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The TDWG Process Wiki

PLEASE NOTE: deliberations on the New Process Stage 1 are concluded. The Process subgroup has created two documents that were approved at the TDWG 2006 annual meeting in St Louis:

a new Constitution TDWG_Constitution_2006-08-16.pdf (17 KB), and
a new Standards Development Process TDWG_Process_2006-08-16.pdf (45 KB)

The pages on this wiki are being left here temporarily as documentation of our discussions. Further refinement of TDWG's structure and process will continue. This Wiki is also used for more general TDWG discussion (eg a new name for TDWG and student involvement with TDWG). The wiki is open to anyone interested in the topic, but you must register to edit pages and add content.

This wiki is used by the Taxonomic Databases Working Group (www.tdwg.org), Process subgroup for revising TDWG 'processes'. Comments pertaining to:

The TDWG Constitution
the StandardsDevelopmentProcess (the TDWG bylaws), and
the OperationalRecommendations
VotingBits
UnresolvedIssues

General Introductory Remarks

Separation of Constitution from Bylaws

The current TDWG organizational structure is specified in the TDWG Constitution, whereas the process for creating, reviewing and approving a standard is specified in the Bylaws. Both of these components are currently being stored as a single html document, but there is no known requirement for treating them as a single entity. It makes sense to treat these two components separately because:

the Constitution and Bylaws are now managed by different processes, and
we are developing an explicit framework for versioning prescriptive specifications (i.e., standards and documents).

Without prejudging this decision, the structure? and process, as well as many of their components, are partioned here into a hierarchical series of pages.

Mark Jackson notes: there are many interdependencies between the two documents, so revising one is likely to require revising the other.
Stan (5/21): The typical scope of an organization's constitution and bylaws is limited to its purpose, structure, and governance. These governing documents are meant to satisfy the requirements of potential sanctioning bodies (governments) and typically relate to purpose and the handling of money. The definition of our procedures for developing standards probably doesn't belong in the same document.
Stan (5/24): The more I think about this, the more I think the cleanest way to achieve a stable constitution and bylaws is to put only the primary or foundational elements and processes (like officers and elections) in the constitution and bylaws, and to remove the specification of the process and any additional required entities into one or more separate documents. We've been operating under the assumption that the constitution/bylaws is the only place where organizational entities and processes can be specified. I don't believe this is necessary. In addition to the standards development process, the old newsletter editor (soon to be webmaster or something similar) would be another entity that I would say is not primary, could be handled by a second level specification of entity and responsibility.

Mark Jackson notes: there are many interdependencies between the two documents, so revising one is likely to require revising the other.

Stan (5/21): The typical scope of an organization's constitution and bylaws is limited to its purpose, structure, and governance. These governing documents are meant to satisfy the requirements of potential sanctioning bodies (governments) and typically relate to purpose and the handling of money. The definition of our procedures for developing standards probably doesn't belong in the same document.

Stan (5/24): The more I think about this, the more I think the cleanest way to achieve a stable constitution and bylaws is to put only the primary or foundational elements and processes (like officers and elections) in the constitution and bylaws, and to remove the specification of the process and any additional required entities into one or more separate documents. We've been operating under the assumption that the constitution/bylaws is the only place where organizational entities and processes can be specified. I don't believe this is necessary. In addition to the standards development process, the old newsletter editor (soon to be webmaster or something similar) would be another entity that I would say is not primary, could be handled by a second level specification of entity and responsibility.

Constitution versus Organizational Entities Here

The pages on this wiki describing TDWG's organizational entities are not intended to replace the constitution as a whole; they are intended to replace the corresponding articles/paragraphs, or to be inserted where there is no analog. In other words, they would need to be merged into the Constitution. Articles in the Constitution that are not about organizational entities will be left as is unless they are superfluous, create a conflict, or need to be replaced for another reason.

Noteworthy Differences from the Current Structure and Process

This proposal has two important differences from current structure and process. First, under this proposal TDWG membership would be defined by application (declaration) and participation, rather than the payment of annual dues. Second, the ratification of proposed standards would be done by the TDWG Executive Committee in consultation with Technical Architecture Group, rather than by vote. See the RationaleForChanges.

More Info

For more information about the mandate of the Process Subgroup, please see the subgroup charter in the attachment below. For more information about the work of this subgroup please contact Stan Blum (sblum-at-calacademy-dot-org), Subgroup Convener.

For information or problems with this wiki, please contact Ricardo Pereira (ricardo-at-tdwg-dot-org), System Administrator, or Roger Hyam (roger-at-tdwg-dot-org), also a System Administrator.

("advanced search")

PDF Rendering Variables

The following variables control the generation of the document cover page:

Set GENPDFADDON_BANNER = TDWG Process Subgroup
Set GENPDFADDON_TITLE = New TDWG Process Specification
Set GENPDFADDON_SUBTITLE = r34 - 21 Nov 2006 - 13:02:26 - RicardoPereira
Set GENPDFADDON_TITLETOPIC = PdfGenerationTestFrontpage?
Set GENPDFADDON_MARGINS = top:0.5in,bottom:0.5in,left:0.8in,right:1.0in

* MarkJackson_CommentsOnTDWG-ProcessWIKI.doc: MarkJackson_CommentsOnTDWG-ProcessWIKI.doc

* TDWG_Constitution_2006-08-16.pdf: TDWG_Constitution_2006-08-16.pdf

* TDWG_Process_2006-08-16.pdf: TDWG_Process_2006-08-16.pdf

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Topic attachments
I	Attachment	Action	Size	Date	Who	Comment
doc	MarkJackson_CommentsOnTDWG-ProcessWIKI.doc	manage	33.5 K	25 May 2006 - 05:08	StanleyBlum
pdf	TDWG_Constitution_2006-08-16.pdf	manage	16.6 K	16 Aug 2006 - 10:58	StanleyBlum
pdf	TDWG_Process_2006-08-16.pdf	manage	44.3 K	16 Aug 2006 - 10:59	StanleyBlum
doc	TDWG_Process_subgroup_charter_v1.doc	manage	44.5 K	22 Mar 2006 - 19:29	StanleyBlum	Version 1

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