it.

Imagine that you had voted for John Jones and he was elected as your MP.

He was then arrested by a police officer but the charge against him was never made public. He was convicted by this same police officer (without any trial).

It is illegal for him to tell anyone of the charge against him, much less defend himself in public. It is also illegal for anyone to even mention his conviction or to comment in any way about the police officer.

There is one avenue for an appeal but he may or may not ever hear the results of it.

Do you really and truly want your MP kept out of Parliament in this manner?

Actually in my post 313 below re voting results from 2007, the link I gave to Randy's commentary on the LAST election explains why in his view, there was such a low turnout of voters last year:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...&postcount=313

And I agree his comments there are valid.

I recall in the election I contested my second place vote number was far higher than Gleff's highest vote last year.

And some other past elections have have had higher votes than that.

But yes, ALL TB elections since they started have attracted surprisingly few votes, compared to what I would imagine they'd attract.

Glen

So if you accept my premise that there IS a case for holding TB members to standards of behaviour like we do for any other elected official in any other institution and your beef is only with the alleged fairness or unfairness of the ToS violation procedures, then we can start having a meaningful discussion and find some way towards a resolution because, then, what would be the problem with what I suggested above or with what Cholula suggested a few posts above this? If you don't trust mods, fine: let TB members remain in function until such time as Randy upholds the 30 day suspension. And to maintain the integrity of the vote, let us suspend TB votes until such time as Randy has taken a decision. If he upholds the suspension, vote can take place minus the suspended member and if he quashes it, vote can take place with the non-suspended member.
I am not clear, in the light of your last post, why you would see that as problematic and not an acceptable compromise.

It would be better than the current proposal and unquestionably more people would accept it, but I, personally, would want to know what, specifically, my representative was charged with and would also want to hear his defense before agreeing that he was unfit to serve.

To echo SanDiego1K we are not talking life and death decisions here. I am not a big believer in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Except for one recent "controversial" decision ( which had no impact on 99.9% of the readers of FT); most of the time the talkboard forum gets virtually no attention.

Personally, I think being a member of talkboard is a thankless task. I applaud all of those who are will to give their time to try and make this an easier to navigate BB.

So, Glen, even in the previous elections, can you remind us with what percentage of the FT electorate, the typical TB member gets elected? 30%? 40%? Or a fraction of that?
Not that I think that there is anything wrong with few FT members participating. It is entirely understandable. But it remains the case that TB is elected on the basis of a tiny fraction of FTer votes, and should therefore, imo, be rather humble before relying on that to make claims about their representativity for any purpose.