[2646] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Upcoming UA Issue - Student Group Property Ownership
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Adam Seering)
Tue Oct 17 12:36:30 2006
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.62L.0610171204280.24754@dodecahedron.mit.edu>
From: Adam Seering <aseering@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:36:02 -0400
To: Alexander J Werbos <awerbos@MIT.EDU>
Cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@MIT.EDU
On Oct 17, 2006, at 12:04 PM, Alexander J Werbos wrote:
>> Why doesn't the group in question just go to the group with the
>> resource and
>> try to work out an arrangement to share the unit equipment in
>> question?
>> Reasonable people should be able to work out an agreement that's
>> fair for
>> both sides, without the rather-large overhead of the UA.
>
> For the very same reason any civil society has judges. Because
> sometimes people
> just won't get along.
Then why the UA? Judcomm would seem like the proper forum for
judges, and things that require them.
> I am very much speaking about the UA being an arbitrator. Just one
> that
> happens to have power at its disposal. Toothless arbitration is
> what wastes
> time and creates overhead.
Your proposal didn't provide any provisions to help groups self-
arbitrate, and it gave a whole lot of teeth to the UA. Why can't (1)
there be some sort of framework to help groups self-arbitrate, and
(2) there be a set of rules in place in the UA that allow the
Judcomms to deal with arbitration, and/or a rule that gives the UA
something substantially less than complete power (given internal
consensus) to take anything from any student group? (is (2) and
Judcomm a bad idea?; I'm not the most experienced in who actually
does what, though this seems like a job for a judicial branch, not a
legislative branch)
> That would be determined by the UA facilitators. Upon
> consideration, this might
> be a great thing for the Judcomms to be used for.
> I don't think I *can* be more specific. Can you suggest a general,
> cross-spectrum standard for efficiency?
I can't; I'm concerned that this could be a problem.
>> "I don't like The Tech; I don't think it's using its office computers
>> efficiently. They can clearly make do with Athena-cluster
>> computers; there's
>> lots of software on Athena."
>>
>> I don't know if The Tech's actually a valid example, but hopefully
>> you get
>> the idea.
>
> I think I do. Anyone would laugh that request right out of W20-400.
> As well
> they should.
They should, of course, and probably would. But in politics, the
line between absurdity and reason is not always the same as the line
between fair and unfair; there's a really big and problematic grey
area, and there's lots of room for people to bias their
interpretations in the name of self-interest. I'm sure that the UA
will generally act in the interest of student groups, but there are
just plain a lot of ugly edge cases that seem to become possible with
this type of rule. Do you see a way around that?
Adam
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