Re: My second AIS ballot issue -- three iris per class on the Dy...

[Gerry Snyder <7e2de1ee1@rewrite.aisboard.org>]

Jim et al.,

I believe that this discussion is violating our guidelines for on-line 
voting by taking place during the voting period, but hey, the party is 
going on and I want to be part of it.

Some observations:

1) It may be a "major change," but it is part of a rule that I bet very 
few judges are even aware of.

2) I would never consider doing it, but I think that I could either 
ignore the "rule of three" or implement my proposed change on my own, 
and no one (with the possible exception of Keith Keppel or the 
hybridizer of an iris added to the DM ballot) would have noticed. 
Probably the only way I would get a comment would be to follow the 
current rule and have folks say, "You made a mistake. DOGGY BLUE is on 
the ballot twice, both for the Dykes Medal and for the Sydney White 
Medal." (Hypothetical example)

3) There is a very real possibility that the situation will arise in the 
preparation of next year's ballot, and, based on around 20 years of 
seeing the AIS in operation, I have my doubts that the multi-committee 
involvement proposed below could study the issue and report back in time 
(although I would certainly like to see such a re-investigation take 
place before the Handbook revision is complete).

4) I just talked with Barbara Schmieder, our unofficial  Handbook 
revision historian, and she agrees that the current rule makes no sense. 
She was not aware of any overriding reason for the "rule of three," and 
would suggest just dropping it, with accepting my proposed change as an 
alternative.

To summarize: A study of the issue by all interested parties should take 
place before the next Handbook is completed, but I really hope that a 
(possibly temporary) change can be made in the short term--either my 
proposed change or dropping the "rule of three."

Gerry Snyder
AIS Awards
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On 7/29/2014 11:02 AM, Jim Morris wrote:
> All,
>   
> There was very little discussion on such a major change to our AIS Awards
> system.  I would have liked to have seen a bit of study go into this.   I
> seem to recall that years ago when we made the change to award three Wister
> medals some thought that after a few years we would readdress reducing the
> Wister to one medal award each year as the TB eligibles would have been in
> appropriate numbers.  At a minimum I would have liked to see  the Sections
> and the Judges' Training Handbook Revision committee be  involved.  Just
> saying.  This is a knotty problem and Gerry has  proposed one solution.  Gerry
> put this out before the issue arose  which is to his credit.
>   
> Jim Morris
> President
> American Iris Society

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