------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear HARP collaborators, preamble: The aim of this letter is to clarify to you the reasons for the anticipated election procedure that is presently taking place: you are being asked to vote for a new spokesperson, but having talked to a few of you I realized that the reason for this vote has remained unclear to many who are not members of the collaboration board. I apologize to anyone who has already heard this before. Also, I do not normally like to distribute e-mails outside of the original mailing list. However given the circumstances, I feel that the electoral corps desserves transparent information. =============================================================================== Summary: This election is the result of a conflict between the majority of the collaboration board and the spokesperson. The majority of the collaboration board could see no other way out of the conflict than a new spokesperson election. ============================================================================ Preliminaries: ========= 1.The collaboration board (CB) is the policy making and decision making body of the Collaboration. The CB is composed of representatives (one or two) from each Institute of the Collaboration. 2. The Spokesperson is responsible to the CB for the execution of the project. (quotes from the HARP constitution, which is available from the HARP web page. For those who forgot the password: http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/constitution-11-02-2000.pdf NB: The CB will not be modified by the upcoming election! what is the conflict about? ================= The conflict concerns primarily the analysis strategy, and more deeply perhaps, the process by which decisions are made in the collaboration. Formally, it arose when the CB requested that the Steering Committee foreseen by the constitution be put in place. Following this, a proposal was made by the spokesperson, which was deemed unacceptable by a majority of the collaboration board. [From the HARP constitution: The Steering Committee (SC) supervises the progress of the experiment, along the lines defined by the CB, prepares decisions and makes recommendations to the CB.] So, what happened? ============== At the beginning of the year, the spokesperson felt that 'the progress in software and data analysis is too slow', and promoted an approach by which one would first concentrate on one particular analysis (the study of muon capture probability in the water target) which, alledgedly, would not require much software or calibrations and could possibly be achieved by scanning events in a short time scale. This came in coincidence with the initiative to re-instate the HARP CERN group meetings, on those tuesday afternoons were there would be no analysis meeting. reference e.g. http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/minutes-21-01-03.txt This initiative ran into conflict with the teams in charge of analysis and software, which had the view that it was important, while people are still around, to build the platform of software tools and understanding of the detectors on which subsequent analysis would be based. These people felt that their efforts were ignored and undercut. Nevertheless support was given to the spokesperson to do the analysis he'd proposed with a data set provided for a first paper in May 2003. Followed a number of extremely unpleasant analysis meetings (and calls for parallel meetings) with a lot of arguing or even shouting. reference e.g. http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/minutes-analysis-25-02-2003.txt At that point Lucie tried without success to organize a conciliatory meeting. I sent a request to the collaboration board, calling for a critical but constructive discussion on the strategy of analysis and on the decision making process. reference e.g. http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/ab-request-01-03-03.txt The response to my request (or was it?) was a call for a 'vote of confidence' by the spokesperson on his policy, including revocation of the analysis coordinator. (CB had to vote 'yes' or 'no' to the spokesperson and the analysis strategy proposed, in one single package) The call is here. http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/fd-cb-agendaii-25-03-2003.txt The deputy-spokesperson, having not been informed and disagreeing with this call, offered his resignation. http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/resignation-panman-10-03-2003.txt This was followed by a rather firm reaction on my part, calling the attention of the Collaboration board on the fact that the decision making process should involve a steering committee (and should have done so since the beginning of the experiment), and suggesting that such a SC be formed urgently to resolve the current difficulties. http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/ab-scproposal-21-3-2003.txt The collaboration board in its meeting on 25 March refused the 'vote of confidence'. (everyone agreed not to vote -- the deputy spokesperson thus retracted his resignation). It recommended that a steering committee be formed as soon as possible, and concluded 'A recommendation on the exact analysis strategy and a decision on priorities were referred to the Steering Committee, for its consideration as soon as it was constituted'.(DRAFT minutes of the CB of 24 Mach 2003) http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/minutes-cb-march-25-2003.txt Following this discussion, The spokesperson issued a statement ot the collaboration on analysis issues ('way ahead'), following which he made a proposal to the CB concerning the steering committee composition. This would be: ex officio: spokesperson and deputy spokesperson, analysis coordinator, technical coordinator, software coordinator, and three other members nominated by the spokesperson. It was proposed that only the 'nominated members' would have voting rights. (references) http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/fd-way-ahead-8-04-2003.txt http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/fd-way-ahead-cb+sc-edited.txt This majority of the CB was extremely unpleased by this proposal, for two main reasons: 1. By informing the collaboration an analysis strategy substantially different than that outlined in the CB, and by informing the collaboration of it before forming the SC, the spokesperson had bypassed the recommendations of the CB to form a Steering Committee first, that would then decide on the priorities of the analysis. 2. the fact that the voting rights were given exclusively to the members nominated by the spokesperson. This proposal was rejected by 15 NO, for 5 Yes and 3 abstentions. The response to the CB vote was an extremely angry letter by the spokesperson, in which no alternative SC proposal was made. reference http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/fd-contenance-30-04-2003.txt Under these conditions it was difficult for the CB to consider continuing collaboration, and, following a call by G. Gregoire, the majority of the CB requested a new spokesperson election. reference http://cern.ch/proj-bdl-nice/harp/cb/ghislain-call-for-new-election.txt