Talk:Policy Committee Rules of Procedure (Draft)

Policy Issues of Interest / Agenda
The Policy Committee is to maintain a list of policy issues of interest, and post a link to it in the Policy Committee Activities forum and the Policy Committee wiki page. A policy issue is to be included in the list if:
 * the policy issue was included in the policy wiki prior to the formation of the Policy Committee, and has not yet been considered, or
 * 3 or more PPNZ members express interest in the policy issue, or
 * the policy issue is known to have a precedent from 3 or more official pirate parties (meaning PPSE and the members of PPI), and has not yet been considered, or
 * the Policy Committee decides that the policy issue deserves consideration.

The Policy Committee is to select issues for consideration from the list of policy issues of interest based on the level of member interest (e.g. as determined by a poll). Where there are related policy issues, these might be considered concurrently.

Opening a Discussion
When policy issues are selected for consideration:

The Policy Committee is to create a thread for discussing the issue or issues in: Board Index > Party Policy Development > Policy Committee Activities , similar in form to:


 * Post subject: X
 * This thread is for formulating and discussing proposals for PPNZ's official policy on X. Proposals and ideas will be collated on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on X.
 * If you would like to discuss this issue on IRC, please raise this in the thread. The Policy Committee will try to arrange a meeting if 3 or more members express interest.  To help us select an appropriate time, please ensure you update the times you are available at: Board Index > General > Polls > Poll:  What time of the week should PPNZ have IRC meetings?   If there is to be a meeting, it will be held on .
 * The process will be as follows:
 * * Members have the opportunity to put forward and discuss proposals (for at least 5 days).
 * * Proposals are collated, and a last call is made for member input (allowing at least 2 days).
 * * Voting instructions are posted, and voting is open for 5 days.
 * * Results of the vote are posted.
 * * Proposals are collated, and a last call is made for member input (allowing at least 2 days).
 * * Voting instructions are posted, and voting is open for 5 days.
 * * Results of the vote are posted.

The Policy Committee is to create a wiki page for formulating proposals: Policy Committee Proposals on X, similar in form to:


 * Policy Committee Proposals on X
 * This page is for the Policy Committee to collate proposals for and discussions about the official policy on X. Please post your ideas in Board index > Party Policy Development > Policy Committee Activities > X.
 * Options
 * (to be collated)
 * Ideas from the Discussion
 * (to be collated)
 * (to be collated)
 * Ideas from the Discussion
 * (to be collated)
 * (to be collated)
 * (to be collated)

During the Discussion
The Policy Committee is to schedule an IRC meeting if 3 or more members request it, or if the Policy Committee decides it appropriate, and afterwards link to the transcript from the forum and the wiki page.

The Policy Committee is to determine which options are to require a 75% majority to win. Options are to require a 75% majority if: For a policy to qualify as potential 'core policy', it must be a legislative or governmental policy which has a precedent from at least 2 other official pirate parties. A precedent is a policy which:
 * the option involves legislative or governmental policy, but does not qualify as potential 'core policy', or
 * the Policy Committee has grounds to suspect that the option may be illegal under New Zealand law, or
 * the option advocates for something that the Policy Committee has grounds to suspect may be illegal under New Zealand law.
 * is essentially the same as the policy under consideration, or
 * is essentially the same except more extensive, or
 * incorporates a policy essentially the same as the one under consideration, or
 * incorporates a policy that is essentially the same except more extensive.

Drawing from the discussion, the Policy Committee is to collate proposals and justifications for them on the wiki page created for the purpose (Policy Committee Proposals on X), similar in form to:


 * Policy Committee Proposals on X
 * This page is for the Policy Committee to collate proposals for and discussions about the official policy on X. Please post your ideas in Board index > Party Policy Development > Policy Committee Activities > X.
 * Options
 * Policy issue 1:
 * * [X] No policy
 * * [X] Proposal 1 (the current policy)
 * * [X] Proposal 2
 * * [X] Proposal 3 (non core policy, requires 75% majority)
 * * [W] No confidence in the vote
 * Policy issue 2:
 * * [X] No policy
 * * [X] Proposal 1
 * * [X] Proposal 2
 * * [X] Proposal 3 (legal concerns, requires 75% majority)
 * * [W] No confidence in the vote
 * Options marked as "non core policy, requires 75% majority" are legislative/governmental policy which are not known to have a precedent from at least 2 other official pirate parties.
 * Options marked as "legal concerns, requires 75% majority" are policies which the Policy Committee believes may be illegal, or advocate for something which is illegal in New Zealand.
 * Ideas from the Discussion
 * * [W] No confidence in the vote
 * Options marked as "non core policy, requires 75% majority" are legislative/governmental policy which are not known to have a precedent from at least 2 other official pirate parties.
 * Options marked as "legal concerns, requires 75% majority" are policies which the Policy Committee believes may be illegal, or advocate for something which is illegal in New Zealand.
 * Ideas from the Discussion
 * Ideas from the Discussion
 * Ideas from the Discussion

(Provisional) Last Call
Once: the Policy Committee moves to make a last call for submissions, similar in form to:
 * it seems members have had sufficient time for discussion (and at least the minimum time specified when the discussion was opened), and
 * the proposals are collated, including options for no policy, leaving the policy unchanged, and no confidence in the vote (and not exceeding 19 proposals, so they can be labelled with the letters A-S), and
 * 75% majority requirements are determined,
 * Post subject: Re: X (last call for input into proposals)
 * This is the last call for policy proposals for X. The current provisional options are available at:
 * Policy Committee Proposals on X
 * Unless significant objections are raised, the current options will be moved to a vote after HH:MM on DD/MM/YYYY.
 * Unless significant objections are raised, the current options will be moved to a vote after HH:MM on DD/MM/YYYY.

The Policy Committee may decide to extend the discussion if they consider it appropriate, in which case another 'last call' will be required. If objections are raised, but the discussion is not extended, the Policy Committee must respond to the objections.

Voting
Once the last call has expired, if no objections have been raised by members, or if the Policy Committee decides objections raised to be invalid, and responds to them, the Policy Committee is to assign letters to the proposals, and post the finalised proposals, and how to vote on them, similar in form to:


 * Post subject: Re: X (voting now open)
 * Voting is now open for the official PPNZ policy on X. Voting will remain open until HH:MM on DD/MM/YYYY.  Votes will be counted by the Condorcet method (which compares every option head-to-head against every other), with IR/STV as a tie breaker if necessary. However non-core legislative policies, or policies that raise legal issues (if any) will require a 75% majority over other options to win. The results will be posted in this thread. Except in the case of a tie, the winning option(s) will become official policy.
 * There are N issues to vote on, and options are:
 * Policy issue 1:
 * * [A] No policy
 * * [B] Policy proposal 1 (current policy)
 * * [C] Policy proposal 2
 * * [D] Policy proposal 3 (non core policy, requires 75% majority)
 * * [W] No confidence in the vote
 * Policy issue 2:
 * * [E] No policy
 * * [F] Policy proposal 1
 * * [G] Policy proposal 2
 * * [H] Policy proposal 3 (legal concerns, requires 75% majority)
 * * [W] No confidence in the vote
 * Options marked "non core policy, requires 75% majority" are legislative or governmental policy not known to have a precedent from 2 other official pirate parties.
 * Options marked "legal concerns, requires 75% majority" are thought to possibly be illegal, or advocate for something which is illegal in New Zealand.
 * A vote of no confidence means you think the way the options are presented is biased or misleading, that an option suggested during the discussion was inappropriately excluded, or that the vote is otherwise flawed.
 * Members can cast their vote by sending an e-mail (from the account they put on their membership application) of the following form:
 * To: 
 * Subject: Policy vote on X
 * T > U > V
 * X > Y > Z
 * A separate line should be used for each issue that you wish to vote on. In the place of "T > U > V" and "X > Y > Z", include the letters that indicate your options in order of preference, separated by the greater than sign '>'. (It is also valid to separate options with the equals sign '=', for example "X > Y = Z" to indicate that you give Y and Z equal rankings.)  You can vote on any number of issues from 1 to all of them, and for each issue you vote on, you can include include any number of options from 1 to all of them.
 * Before voting, please read the summary of ideas from the discussion available on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on X.
 * Members can cast their vote by sending an e-mail (from the account they put on their membership application) of the following form:
 * To: 
 * Subject: Policy vote on X
 * T > U > V
 * X > Y > Z
 * A separate line should be used for each issue that you wish to vote on. In the place of "T > U > V" and "X > Y > Z", include the letters that indicate your options in order of preference, separated by the greater than sign '>'. (It is also valid to separate options with the equals sign '=', for example "X > Y = Z" to indicate that you give Y and Z equal rankings.)  You can vote on any number of issues from 1 to all of them, and for each issue you vote on, you can include include any number of options from 1 to all of them.
 * Before voting, please read the summary of ideas from the discussion available on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on X.
 * A separate line should be used for each issue that you wish to vote on. In the place of "T > U > V" and "X > Y > Z", include the letters that indicate your options in order of preference, separated by the greater than sign '>'. (It is also valid to separate options with the equals sign '=', for example "X > Y = Z" to indicate that you give Y and Z equal rankings.)  You can vote on any number of issues from 1 to all of them, and for each issue you vote on, you can include include any number of options from 1 to all of them.
 * Before voting, please read the summary of ideas from the discussion available on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on X.
 * Before voting, please read the summary of ideas from the discussion available on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on X.

Calculating and Posting Results
The Policy Committee is to calculate the results as follows:
 * Collate the votes.
 * Forward the list of e-mail addresses used for voting to the Board to check.
 * Use Condorcet voting to calculate the ranking of options.
 * Use IR/STV to resolve Condorcet loops, if necessary to determine the winning option.
 * Eliminate any option previously determined to require a 75% majority over other options, that fails to achieve this, if necessary to determine the winning option.
 * Identify the winning option, except in the case of a tie.

Except in the case of a tie, the winning option becomes official policy. The Policy Committee is to post the results in the thread, similar in form to the below, and update the policy page if necessary.


 * Post subject: Re: X (votes counted)
 * The winning options were:
 * Policy issue 1: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * Policy issue 2: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * Votes cast: N votes
 * The unadjusted Condorcet (head-to-head) results can be summarised as follows:
 * Policy issue 1:
 * 1st: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (the above option beats every below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 2nd: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (every above option beats every below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 3rd: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (every above option beats the below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 4th: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * Policy issue 2:
 * 1st: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (the above option beats every below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 2nd: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (every above option beats every below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 3rd: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (every above option beats the below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 4th: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (every above option beats every below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 3rd: [X] Policy proposal ...
 * (every above option beats the below option by at least N votes / N%)
 * 4th: [X] Policy proposal ...


 * Condorcet (head-to-head) will give us a winner in each case, so STV is not needed as a tie breaker.
 * The top rated options do not require a 75% majority to win, so we do not need to check for this.