brianjrobertson
commented
3 years ago I agree that consistency to the extent practical is good here, and agree with your last point above re dropping that reference to Constitution entirely. The part that I'm concerned about is changing the references in the Facilitator and Secretary Purpose and Accountabilities; it reads more awkward to me in that context to change to "this Constitution", and worse, those definitions appear verbatim in other places, such as in GlassFrog, where "this Constitution" would seem very strange, while "the Constitution" would be much more intuitive. So I'm going to leave those as-is, but change the rest.
stephaniedwelch
a732774 changes an instance of
the Constitutiontothis Constitution. The update implies a possible value in having the Constitution be more explicitly self-referential by usingthis.Upon counting, there are only 6 instances of
the Constitutionand 20 instances ofthis Constitution, further suggesting a strong preference towardthis.Does that suggest any benefit to updating any or all of the remaining 6 instances to
this? At least 4 of the 6 look like good candidates to me:5.2.1:
A Policy that changes a default rule or process in the Constitution applies only within the Circle that holds the Policy...5.3.3:
When an Objection is claimed because adopting a Proposal would violate the Constitution, the Facilitator may ask the Circle’s Secretary to interpret if that's true.Facilitator purpose:
Circle governance and operational practices aligned with the Constitution.Secretary accountability:
Interpreting the Constitution and anything under its authority upon requestThis one I'm on the fence about:
Facilitator accountability:
Coaching other Circle Members on the Constitution's rules and processes, either on request or when needed for effective meetingsIt makes sense and could be fine with
this; there is even a precedent ofthis Constitution'spossessive form in the preamble (as soon as this Constitution's processes create something that replaces or contradicts them.). But something about it just doesn't feel as smooth to me.And this one I would suggest removing instead of changing:
5.4.3:
A Policy of the Circle may add to this process, but may not conflict with any rules or requirements defined in this Article of the Constitution.Thisis already applied toArticle, so further specifyingthis Constitutionwould be unnecessary and excessive. In fact, there are 3 other instances ofthis Article(4.3a, 4.4, & 5.4.5f), and they all stand alone, so it would seemof the Constitutioncould actually be dropped when indicating a specific article.