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RE: [EFM] What was the intent of Jackie Chan's motion made during the closi ng 802.3ah Plenary?




All,

In all seriousness, there was a problem with the voting format that was
used.  Doing the votes serially, and in public, gave the first option voted
on an unfair advantage.  During the first vote, both sides would contribute
support, since that is the only way forward.  But, once the first vote
succeeded, the voting membership could become much more hard-nosed, since
they had at least one option approved.  In other words, voting NO no longer
had the onus upon it that progress would be blocked.  Hence, the second vote
is more likely to fail.  

Now, if everybody in the room was versed in game theory, then this is fine,
and both options will be voted down, if their support is equal.  
How evenly the support was divided we will never know.  But, as the order of
voting was determined by a coin toss, one could say that the EFM task force
may have selected its line code by flipping a coin.  How quaint!    

Personally, I don't mind the outcome, since it is obvious that the network
operators wanted SHDSL.  (Of course, the operators wanted the ITU-T PON
timing values, but they were summarily dismissed on that one.  Go figure.) 

Of course, on the PON timing vote, we saw that both sides had near equal
support (~60% in favor for either).  Here, the voting sequence also played
an equal, but opposite role.  I think that the finally approved motion got
the critical 'over the top' support simply because it was the last chance to
dispose of the issue on that day.  I also note that the person who
precipitated the re-testing of the two motions (Mr. Thatcher) specifically
asked for their re-consideration "in that order".  I think Jonathan may have
witnessed this happen before.    

So, what can we learn from this?  Well, the order of voting on motions such
as these matters.  One could hope that perhaps a fairer practice for voting
on options could be formulated.  There are several systems for this - just
look at how political elections are held around the world.  

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say.  For better or worse, the questions are
settled, and that is that.  

Sincerely, 
Frank Effenberger


-----Original Message-----
From: O'Mahony, Barry
To: John M. Cioffi; John.Egan@infineon.com; stds-802-3-efm@ieee.org
Cc: jacky@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: 1/20/03 6:05 PM
Subject: RE: [EFM] What was the intent of Jackie Chan's motion made during
the closi ng 802.3ah Plenary?


John & Johnb,

Just a note on the characterization that Behrooz was "not allowed" to
speak, as some on this thread may have implied.  Behrooz' presentation
was indeed on the meeting agenda, for the Copper sub-Task Force.  Was it
presented?  No.  I have to blame this on a new Copper sub-Task Force
Chair (yours truly), and the stumblings that sometimes occur when a
transition occurs between old and new Chairs.  In this case I wasn't
completely familiar with the agenda, which had been drawn up by the old
Chair.

Procedurally, please note that, prior to the closing of the Copper
sub-Task Force meeting, I did ask if there was any further business to
cover.  No one mentioned anything.  Strictly speaking, I should have
explicitly asked Behrooz if he wished to present his presentation,
although if anyone wished at that point to bring up the fact that his
presentation had not been presented, they did indeed have the
opportunity.  I've not known Behrooz to be particularly shy and I'm sure
he would have asked to present if he felt it was still necessary.

--Barry

-----Original Message-----
From: John M. Cioffi [mailto:cioffi@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 1:07 PM
To: John.Egan@infineon.com; stds-802-3-efm@ieee.org
Cc: jacky@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [EFM] What was the intent of Jackie Chan's motion made
during the closi ng 802.3ah Plenary?


All,

I did a little research as on the heated note below, which appears to
confuse a few things:

First, Jackie Chan is a martial-arts movie star who may give
a few black-eyes here and there on film (not sure if those
alleged below have black eyes or not or are movie stars)
However, after some investigation and guessing I found
the person who made the motion is Dr. Jacky S. Chow of
Astri in Hong Kong (not the movie starr Jackie Chan).
Dr. Chow is apparently not on the exploder, so
did not know of discussions and requests.

He told me he was simply interesting in seeing the presentation --
he was not sure why old Behrooz was so intimidating that he could not
be allowed to speak.  I've known Jacky for 15 years and never
seen him give anyone a black eye, but he does do outstanding
work with exceptional diligence.

I hope that clears the questions/confusion raised.

John Cioffi


At 10:04 PM 1/10/2003 -0800, John.Egan@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>I am still perplexed after hearing so many explanations...
>What was the intent of Jackie Chan's motion presented during the
closing 
>minutes of Thursday's  802.3ah TF Plenary? Was it really to present the

>fact that Behrooz's presentation pitching both SHDSL and ADSL as only
able 
>to meet the Long Reach Objective as a pair was not presented? I thought

>the two PHYs were presented as they should have been... standing by 
>themselves and decided upon as standalone efforts. Otherwise, they
should 
>neither have been selected, as they did not meet criteria.
>
>I have been told the intent of the motion was to get entered into the 
>minutes the fact that Behrooz's presentation was not given and by doing
so 
>this was a sort of black eye for Howard Frazier and Barry O'Mahony as 
>apparently every presentation submitted should be given a chance to be 
>presented, unless time considerations come into play. Is this a fact?
Is 
>this "entering into the minutes" some sort of revenge or something by
one 
>side? Will we then have the presentation, with accompanying motion 
>efforts, in March? I thought the Plenary had agreed that no new work
would 
>be entertained. Are we going to continue fighting over what we already 
>decided on? I hope not.
>
>By the way... there are many presentations that have been rejected and
not 
>given over these past two years of EFM. I have I submitted from last
March 
>(among many that were rejected) that proposed QAM VDSL to solve the
Short 
>Reach PHY matter... but the presentation was shelved for good reason as

>was too early in the process. Should I claim this "foul" as well and
have 
>the whole effort bog down in foolish claims and non-productive
fighting? I 
>will not and would respect those that feel the same and let us move
ahead.
>Regards,
>
>John

John M. Cioffi
Hitachi America Professor of Electrical Engineering
363 Packard Electrical Engineering Bldg.
350 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-9515
+1-650-723-2150  Fax: +1-650-724-3652
cioffi@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www-isl.stanford.edu/~cioffi/
http://www-isl.stanford.edu/~cioffi/dsm/