Although not necessarily relevant, the ALAC rules, although based on Roberts, allow an amendment as "friendly" if accepted by the mover and seconder. Alan At 23/05/2014 06:06 PM, Avri Doria wrote:

Hi,

On 23-May-14 12:22, Reed, Daniel A wrote:

...

Thanks, Jonathan. What you describe is standard parliamentary procedure

And there is this:

http://www.robertsrules.com/faq.html#8

...

Question 8: How do you deal with a "friendly amendment"?

Answer: On occasion, while a motion is being debated, someone will get up and offer what he or she terms a "friendly amendment" to the motion, the maker of the original motion will "accept" the amendment, and the chair will treat the motion as amended. This is wrong. Once a motion has been stated by the chair, it is no longer the property of the mover, but of the assembly. Any amendment, "friendly" or otherwise, must be adopted by the full body, either by a vote or by unanimous consent.

If it appears to the chair that an amendment (or any other motion) is uncontroversial, it is proper for the chair to ask if there is "any objection" to adopting the amendment. If no objection is made, the chair may declare the amendment adopted. If even one member objects, however, the amendment is subject to debate and vote like any other, regardless of whether its proposer calls it "friendly" and regardless of whether the maker of the original motion endorses its adoption. [RONR (11th ed.), p. 162.]

Passing a question to the SCI seems like a good idea.

a.

Hi, I also have confidence in the SCI’s ability to address this topic…, probably with a quicker result than the GNSO review. If I’m not mistaken, the SCI has three projects on its plate at the time being with two of them probably nearing final stages. There should be enough bandwidth on the committee to deal with this issue in the near future. Thanks. Amr On May 24, 2014, at 3:06 PM, John Berard <john@crediblecontext.com> wrote:

Asking the SCI to assess is a sensible approach for a sensible practice.

Berard

Sent from my iPhone

On May 22, 2014, at 12:58 PM, "Jonathan Robinson" <jrobinson@afilias.info> wrote:

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All,

During the last GNSO Council meeting, we dealt with the issue of amendments to motions that were considered 'unfriendly'. Having checked the GNSO Operating Procedures, I see that the practice that has been used by the Council over the last few years is actually not incorporated there.

The question therefore is whether this should be the case or whether we are comfortable with leaving this as a practice? Any amendments to motions that are not considered friendly by the original maker of the motion (and the seconder?) are currently submitted to a simple majority vote. If the vote passes, the motion is amended accordingly and if not, the proposed amendment is discarded. If we do believe this should be incorporated into the GNSO Operating Procedures, one option would be to pass this on as a narrowly scoped issue to the SCI. Alternatively, mark this as one of the items that needs to go on the list of items that will need to be addressed when the recommendations of the upcoming GNSO Review are implemented.

Should the Council wish to pass this on to the SCI, it could be scoped along the following lines:

'The GNSO Council has a standing practice of considering formally proposed amendments to motions by requesting the maker (and the seconder) of the motion to consider whether or not the proposed amendment is considered 'friendly'. If the amendment is considered 'friendly' by the maker of the motion and the seconder, the motion is amended accordingly and the amended motion is then considered by the GNSO Council. If the proposed amendment is not considered 'friendly' by the maker of the motion the proposed amendment is put to a vote (if the seconder objects, he/she may choose to withdraw their name as the seconder of the motion). If it meets the simple majority threshold, the motion is amended accordingly and the amended motion is then considered by the GNSO Council. If it does not meet the simple majority threshold, the amendment is discarded and the original motion is then considered by the GNSO Council. The GNSO Council would like to incorporate this practice into the GNSO Operating Procedures and as such requests the SCI to propose the appropriate language as well as section in order to do so'.

I look forward to any feedback you may wish to provide on the above.

In addition, the formal definition of the role of a seconder of a motion may need some work but I suggest we deal first with the issue of motion amendments.

Thanks.

Jonathan