Pardon me for keeping this short and snappy, I’m quite tired, and this is a small amendment proposal.
As a means of further battling inactivity in the Magisterium and keeping an active pool of magisters, I’d like to suggest that we begin making it mandatory that roll calls be held on a set period of time. For the moment, I’d like to think every two months is an appropriate timeframe, but if anybody has any further ideas, I’d love to hear them and discuss this further in depth here.
Initial thoughts are that perhaps the amendment should be to allow the Office to perform the roll call instead of just the Provost before we mandate that it has to happen every couple of months.
My first thought is that the office should be given the leeway to decide when it wants to decide the rollcalls. During busy years, there’s no real need for this because everyone is voting all the time.
I would say this is a case of overlegislation that has no benefit
I’m sorry but I must disagree. I’ve been in the Magisterium for nearly four years now, the bouts of inactivity and the amount of times that I’ve seen Magisters suspended for inactivity is a growing concern.
I don’t think it’s overlegislation, in my view making roll calls mandatory is hardly overlegislating. It’s a small measure that would help the Office of Provost further keep an active roster of Magisters.
I think the issue being described is more about some Magisters being inactive for entire voting blocks, rather than our suspension / record-keeping procedures, with the underlying thought being “If we do roll calls more frequently, that might keep Magisters active or be a way of classifying Magisters as inactive more rapidly than at the end of the month”. (Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong @Cappedore)
Going back to my original post because I don’t think I explained myself well enough:
The reason why I would like to see the whole Office being able to initiate a roll call is that I would like to see if regularly performing roll calls has an impact on Magister activity or early identification of inactivity before we mandate that they have to be done. In order words, I would like to test the efficacy of the measure before it’s mandated. Though, my thoughts on that may change depending on what the leadership team looks like during the next session of the Magisterium.
Ladona, I can see the point that Rollcalls to boost activity - though I agree that I’m slightly doubtful about the effectiveness.
If the office pinging and going “Bro vote on this 5 things” in a month isn’t helping magisters to be active, I don’t think adding one more rollcall would change anything
For me the most valuable thing about a roll call is that it’s an early intervention measure that at the very least helps make achieving quorum easier by identifying and reclassifying inactive Magisters faster.
A pertinent example of this is that had the two inactive and one invalid Magisters this month been flagged as such earlier through a formal process like roll call, we would have had 19 Active Magisters, so a quorum requirement of 10 which would have allowed the IRC repeal to go through the first time despite the fact that I got too busy to send reminders.
But, I am going to keep quiet on future thoughts on the matter until Cappedore confirms that my thoughts behind their reasoning for this amendment are correct, or until they correct me so that I don’t hijack a thread with irrelevant thoughts.
Then the point here that this proposal aims to aderess becomes → Rollcalls help the Office rapidly manage its inactive magisters who are out for certain blocks. (More rapidly than monthly cleanups)
Which the main counterpoint would be: If the office reclassifies magisters every month, is there still a benefit for a mandatory rollcall every 2 months? (Which would by definition already be slower than the monthly reclassifications)
Especially when the provost has the power to call rollcalls anytime.
Not every two months, but because roll call timing isn’t fixed like the end-of-month checks are, they can be done mid-month. This limits the impact of an inactive Magister to a fortnight instead of a month.
With the caveat being that if the timing remains discretionary then if we’re flooding the Magisterium with votes we can hold back on calling a roll call for that month. But if the scope is expanded to the whole Office, then it can be initiated more routinely.
I’m not sure about before December 17, 2022 but the consistent language of 6.8. (back all the way to when it was 8.1.) has always been specifically the Provost rather than the Office which is why I never opened a roll call lol
The Provost may hold a roll call and require that Magisters respond within 7 days to confirm their activity.
Or the 2022 version:
…8.1. The Provost may hold a roll call and require that Magisters respond within 1 week, or 168 hours, to confirm their activity:
Yes, but there are sections of the SOM that explicitly state “The Office of the Provost may” vs. “The Provost may”.
So if the Provost doesn’t provide the request to conduct their duty because they think the whole Office can but it’s a delegated permission, that causes things to fall by the wayside.
