policy resolution

A policy resolution is a proposed policy? put forward by members of an organization or party who agree with it, and do not agree with existing policy/positions already taken on that same issue, if they exist at all.

effect

changes positions

A position protocol determines how any given organization will ratify such resolutions, e.g. into more specific media-friendly platform proposals. Any descriptions of how to draft a plank into resolution form should take all of the potentials below into account:

suggests others change their positions

In very many cases, other organizations or parties will be asked to change their position to conform to the one that the organization or party takes. This necessarily means that the resolution, and especially its name, must remove as many objections and barriers to dialogue as possible - a resolution is not the end of an issue, just a beginning to a long process of change that will involve many helpers.

changes answers - doesn't it?

Any answer recommendation system (including a simple FAQ) will likewise have to give different answers after the resolution is passed, than it gave before they were passed. Some kind of integrity test? is thus required for such systems to be sure that policy resolutions are in fact being reflected in the answers given, e.g. in any Answers to Questionnaires offered during any election.

naming

Most policy resolution names as used in the organization become bad page names when used without modification in Living Platform itself. Any LP client specific? page must abbreviate the LP client as a prefix.

dates in names

Active or proposed dates for events that expire? should have dates at the end of the name, or the start of the name with redirects to avoid commas. Putting them at the start makes alphabetical order a strong priority order and is better for future events. Putting them at the end keeps related events together and is better for historical events. See TIPAESA for more on this.

neutral newsworthy names

Good political party governance demands that every resolution be fully documented from the time it is first proposed, and that its whole history be very easy to find.

When the resolution is passed it is newsworthy, and can have a permanent name prefixed? GPO resolution...? or GPO position...?. If it might be more widely shared it is worth placing in position:? namespace.

short, translatable, robust

Any naming conventions for international simultaneous policy and naming conventions for international Green Party policy must be:

• as short as possible
• as useful in sentences as possible
• easily translated without fragile wording dependencies

For all these reasons, any resolution would eventually require a neutral name. To prepare for that, and to help convince those who would react to overly judgemental language in a resolution name, and achieve support across prior factions and from those of opposing tendency:

It's always best to give a policy resolution a neutral name stating exactly what it is. Even internal actions can have such names, e.g. " amend GPC Constitution? to..."

open-ended

If such names are kept specific to the intent of the resolution, it's easier to find better positions and arguments than the ones that prompted its resolution

neutralizing names

To achieve neutral names for political party resolution?s is not always easy, but the benefits above are worth it:

• in LP main namespace? use a name from neutral point of view, e.g. Resolution to implement gender equity in the GPO - 2004-C-SVE-A is a GPO move to change the GPO policy, so this historical motion was moved to GPO resolution to implement gender equity 2004-C-SVE-A; the name GPO:2005 Resolution to Implement Council Co-Chairs in the GPO makes the GPO as subject and object both clear, so the whole name is neutral: it attributes the statement to (some element of) the GPO, and, it makes clear that the object of the policy change is also the GPO; Names like Resolution to Implement Council Co-chairs in the GPO 2005 are acceptable temporarily to avoid colons.

coordinated across organizations and parties

By 2006 LP will make it much easier for multiple orgs to coordinate policy resolutions across a great many groups in Canadian civil society?. By 2008 LP will? be the single easiest way to agree on any simultaneous policy: this entails strong control on names of any policy resolution that implements a common principle.

See simpol.org for more on the theory of all this.

As of 2005-05, standard wiki URIs are not fully implemented at LivingPlatform.CA itself. Accordingly in some LP client namespace?s, even very poor names can be tolerated a while longer. Avoid linking to them until the naming conventions can be clarified.

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