That would be great David!

Trudy-- I can answer with my opinion in about 2 seconds when I am done posting!

Have you followed the whole discussion Trudy?

The problems with consensus have been: whoever happens to be in the thread at the time forms a consensus. The big problem was the movie thread. Two times it was raised, discussed and dismissed. On the third time, the people who raised it all happened to be in agreement and so the thread went forward. There is some sense that these consensus type decisions are really not expresssing the majority viewpoint and have become arbitrary.

Another example, is the continued raising of the issue of a Politics thread. There is no process currently in place to consider an issue, discuss it, decide on it and put aside. It got to be very wearying returning to the same issues and hashing them out again.

Those are two quick examples.

OK, am I the only person besidse Liese who isn't sure why consensus has been largely unacceptable?

I think that people have been complaining that what looks like consensus is really just a bunch of people, but by no means everybody, agreeing on something at the same time, so that it's just whoever's on the board then who determines the "consensus." I don't know what the specific examples are, though.

I've posted the APB in Spoilers, and Buffy and Angel Light Spoilers.

Did post in Bitches, Natter, and Previously.

Trudy - I don't think that many of us have been unhappy with consensus; I thought it worked. The more structured discussion and voting method just makes for a more focusey way of dealing with decisions. The comfort of structure.

I just posted in Canadians, LOTR and DueSouth.

My only problem with consensus is how many things got decided when I was asleep. Sometimes things got decided before I had a chance to offer any input.

I've just caught up on the discussion and am wondering if the anti-concensus feeling is half a dozen people who happen to be around at the time.

I know that sounds snarky and circular.

Personally, I think the vast majority of the time we have reached valid concensus. I know if I come into a discussion and my side is being expressed adequately I don't necessarily chime in. I think if a movie thread didn't have enough people supporting it (placing aside technical concerns for the moment) it would peter out and die. Finally, maybe we just haven't reached a critical mass of sentiment on a political thread. Again from my POV, I can't make up my mind whether I'd like one or not. I see strong reasons for both and think the discussion isn't over yet.

I also think that a) people who want to influence the decisions include themselves in the decision process and b) there is nothing barring ANYBODY from participating in that process.

The process has largely served us well and (again, IMHO) is a part of the spirit of the place. Finding a way to reach out and let people know that they belong in it could eliminate the problems we've had.

Nothing's been decided that bothered me, but there are definitely times when the discussion is leaning heavily one direction, then you come back a few hours later and things have swung the opposite direction. I can see how in some circumstances this was upsetting.

I have posted in Buffy, Angel, Farscape, Clex, Literary, Music, Un-American.

The only threads still need to be posted in that I know of are Sang Sacre and Movies, neither of which I have ever been in, so I wold prefer a resident post.

Thanks all, and off to bed.

Trudy:

My problem is what David said, plus, additionally: we never know when to end a discussion and make a decision, so people leave (this would make a decide in a fairly timely fashion) and people can bring the same stuff (movies thread) up over and over until there is a consensus of the people on the board that day.