'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
You could include two e-mail links in the proposal, one for yay, and one for nay, and set up the links so they automatically fill in the subject line.
That doesn't work for all browser/e-mail clients, FWIW (especially people with web-based e-mail). Also, 48 hours lets things get lost on a weekend.
Polls will be implemented. An e-mail form can be implemented. But I think the effort to send an e-mail is little enough that those who care, can do it.
1) Keep decision making the same, by trying to get consensus
Sometimes I feel like we don't get consensus so much as we decide which ever group spoke last, gets to make the decision. Usually this only occurs to me when an idea I've liked has been shot down, so I've never mentioned it, because I thought it might just be sour grapes on my part. However there have been a few times that an idea has gotten support early on, then the anti-idea people have spoken, and we just assume there were more anti- than pro-.
I also think that the thread should be kept closed unless there is something up for discussion.
So is the proposal:
1. Someone suggests in bureaucracy that we add a CONNOR IS HOTT thread.
2. Stompy unlocks Supreme Court thread to discuss adding CONNOR IS HOTT.
3. Discussion of pros and cons, for a certain period of time (say, one week). Posts about adding GUNN IS HOTT or CONNOR SUX threads are considered off-topic.
4. Voting through votes@buffistas.org, for 48 hours (or two business days, if discussin ends on a weekend.)
5. Decision is posted on "So mote it be" page or thread.
6. Discussion of adding a thread about Connor's hotness or lack thereof is considered closed for six months to a year.
7. Supreme Court thread is relocked until the next week, when someone proposes a GUNN IS HOTT thread.
(I just want to make sure I didn't miss any steps.)
What's the advantage of discussing policy changes through a supreme Court thread rather than keeping them in bureaucracy, but adding a time limit, email voting, and "so mote it be"?
I feel like that, too Cindy. I think that is the source of much unhappiness. I was trying to make a fair and unbiased list of what we are thinking of.
You could include two e-mail links in the proposal, one for yay, and one for nay, and set up the links so they automatically fill in the subject line. All you have to do then is click on the proper link and hit send.
You could? Neat!
'Onboard poll facility' is on the to-do list, but obviously it has lower priority than some things.
x-post the size of an elephant! You people type too fast.
What's the advantage of discussing policy changes through a supreme Court thread rather than keeping them in bureaucracy, but adding a time limit, email voting, and "so mote it be"?
I think the advantages are:
1. Other bureacratic matters won't get lost during the discussion time. It will make us more likely to discuss one thing and one thing only
2. Mental disassociation the bureacracy thread, which it seems a lot of people avoid.
Sometimes I feel like we don't get consensus so much as we decide which ever group spoke last, gets to make the decision.
Which is what I think leads to many bad feelings. Hence this conversation! YAY!
That doesn't work for all browser/e-mail clients, FWIW (especially people with web-based e-mail). Also, 48 hours lets things get lost on a weekend.
If I'm getting votes, I'm doing it via web-based email, for the record. If Nilly wants to take it, I don't know what her email client situation is.
Polls will be implemented. An e-mail form can be implemented. But I think the effort to send an e-mail is little enough that those who care, can do it.
Right on. How hard is it to send a short message to a single address? Not that hard. And it takes no coding and no server space.
Possible issue:
Do we need/want some sort of quorum (probably only of voting Buffistas, not all Buffistas as lots of registered users don't post), or do we want to go with simple majority?
I tend to think quorum will quell dissent, but I don't have strong feelings on either.
On this subject, should we allow campaigning during the voting period (assuming it's a few days) or will that just open up more doors for dissent to flow through? If we have a discussion period prior to opening up a vote, would that suffice, or would it feel like censorship?
As a corollary to Sophia's second point, seeing a sudden burst of posting in "So Mote it Be" would alert people to the fact that something was being discussed. If there's a sudden influx of posts in Bureaucracy, it could be anything from alerts that a new thread is needed soon to hashing out some unpleasantness in a remote part of the board.