R6RS Ratification Procedure

The Scheme Standardization Charter says that after the Editors submit a proposed final draft, "the Steering Committee should then choose either to finalize the draft or to restart the review process." This document describes how the Steering Committee will make that decision.

In order to be sure that the new revised Scheme standard enjoys wide support among the Scheme community - both implementors and users - we will hold a vote on the question of whether the draft should be ratified. If 60% or more of those voting vote "Yes", the Steering Committee will ratify the draft as R6RS. If fewer than 60% vote "Yes", the Steering Committee will decide how to restart the process.

This will not be a secret ballot. The record of who voted yes, who voted no, and why they voted no, will be made public at the end of the process.

Voter Registration

Anybody who has a stake in the Scheme standards process - except the members of the Steering Committee - may participate in the ratification vote. In order to register, a potential voter must supply a "Statement of Interest" declaring what his stake is in the outcome of the process. Each voter's statement must be original, must be at least 150 words long, and must actually address the question of what the voter's interest is in the Scheme standard. At the end of the registration period (but before any voting), the list of enrolled voters will be published along with their statements of interest.

Here are the voter instructions for the registration process:

Download the registration form from www.r6rs.org/ratification/registration.txt. The registration form asks for the following information:

  1. Email Address
  2. Full Name
  3. Geographic Location (country, region, city, etc.)
  4. Affiliation (optional)
  5. Public Email Address (optional)
  6. Web Page URL (optional)
  7. Statement of Interest

The email address supplied in item 1 will be used for all future correspondence with you, but will not be published. The rest of the form will be made public. Items 2 through 6 are for identification purposes only. (The email address in item 5 is optional as spammers will inevitably collect any address supplied here.)

The completed form, should be mailed to voter-registration@r6rs.org. We will perform a standard address confirmation on the email address you supply in item 1. (I.e., we will use it to mail you something that you have to mail back in order to prove that the person at that address really wants to vote on the future of Scheme.)

Your Statement of Interest must be original, it must be at least 150 words long, and it must actually address the question of what your interest is in the Scheme standard. Be aware that we will read your statement, and if we think you have seriously missed the mark, we will ask you to submit another one. It is not our intent to run an essay competition here, we are just looking for evidence that you're taking this seriously. (On the other hand, what you write here will become part of the permanent record of the Scheme language, so this really would be a excellent place to pull out your best argument for why Scheme is important!)

Voter Registration Closes

The registration period will end at least six weeks after it starts, and at least two weeks after the Editors produce their final draft.

When the registration period ends, the complete list of enrolled voters will be published on www.r6rs.org. This voter roll will include all of the registration forms. This publication will be advertised to the public. Voters should check that their own information appears on the voter roll as they expected. Any irregularities (missing entries, fraudulent entries, duplicate or plagiarized statements, etc.) should be brought to the attention of the Steering Committee, who will take appropriate action.

The Vote

The voting period will begin two weeks after the registration period ends.

Here are the voter instructions for the vote:

Download the ballot from www.r6rs.org/ratification/ballot.txt. The ballot asks for the following information:

  1. Email Address
  2. Version of the draft you are voting on
  3. Should this draft be finalized?
  4. Explanation (optional if the answer to item 3 is "Yes")

The email address supplied in item 1 should match the address you supplied in item 1 on your registration form.

A "No" vote must be accompanied by an explanation. A "Yes" vote requires no explanation.

Your completed ballot should be mailed to ratification-vote@r6rs.org. We will mail you an acknowledgment when we have received your vote.

The Vote Ends

The poll will be open for two weeks.

After the poll closes, the complete list of votes will be published on www.r6rs.org. This list will identify who voted, how they voted, and their explanations. This publication will be advertised to the public. Voters should check that their votes appear on the list as they intended. Any irregularities (missing votes, fraudulent votes, etc.) should be brought to the attention of the Steering Committee, who will take appropriate action.

The Result

In order to allow for any irregularities to be dealt with, the official result will not be announced until two weeks after the poll closes.

If 60% or more of those who cast votes vote "Yes", then the Steering Committee will ratify the draft as the official R6RS. If fewer than 60% vote "Yes", the Steering Committee will decide how to restart the process.

Exceptional Cases

The Steering Committee may remove anyone from the list of enrolled voters, reject any vote, or otherwise make exceptions to the process described herein, if they believe an attempt has been made to cheat, or if some other unexpected circumstance has arisen. The Steering Committee will not take such actions capriciously, and they will endeavor to be as fair as possible.

Schedule

Voter registration started at 23:00 GMT on May 16.

The Editors announced a draft for ratification at 20:00 GMT on July 1.

So here is the rest of the schedule:

  1. Voter registration ends: 20:00 GMT on July 15.
  2. Voting starts: July 29.
  3. Voting ends: August 12.
  4. Official results announced: August 26.

$Id: ratify.html,v 1.9 2007/07/08 02:32:33 alan Exp $