[Ratification-discuss] Status Report

[Alan Bawden]

The Steering Committee was asked if anybody had applied to vote and
been rejected.  So here is a status report.  (The opinions expressed
herein are my own, but the facts herein belong to everybody...)

117 people submitted registration forms.  13 people initially
submitted statements that were significantly short of 150 words long.
Those people were asked to submit longer statements.  7 of those
people sent longer statements, and the other 5 did not reply at all.
Those 5 were sent a second request that all 5 failed to respond to.
That left us with 112 statements to evaluate.

All three members of the Steering Committee read all 112 statements.
We questioned some of them, but we eventually agreed to approve them
all.  The statements vary a great deal in terms of what they actually
-say-, but then, there is some room for interpretation in a question
like "what is your interest in the Scheme standard?".

Personally, I am pretty happy with the results.  I have a hard time
imagining a different procedure that would have guaranteed a "higher
quality" electorate.

Assuming everybody votes (and I bet they will), it will take 45
"No" votes to send the Editors back to the drawing board.  Each of
those votes would have to be accompanied by an explaination.  Given
the statements-of-interest, I think we can be confident that most of
those 45 (or more) explainations would contain thoughtful and useful
advice on how to improve things.

On the other had, it will take 68 "Yes" votes to ratify the current
draft as R6RS.  In that case the draft will have been approved by what
looks to me to be a fairly representative sample of the Scheme
community.

- Alan