-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

SECOND CALL FOR VOTES (OF 2)

UK Usenet Committee Elections 2006

Votes must be received by 23:59:59 GMT, 2nd December 2006.

For voting questions *only* contact

  Primary Votetaker: Pedt Scragg <com2k06 (at) mx2.org.uk>
Secondary Votetaker: Richard Ashton <cmt2006 (at) voting.semolina.org>
(Please only contact the secondary votetaker in an emergency)

Due to the continued prevalence of viruses and worms that harvest Usenet
posts for e-mail addresses, all e-mail addresses in the CFV are modified 
to prevent this.

========================================================================

Distribution:

This CFV has been posted to the following newsgroups:

uk.net.news.announce
uk.net.news.config
uk.net.news.management

========================================================================

This CFV contains the following sections.

1. Definition of Open Class of Membership
2. Application Requirements
3. Persons resigning from the Committee
4. List of Candidates
5. Candidate Details, including Nominators and personal statements
6. Standard Voting Instructions
7. Instructions on how to obtain a ballot paper and template

========================================================================

Definition of Open Class of Membership

Any participant in the uk.* hierarchy qualifies as a candidate in the
Open class.

========================================================================

Application Requirements

Any participant in the uk.* hierarchy qualifies as a nominator for the
Open class.

Any individual may nominate a maximum of three candidates.

========================================================================

Persons resigning from the Committee

Open Member Class:

Fiona Gostling (aka 'Kat')
Chris Croughton
Jim Clokey (aka 'Lt. Cmdr. Jim')

who have served their respective terms.

========================================================================

Candidates:

5 nominations have been received. The committee has 3 vacancies and
therefore an election will be held to fill the 3 vacancies.

A list of the candidates is below (in alphabetical order by name).

Candidates:

Chris Croughton                      Candidate A
Graham Drabble                       Candidate B
Kat aka Fiona Gostling               Candidate C
Lt. Cmdr. Jim                        Candidate D
Wm                                   Candidate E

Please find below details of the people who nominated each candidate
(Name & Email Address) and a short statement from each candidate:

Note: In each case, only the names of the first four nominators to
confirm their nomination are listed.

========================================================================

Candidate A

Name  : Chris Croughton
E-Mail: chris (at) keristor (dot) net

Nominators

Name  : kat
E-Mail: kat.news (at) ntlworld (dot) com

Name  : Adam Price
E-Mail: adam+usenet (at) pappnase (dot) co (dot) uk

Name  : Wm...
E-Mail: tcnw81 (at) tarrcity (dot) demon (dot) co (dot) uk

Name  : John Hall
E-Mail: john (at) jhall (dot) co (dot) uk

Statement:

I think anyone likely to vote probably knows me by now.  I've been on
Usenet since 1992, in various newsgroups, will have been on the UK
Usenet Committee for 3 years next January, and have been Control for
uk.* since April 2004.  I've never hidden my Usenet activities so Google
should have a complete record (I'm the only "Chris Croughton" as far as
I can tell).

========================================================================

Candidate B

Name  : Graham Drabble
E-Mail: graham (at) drabble (dot) me (dot) uk

Nominators

Name  : Charles Lindsey
E-Mail: chl (at) clerew.man (dot) ac (dot) uk

Name  : Chris Croughton
E-Mail: chris (at) keristor (dot) net

Name  : Kat
E-Mail: kat (dot) news (at) ntlworld (dot) com

Name  : Dick Gaughan
E-Mail: dg (at) dickgaughan (dot) co (dot) uk

Statement:

There's not really much for me to say here, having been on the 
committee in the past you pretty much know what you're getting. 
Basically I'm reasonably happy with the system as it stands though am 
always happy to look for tweaks. In general I prefer to work on an 
informal basis building concensus rather than imposing a decision. 
The one thing I would like to improve is the involvement of news 
admins in the process, which is something that could (and IMO should) 
be done across hierarchies since the issues are very similar for all.

Also I feel I ought to say at this point that work requires me to do 
a lot of travel (I will be out the country for most of November). I 
should be able to check email / Usenet from wherever I am but it may 
not be every night.
========================================================================

Candidate C

Name  : Kat aka Fiona Gostling
E-Mail: kat (dot) news (at) ntlworld (dot) com

Nominators

Name  : Graham Drabble
E-Mail: graham (at) drabble (dot) me (dot) uk

Name  : Wm
E-Mail: tcnw81 (at) tarrcity (dot) demon (dot) co (dot) uk

Name  : Alison Hopkins
E-Mail: alisonhopkins1 (at) btinternet (dot) com

Name  : John Bean
E-Mail: waterfoot (at) gmail (dot) com

Statement:

When I stood for election three years ago I said I felt I would be able 
to offer the views of the ordinary user and I hope I have done that.    
It has been very quiet for the last year or so, and I hope this suggests 
that the hierarchy is running smoothly.  It would be nice to see more 
happening though, and if elected I would continue to do what I can to 
aid the processes.

========================================================================

Candidate D

Name  : Lt. Cmdr. Jim
E-Mail: jim (at) us-lot (dot) org

Nominators

Name  : Dr Zoidberg
E-Mail: alex (at) drzoidberg (dot) co (dot) uk

Name  : Sparhawk
E-Mail: sparhawk2 (at) ntlworld (dot) com

Name  : Alison Hopkins
E-Mail: alisonhopkins1 (at) btinternet (dot) com

Name  : Chris Croughton
E-Mail: chris (at) keristor (dot) org

Statement:

During my three years on the Committee, I have successfully managed not 
to do anything monumentally stupid in my official capacity.  This being 
(in my opinion) the most important function of a Committee member, I 
will stand for re-election on a platform of continuing not to cause 
major explosions, avoiding disastrous blunders, and hardly ever crashing 
the Black Helicopter.  Or you could vote for one of the several other 
candidates who are also perfectly competent, it's up to you really.

========================================================================

Candidate E

Name  : Wm
E-Mail: tcnw (at) tarrcity (dot) demon (dot) co (dot) uk

Nominators

Name  : kat
E-Mail: kat (dot) news (at) ntlworld (dot) com

Name  : Chris
E-Mail: chris (at) keristor (dot) net

Name  : Martyn Bailey (aka Mother)
E-Mail: m (at) 101fc (dot) net

Name  : Paul
E-Mail: paul (at) harper (dot) net

Statement:

Like most people I have a name, mine is William Tarr.  I have purposely 
chosen a mix of nominators that reflect some of my views of how uk.* is. 
ChrisC is the best control we've had for a long time.  Kat is nice and 
came to uk.* from an unexpected older place.  Martyn is thoughtful and 
fun as is Paul; I think uk.* needs a sense of humour about itself and a 
mix of people if it is to survive.  If it isn't fun people will stop 
doing it and that would be the end of what I believe is the best managed 
usenet hierarchy in the world.  Enough about them; I've only a few lines 
left (Pedt allowed me a generous 15, so I'll squeeze in a word or two to 
say that I think UKV is good and the fact that we think about our voting 
is better than hierarchies that don't).  I'm in favour of new groups 
where support is shown but also in favour of a tidy hierarchy which 
means that I lean towards group removal where appropriate.  I also like 
savoury things.  Did you hear the one about ... rats, end of speech.

========================================================================


This vote is being conducted by two Votetakers. In the event that the
Primary Votetaker fails to respond the Secondary Votetaker will take
over the running of this vote.

Voting Instructions

If you fail to follow the instructions below your ballot paper may be
ruled invalid. This means your vote will not be counted.

1) One person, one vote.

2) No two voters may vote from the same email address. In the event that
   only one address is available to two persons who both wish to vote,
   both these persons should contact the votetaker prior to voting.

3) Votes must be emailed directly from the voter to the address
   specified by the votetaker.
 
4) There may be technical reasons, such as breaks in the email headers
   of your ballot, which may mean that the votetaker is unable to
   confirm the validity of your vote. The votetaker will contact you if
   there are any irregularities.

5) Anonymous, forwarded or proxy votes are not valid, and votes mailed
   by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered to be anonymous votes.
   
   NB: Votes posted from Web Based Mail Services will be counted as
   valid votes, providing they do not anonymise the source of the vote.

If you have followed the voting instructions correctly, you will receive
an acknowledgement of your vote within five days from the votetaker.

This does not always mean that your vote is valid. The votetaker will
contact you if there is a problem with your vote.

If you do not receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your ballot paper
within five days you should contact the votetaker.

If the acknowledgement "bounces" back to the votetaker (the mail
containing the acknowledgment is returned as undeliverable by a
mailserver), your vote will not be counted.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your ballot paper has been
received by checking that the acknowledgement arrives. You should also
check that your vote is recorded correctly in the acknowledgement. If
there are any problems with your acknowledgement, you should contact the
votetaker.

Please do not distribute this CFV. If you must, direct people to the
official CFV as posted to uk.net.news.announce. Distributing pre-marked
or otherwise edited copies of the CFV or Ballot Paper is considered to
be *Voting Fraud*, and may lead to the vote being suspended or declared
*NULL & VOID*. When in doubt, ask the votetaker, who can mail a copy of
the CFV in reply.

Official Sources of the CFV:

1) The copy which was posted to uk.net.news.announce

2) The copy which was posted to any other groups.

3) The votetaker

NB: Sources 1-2 are posted by Control on behalf of UKVoting.

If in doubt of the validity of a CFV posting please contact the
votetaker.

========================================================================

How to Vote 
 
This vote is being run with a voting system which was introduced in
January 2003, so if you haven't voted since then this is going to be new
to you.
 
Please read the instructions carefully.
 
Under this new system, the email address that will be published in the
results is the one that the ballot paper was sent to. So for example if
a ballot paper was sent to example-voter@ukvoting.org.uk, this would be
the address shown in the result. This address has to be valid, otherwise
you will not receive a ballot paper.
 
To receive a ballot paper, you must send an email to the Ballot Request
Address, which is com2k06 (at) request (dot) ukvoting (dot) org (dot) uk


For most news-reading software, just replying by email to this post will
address your email correctly, but *please check* that the address above
is actually in the To field before you send the mail.
 
We recognise that sometimes people submit their votes from different
addresses for varying reasons, especially when more than one email
address is available to a voter. If you want the results to record your
vote as coming from a different address to that from which you post your
request, you can do this by putting the address you want recorded in the
Reply-To field in your ballot request. If you do not know how to do
this, or if you are unable for whatever reason, then put the address you
want recorded in the Subject line of your ballot request instead.

Note: Please remember that you must be able to read email sent to the
address you choose to use as your voting address, otherwise you will be
unable to retrieve your ballot paper and you will be unable to vote.

If you change the Subject field in your email to contain the address you
want to use, it doesn't matter whether you also include your name or
not, and it doesn't matter whether you enclose your voting address in
<angle brackets> or not.

It also doesn't matter whether you quote this entire post or delete
everything when making your ballot request.
 
========================================================================

The Reply to your Request

If the autoresponder understands your voting address in the Subject or
other fields, it will send a ballot paper immediately to that address.
This ballot paper will be personalised and unique to the voting address
used.

========================================================================

Casting your Vote

Your personalised ballot paper will contain a ballot ID and will have
your voting address prefilled for your convenience.

Do not change either of these or your vote will not be valid. If you
want to use a different voting address you must request another ballot
paper for the new address.

1) Enter the name under which you want your vote recorded in the
   results. This must be either your real name or the pseudonym
   ("handle") which you normally use to post to usenet.

2) Enter the email address which you normally use to post to Usenet,
   including the spamblock if applicable. If you use a number of
   different email addresses, please give the most recent, a typical or
   the most commonly used address. If, and only if, you do not post to
   Usenet, enter the word "none". Please do not enter any text in this
   field other than your posting address or the word "none". If you have
   any doubt as to how to complete this section, please contact the
   votetaker.

   This section is recommended but optional and is to help the votetaker
   verify your vote. If you do not answer this question, and the
   votetaker cannot verify your identity from the other information on
   the ballot, then the votetaker will need to carry out further
   investigations which may include contacting you for additional
   information. If you are unable or unwilling to provide such
   information if requested, your vote might not be counted.

3) Mark your voting preferences, as indicated on the ballot according to
   the instructions below.

4) Send your vote.

This vote is being conducted under the STV procedure.

========================================================================

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

To vote, enter '1' against your favourite candidate, '2' against your
second favourite candidate, and so on. You may place preferences by as
many or as few options as you wish. Candidates MUST NOT be ranked
equally.

You may abstain, and have your abstention recorded in the results, by
filling in one or more of the voting boxes [ ] with A or ABSTAIN.
Similarly if you wish to Cancel a vote and have no record in the
results, use C or CANCEL on your ballot paper, and resubmit it.

You may resubmit your ballot, with different choices, at any time up to
the close of the vote. Your identification details on the resubmitted
ballot paper must be the same as earlier ones. Repeat votes will be
resolved in favour of the last valid ballot paper.

The purpose of this vote is to determine the genuine interest of persons
who have an interest in the people who represent them on the Committee.

Soliciting votes from disinterested parties defeats this purpose. Under
no circumstances should you post your completed ballot paper to any
Usenet/Net News newsgroup or other forum.

If you ignore any of these instructions, your vote may be rejected as
invalid. This includes, but is not limited to, any false answers given
on the ballot paper or any attempt to circumvent the "one person, one
vote" rule or to conceal your identity.

========================================================================

Acknowledgement of Receipt of your Ballot Paper

The votetaker will send you an acknowledgement so that you know that
your ballot paper has been received. This may take up to five days.

If you have not received such an acknowledgement after five days, then
contact the votetaker directly at com2k06 (at) mx2 (dot) org (dot) uk

An acknowledgement does not necessarily mean that your vote will be
counted.

========================================================================

Vote Validation and Confidentiality

The acknowledgement which you receive (see above) will contain details
of how you voted. Check this acknowledgement carefully. If there are any
problems, or you did not vote then contact the votetaker straight away.

During or at the end of the vote, the votetaker will validate every vote
submitted, and the votetaker may need to contact you concerning any
problem or query. You must assist the votetaker's reasonable efforts to
clarify any problem or query with regard to your vote otherwise your
vote may not be counted. Any communication between the votetaker and
yourself must not be considered to be confidential and the votetaker
reserves the right to publish any information that the votetaker deems
relevant to the vote within the results post.

========================================================================

Results

The names, addresses and vote preferences of all valid and invalid votes
will be published in the results, which are posted to
uk.net.news.announce.

All published email addresses will be scrambled to prevent them being
harvested by spammers.

For Committee elections, the results will be published in such a manner
that only you, the voter, will be able to see what your preferences
were.

========================================================================

The ballot paper will contain the following candidates.

The candidates are shown below so that you know what you will be asked
on the ballot paper. You cannot use this to vote, you must request a
ballot paper.

Chris Croughton                      Candidate A
Graham Drabble                       Candidate B
Kat aka Fiona Gostling               Candidate C
Lt. Cmdr. Jim                        Candidate D
Wm                                   Candidate E

========================================================================

Troubleshooting

If you have any problems whatsoever with this process, contact the
votetaker directly at com2k06 (at) mx2 (dot) org (dot) uk

========================================================================

Voting and Appeal Guidelines

This vote is being conducted by neutral third party members of UKVoting.

UKVoting is a group of independent votetakers who count votes on CFVs on
behalf of the uk.* hierarchy and other third parties. The rules under
which this vote is taken are posted regularly to uk.net.news.announce or
can be found at the following URL:
<http://www.usenet.org.uk/voting.html>

The UKVoting web pages can be found at <http://www.ukvoting.org.uk/>
Call for Votes and Ballot Paper

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG-v1.2.4-(GNU/Linux)
Charset: noconv

iQCVAwUBRVY3SWOfGXkh8vHZAQF8wgQAgkl1IDbusPgx/h1YYKFAWXBSUt8e1AKw
zONIZ8whRj2yQr4+HAikK3l0GgrM0T+SvqvnmU5/fM7MCten1TJbjnci+HvYYDW0
esDvBe96bBLiSbZ+C7h5vk0UFqOwL2fsf+fVYs+iAR63juBNRDS0AIRecUgw45kM
czGHjwJDzdM=
=FgB6
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----