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.

(I just want to make sure I didn't miss any steps.)

That sounds right, although Allyson's original proposal was for a week of voting time, and I'd rather see it stay there. I don't see any real advantage to shortening the time (I mean, really, we all know Connor is Hot, we don't need the thread, like, yesterday!); on the other hand, there are plenty of things that can easily keep people away from a computer for two days.

I would also prefer a week of voting.

(No support for my easy-count-ability two-email addresses proposal?)

Cindy, the reason I proposed some long-ish time for voting is so that everyone who wants to, can vote. And some proposals will be niche-y enough, I imagine, that not that many people will care enough to vote. I'm thinking about some quorum threshhold, but I don't know what it would be -- 50 votes?

How many votes decides an issue

This may depend on what the issue is. For example, a completely new thread has to involve everyone who might use it or not want it to exist; naming the new Bitches thread only really involves Bitches.

(No support for my easy-count-ability two-email addresses proposal?)

I think it's a good idea, but I think that the "how" of the voting can wait until we figure out more of the procedure.

Most of our recent polls have drawn just shy of 100 votes. However, we have almost 800 registered users, so only a minority of Buffistas vote.

What I don't have a sense of is how many active users we have. ita, do you know? And how would you define "active user"? (I'd say anyone who posts at least 2x/week on average, but that ignores lurkers)

Anyhow, I agree we should have more than a majority required to win on major decisions. 60% would work for me.

(No support for my easy-count-ability two-email addresses proposal?)

I thought it was so good I didn't bother commenting ;-).

A week of discussion plus a week of voting time means two weeks from proposal to implementation. That seems REALLY long to me, but I do tend to be kind of impatient girl.

This may depend on what the issue is. For example, a completely new thread has to involve everyone who might use it or not want it to exist; naming the new Bitches thread only really involves Bitches.

Good point. I think that issues such as (heaven forfend!) booting a trollish poster or creating an entirely new breed of thread would require significant input from the entire community. Thread naming doesn't seem to be a comparable issue to me.

I don't have a problem with the thread naming procedure we're using now. Is there a perception that it's "broken"?