That is a good idea, juliana, thanks!

Me, I don't mind sounding authoritarian.

I even have the beginning of a proposal for decision-making! Let's set up votes@buffistas.org, and people can email their votes there. If we're trying to decide on Proposal A, anyone who wants can just email with their response, and someone can tally. I'd be willing to tally much of the time, but can't always promise promptness. And if People put a brief description of the proposal and their vote in the subject line, it would be pretty darn easy to tally. Give it 48 hours for voting, with an announcement in Press, and then close it.

I think this would allow anyone who wants to to vote (unlike Mr. Poll), while keeping the votes out of this thread and in one place.

Thoughts?

What is the problem with Mr. Poll?

Mr. Poll doesn't guarantee that people don't cheat -- you can vote more than once. And some people (for reasons I'm not clear on) can't get to the website at all.

Firewalls and stuff.

Mr. Poll allows people to vote over and over again. You could vote 10 times for whatever you please.

Jesse, good idea with the email vote. Cumbersome, but the best idea I have heard so far for getting an accurate vote on something. And maybe a good idea to place a post in other threads, too, linking people to each Bureau post to be voted on. That way you get the attention of people who don't come in Bureau.

I like it Jesse:

For those not over on WX on the weekend:

Many administrative issues came up. A lot of it was venting. We came up with a list of issues/solutions, and then realized that we have no way of coming up with decisions that people can be happy with. We try to for a consensus, but sometimes it ends up being whoever is left after people get tired of talking making the decision.

It was proposed that

d) Once something is voted on, we close that subject for discussion until 6 months or a year has passed.

Allyson's post is more detailed:

Why not a So It Is Written, So It Shall Be thread for community decisions?

At that point, people can philibuster til their heart's content, until March 3rd, when a Mr.Poll announcement is made, and people can vote for another week. Votes are tallied and the decision is posted.

In short, what Sophia said.

t two cents

We should first discuss (with a goal of deciding on) only our decision making procedures and process. I think this discussion should involve both determing our ideal decision making process, and if need be, what we'll use as a work-around if there are tech. or other resources needed (but not immediately available) to put our procedures in place.

I think only when that is done should we then discuss the actual issues we have. Once we get to issues, the first issue to be addressed should be which current board practices and events are making the board go wonky and how can we help (e.g. archiving old threads, threadsucking, searching, refreshing pages, thread combination, huge influxes of posters at once).

I only think ENUF, whuffie [editorial and object lesson: which I hate - see and that's why issues should be put aside until after we know how to make decisions and implement them) , registration wait periods, Supreme Court thread, and what our community's purpose is, etc., should come last, and only if people are interested in resuming the discussion. It may be we just needed to brain storm and lose this place for a day to realize that it's internet Nirvana. t /two cents

Oh yeah, and we do have to decide how we'll agree on what's to be voted on yes/no.

Also, What Cindy Said.