Oh-- and thanks Jesse (and david and Gar and Laura and Elena and ita) who were around last night to help see to the posting (I think that was the late night crew.

I don't know what to say about the quorum/majority. i find it confusing, too. I had to have it explained to me about 45 times.

What Jesse said that amych said. To shorten, thanks to Jon, Cindy, jengod, Sophia, everyone who's sustained a generally civil, thorough, well-reasoned, and always Buffista-worthy discussion about the deepest level of bureaucratic nitty-gritty, and ita.

What Dana said. t /still catching up - this is one discussion I insist on reading through

Big ups to the spammers, too!

To go even more meta, what Nilly said.

I voted, and I hope I did it right. Either way, it was a pleasure.

What matters is that right now, I'm happy as hell with this community. A lot of the vague ill-feeling I had before the WX break has dissipated. Even if it's just one vote, we've done something right.

I feel this way too. I feel like we took an active and positive and difficult step to deal with the things which were causing dissatisfaction in our community. I feel better about us. I forgot to thank jengod! And she's doing all the grunt work.

What matters is that right now, I'm happy as hell with this community. A lot of the vague ill-feeling I had before the WX break has dissipated. Even if it's just one vote, we've done something right.

WROD, WROD, a thousand times WROD!

I have to admit that after reading items 2 & 3 regarding quorum, majority and simple majority, I am a little confused as to the synergy of these two items. But maybe that's just me.

Okay two things. As to the simple majority thing first. This is decides whether you think an item needs only one half + 1 of the votes to win, or if you'd think any proposal ought to win a higher percentage of the votes before we put it in. So, if we held a vote to add a politics thread, and we have 900 voters (who do vote), if 451 voters vote in favor of it, if you're in favor of simple majority winning, you'd agree the politics thread should go in.

If you want a higher percentage than simple majority (and if most people feel this way, we'll have to have a discussion and vote on the appropriate percentage, i.e. is it 60%, 66.67%, 75%, etc), then even if 451 vote yes on the politics thread, and 449 vote no on the politics thread, you'd think the politics thread shouldn't be added.

Now, as to the quorum thingie. A quorum is a minimum required number of members showing up in order to conduct business. Usually, it's used in terms of assessing the crowd to see if business should even be conducted. However, because we're a cyber community, there's no real way to do that, other than to just take the vote. So what the votes on the quorum item signify is if you are in favor of a quorum, you want X (to be defined) number of people voting for the vote to even count. If you are not in favor of the quorum, you think the vote should count, no matter how many people vote.

examples:

If we have both a vote-quorum and a simple majority wins rule

Say we've set a 10 person vote-quorum. In other words, if 10 people don't vote, the results of the vote election don't count. I request a Viggo Mortensen Should Belong to Cindy thread. Only 3 people vote, and two vote in favor of the thread. Even though we have a simple majority wins the day, because only 3 Buffistas could be arsed to vote, I don't get my thread.

If we have no vote-quorum and also have a simple majority wins rule

If only 3 people vote and two vote in favor of the Viggo Mortensen Should Belong to Cindy thread, then Joss is in SoCal, all's right with the world, and I get my thread.

If we have a vote-quorum and a higher percentage rule (hypothetical numbers)

If the quorum is 100 people must show up to vote and the higher percentage (example) is set at 66.67%, and we hold a vote to see if we can have a Viggo Mortensen Should Belong to Cindy thread. We have two conditions affecting how we implement the will of the people, based on the ballot results. In other words, we need 100 people (at least) total to vote, and 67 of them must vote yes, in order for me to get my thread.

If we have no quorum - but do have the higher percentage wins rule

If we held the Viggo Mortensen Should Belong to Cindy election, and only 4 of us voted, but three of us voted in favor of the thread, I'd get the thread.

Does this help.

We should so totally have that thread.

The poll page keeps telling me my default e-mail address is invalid. I feel so rejected.

(Yes, nobody needs to point out that I can e-mail my votes. I know that.)

*hair pats to Steph*

Cindy--

Do you think you could link to the post in Press as a clarification? Wolfram and I can't be the only poor souls who need a Quorums for Dummies (TM) explaination.