[tei-council] FAND faces setback

[Lou Burnard]

This discussion raises an interesting political point (if that is not an 
oxymoron)...

About the only credible argument I have ever managed to find to persuade 
institutions to fork out money to join the TEI Consortium  is that 
membership gives you a vote, and that a vote enables you to influence 
(NB not determine) the technical direction of the TEI by electing the 
right stuff onto the TEI Council.

The Council is not formally an executive, but a body which endorses and 
approves recommendations ultimately decided by the Board (it exists "to 
collect, propose, evaluate, and implement editorial changes to the TEI 
DTD (and its derivatives), to produce up-to-date documentation for the 
TEI, and to evaluate agreements for official TEI-C training and services 
and make recommendations to the TEI-C Board" it says in the by laws)

In making those recommendations and endorsements, I think that it's 
really important for Council members to bear in mind their role as 
representatives of the TEI membership as a whole. It would be a bad 
thing for the Council to make recommendations contrary to the clear 
wishes of the majority of the TEI membership, in so far as those can be 
determined or are expressed.

So, in the present discussion, if all Council members individually and 
personally recommend the abolitions of numbered divs, I hope they will 
be prepared to defend that decision on TEI-L and to the TEI Board. I 
also hope they make such a recommendation having to the best of their 
ability taken into consideration the opinions of those people and 
institutions which voted for them.

I should make clear that my personal opinion, if I was inventing the 
Guidelines from scratch now, would be with the abolitionists. But I am 
also aware of a sizeable section of the TEI community for whom the 
disappearance of <div1> may be a very strong disincentive ever to 
abandon P4. We need to prepare for that struggle!