[aur-general] [PATCH] tu-bylaws: Amend Standard Voting Procedure

[Peter Lewis]

On Wednesday 08 December 2010 13:34:53 Ronald van Haren wrote:
> >> and who determines if there is a substantial difference between the
> >> two votes (I'm talking about edge cases here)? And what exactly is
> >> this substantial difference that is required, how do we quantify it?
> > 
> > Indeed, there are always these questions :-)
> > 
> > And maybe this isn't clear, but "substantive" is a little different from
> > "substantial". It basically means that there needs to be a difference of
> > value between the two proposals. I.e. the implication of accepting the
> > second rather than the first would be, at least in some small way,
> > different.
> > 
> > That's my feeling, anyway.
> 
> I'm not a native speaker, but I always thought they could be used
> interchangeably. Actually most of the on-line dictionaries don't give
> a clear answer about the difference. Either way, we should probably
> try to use a different wording if the purpose is to make the document
> more understandable.

Sure - I'm all for easily understandable, as long as we're also precise :-)

I suppose what I'm after is that the effect of the two proposals must be in 
some way different. It's not enough just to reword the same thing. So how 
about:

"A rejected proposal may not be presented again before a waiting period has 
passed. The duration of the waiting period shall be 3 full months UNLESS 
otherwise stated in a section of the bylaws pertaining to the proposal. The 
waiting period begins at the end of the voting period. A proposal which is 
similar to the rejected proposal, but whose effect is in any way different is 
considered a different proposal, and therefore does not require a waiting 
period before being presented."

Pete.