Kevin Langdon, P.O. Box 795, Berkeley, CA 94701;
11/24/94
To the TNS Executive Committee:
I have received Clint Williams' mailings of October 13.
October 24, and November 7. There is a mistake in the
labeling of these mailings. Clint styles himself "Acting Triple
Nine Society Regent," but Aritcle IV, Section 1 of the
TNS Constitution specifies that
The Executive Committee may, upon the vacancy
of an office, use its descretion in filling that office by
appointment, by special election, or by assuming as a
body all the responsibilities of the vacated office or
offices for the remainder of the term, but if must
exercise one of these options.
As this Committee has not acted upon Patrick Thomas'
announced inability at the present time to perform the
duties of his office, we must face the responsibility placed
in our hands by the above section of the Constitution.
Therefore, I ask Pat Thomas to either resume the duties of
the Regent or resign his office and allow the Committee to
appoint a replacement.
I do not feel that Clint Williams is thr right choice for
this position; the results of the recent election, as
announced in a recent memo by Paul Maxim, indicate that
the members of TNS (or at least those who bothered to
cast a ballot) agree with this assessment. (I request that the
Elections Officer submit an official report on the election
to the Executive Committee.)
I have, nonetheless, submitted this memo for publication as
part of Clint's Executive Committee memo intended for
publication "on or about November 25," as I feel that it is
necessary that someone other than Clint offer concrete
proposals for dealing with the present crisis in the
affairs of the society.
If we do need a new Regent, I propose Larry Jess for this
position. Larry is widely respected for his imparitiality
and fairness; I believe that he would do an outstanding job
as Regent. Larry, let us know whether you'd be willing to
step into the breach. Assuming that the position is
vacant and that Larry is available, I move that Larry Jess
be appointed to serve the remainder of Pat Thomas' term
as Regent.
If a vacancy is created by the appointment of Larry Jess
as Regent, I move that John Kormes be appointed to the
position of Member-at-Large.
It seems, also, that Cyd Bergdorf is unable to fulfill the
duties of the position of Editor at the present time. I
spoke with Bob Kopp today; he is willing to take on the
task of editing Vidya.
Therefore, I call upon Cyd to either resume the duties of
the office of Editor or to resign so that the Committee may
fill the vacancy created thereby and, in case of a vacancy,
I move that Bob Kopp be appointed Editor.
If Bob becomes Editor, we will need a new Membership
Officer. I propose BB Crawford, who has shown a strong
interest in serving the society, for this position. BB, let us
know if you are willing to take this on. If there is a vacancy
in the office of Membership Officer and BB is willing to
take on this responsibility, I move that BB Crawford be
appointed Membership Officer.
In response to Clint Williams' memo of October 13:
Membership cards and certificates seem reasonable to
me, but I do not believe that we should cater to people's
unseemly desire to inflate their egos by offering ornate
scrolls and plaques, whether at TNS expense or not.
The "lifetime membership" idea is very similar to what I've
done since the very beginning of the Four Sigma Society in
1977. A Four Sigma member is someone who has made a
score at or above the four sigma level on any of my tests,
which are widely considered the best available measure of
fluid g. When Four Sigma was publishing a journal, a
subscription to the journal was available separately from
"membership."
Similarly, I think it would be reasonable to offer lifetime
membership in TNS as an inducement to attract members,
but that that there should be a separate category of "active
membership," which would include a subscription to Vidya
and the right to vote and hold office in the society, not a
piecemeal approach to the availability of services, as Clint
proposes.
Whatever way we go on this, I propose that we advertise
in the Mensa Bulletin, as Clint suggests. The Bulletin has
proven to be the best single source of advertising for the
society in the past and I think we should have an ad in
every issue.
I'm glad that Clint withdrew his motion to suspend the
publication of Vidya. As Loren Harris pointed out, Vidya,
in a very real sense, IS TNS.
I don't like the idea of a quarterly ExCom memo; monthly is
about right. In order for any business to be transacted by
this Committee, a motion must be proposed, debated, and
voted upon. Even with a monthly memo, this process takes
about three months.
I DO like the idea of a "yearbook" containing photographs of
TNS members, but I don't believe that most members would
participate in such a project as often as once a year.
Let's put together a membership directory, as a one-time
project, including photos and responses to a membership
questionnaire. If someone would like to volunteer to
coordinate such a project, I can provide copies of the Four
Sigma membership questionnaire and of the questionnaire
used by Fred Britton, Norm Treloar, and Roy Langston in
their "Arrow Project" study of IQ and opinion.
As Paul Maxim has pointed out, Ron Hoeflin's One-in-a-
Thousand Society is still active and should be considered
along with TNS and the ISPE in assessing active groups at
the 99.9th percentile. There are also former members of
these societies and of the defunct MM, Cincinnatus, and
Minerva societies, and people who have made scores at or
above the 99.9th percentile on my tests and those of Ron
Hoeflin. I can make a list of about 2000 people who
satisfy one or more of the above criteria if TNS wishes to
make use of it for recruiting purposes.
Of course, before we can think seriously about a membership
drive, we must get Vidya back on a regular schedule; without
a regular and frequent journal, we have no credibility--
especially vis a vis the ISPE and the One-in-a-Thousand
Society, which do currently produce such journals.
Within the pool of potential members of three-sigma-level
organizations, I believe that we should compete aggressively
for members.
What we have to offer that differentiates us from our
competitors is that TNS is governed by the will of its
membership. This point needs to be made very strongly.
(The difference between the ISPE and the One-in-a-Thousand
Society is that the latter doesn't claim to be a democratic
organization; it's really a magazine published by Ron
Hoeflin.)
We must also clarify the status of present members of TNS.
Given the frequent failure of Editors of Vidya to keep to
a regular schedule, I believe that we should convert the
basis of membership from the year to a certain number of
issues of Vidya. Since Vidya is now theoretically
published ten times per year, I think it would be
reasonable to offer ten issues for $20, the current annual
dues. (Clint's suggestions of three or four issues for $10
seem excessive.)
Due to the embezzlement of several thousand dollars in TNS
funds by a past Financial Officer (Barry Zaslove), the
society has already had to default on its obligations once;
we cannot honorably do so again. Each member must be
informed, by means of his mailing label, of exactly what
issue of Vidya he is paid through.
I move that the Financial Officer and the Membership Officer
be authorized to convert all membersships to a by-the-issue
basis.
On page 3 of the Oct. 13 memo, Clint described TNS as
having been "[f]ounded in 1978 by disgruntled I.S.P.E.
members as an alternative (optimistically: REPLACEMENT)
to its 'hierarchical' antecedent."
The founders of TNS intended the society to be a place
where decisions are made democratically and the rights of
individual members are respected--and we have largely
succeeded, though at the cost of periodic internal strife
when officers have attempted to exceed their authority.
We never intended TNS to replace the ISPE. How many
Draculas does it take to change a light bulb? None--he
likes it in the dark! There will always be some people who
prefer a totalitarian organization.
The need we faced was not for a "replacement" for the ISPE,
but for a society in which members can participate in the
free exchange of ideas without being party to oppressive and
unethical practices--the "thought control" aspect of the
ISPE. I think you know what I mean. Dissenting voices are
not heard. Those who dissent seriously are expelled without
the opportunity to present a defence.
The only way one could ethically be a member of such an
organization would be to campaign loudly and vigorously for
democratic reform--which would quickly result in one's
expulsion from the ISPE.
But as for the ability of TNS to compete, before the first
and most bitterly-fought of the political disputes which
lowered morale in the society to the point where we lost
many hundreds of members, our membership was larger
than that of the ISPE.
In response to Clint Williams' memo of November 7:
There are some good ideas contained in Clint's proposals,
but there are serious problems with them in their present
form. I will be more specific below.
1. I like Clint's classified ad a lot, if we can work out
the details satisfactorily. At a minimum, it would require
a constitutional amendment to offer lifetime memberships.
In my opinion, offering an active membership package, as
opposed to piecemeal services, is essential.
2a. (Free lifetime membership and certificate.) Good if we
can work out the details.
2b. I would prefer sending prospective members an entire
sample issue of Vidya, as opposed to an 8-page "sampler."
2c and 2d. I believe that it is now standard procedure to
send new members a copy of the roster and the Constitution.
Is this actually being done?
2e. As I mentioned above, I don't like this "vanity" stuff;
I think it lowers us.
2f. (Concerns details of how membership will work.) I have
discussed this above.
2g. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to publish.
Therefore, I do not believe it is appropriate for us to
prohibit the use of the membership list by members for
solicitations unless there are illegal activities involved.
2h. At the end of the sentence reading "All submissions to
Vidya are published at the discretion of Vidya's Editor,"
add "except official announcements." Delete the reference
to termination of membership according to Article I, Section
4 of the TNS Constitution.
On page 5 of this memo, under the heading "Just do it,"
Clint wrote:
The proposed changes in Triple Nine Society's
procedures cannot be accomplished in a timely
manner through amendments to the Society's
Constitution or an "initiative." The Constitution
is an idealistic document establishing a highly-
structured society but does not anticipate any
crisis involving that society's service to its
members, and consequently provides no swift
remedy.
There is, indeed, a crisis involving services: we need
somebody to publish Vidya on a regular basis. The other
"reforms" proposed by Clint are not urgency matters and do
not justify suspension of the guidelines which implement
TNS' democratic tradition.
I urge a "no" vote on Clint's proposals as currently
written and assert that they contradict the TNS Constitution
and are therefore null and void even if a majority of the
Executive Committee votes for them.
Also, ExCom procedures adopted recently require 30 days for
comments on motions and another 30 days for voting. Clint's
revision of his proposals starts the clock over again. The
next step is comments on the proposals; everyone must have a
chance to be heard before we can proceed to a vote.
In response to Laura Lansberry's comments:
The Shultz-Williams matter was not "an inane nonsensical
issue"; it concerned a very fundamental issue for any
membership organization: availability of the resources of
the society impartially to all members. A complementary
principle is equal access to the machinery of governance.
Time and again in the affairs of these societies, tyrants
have risen up and attempted to restrict the free exchange of
ideas and democratic decision-making. Every time members'
rights are abridged, someone has to stand up and object.
Paul Maxim was right on target when he wrote:
Frankly, I don't think the old-timers in TNS are
going to react favorably to your proposal, because
it is tantamount to downsizing and trivializing
TNS, and turning it into a DE FACTO adjunct to
ISPE.
Paul is also dead on that there is a difference between the
ISPE's "controlled press" and the free exchange of ideas in
Vidya--and that Clint Williams' since-withdrawn proposal to
turn Vidya into a "yearbook" was not a good idea.
Loren Harris also presented an eloquent analysis of the
defects in Clint's proposals in their original form.
The examples cited above show the need to allow a period of
comment before motions are voted upon.
In my memo of January 27, I made three motions, calling for
an apology to Kent Shultz for Clint Williams' editorial
characterization of him, for an apology to John Kormes for
Williams' denial of his right to reply to accusations
against him in Vidya, and for the Regent to contact the FBI
regarding the Zaslove matter.
The third motion has carried. Pat and Clint, what is the
status of this matter? Has anyone spoken to the FBI?
I would like to ask members of this Committee to submit or
resubmit their votes on the first two motions. I want a
tabulation of votes soon, so that I can proceed to submit
these matters as initiatives to the membership if the ExCom
fails to do the right thing.