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
abstentions count towards a quorum
I agree. I didn't vote in most of those student things, but I was there, and I did pay attention, and I had the opportunity to say "hey! not with my contribution you don't!". I was part of the Quorum.
In that real-life case, you can simply count the people there. Five hundred people had a chance to vote, two-hundred-odd actually bothered.
But you can't count people as present in an online situation unless they've voted: either yes or no or "I don't care".
So abstentions will be really important. If all eight hundred Buffistas turn up to the vote thread and 750 just go away again without voting, how will we know we had quoracy?
If all eight hundred Buffistas turn up to the vote thread and 750 just go away again without voting, how will we know we had quoracy?
I don't see any reason we can't continue like we're doing now -- submit your abstention.
quoracy
Now you're just trying to provoke someone.
(I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Natter. I'm leaving.)
I don't see any reason we can't continue like we're doing now -- submit your abstention.
Oh absolutely, but that's not my point. If people
don't even bother to abstain,
we don't have quoracy. Or we don't know we do.
I can hardly believe I'm writing this, but we may have to convince people how important it is to show up and vote "I don't care".
joss is never going to show up and vote i don't care. neither is tim or fury or about 300 people who registered after joss posted. neither is...
there are a heck of a lot of empty registrations and THAT'S FINE.
If people don't even bother to abstain, we don't have quoracy. Or we don't know we do.
But I want to be able to either register my presence and abstain officially,
or
just not be any part of it. So I'll vote ABSTAIN if I'm making the point, or stay mum if I'm leaving the stuff to others.
Now you're just trying to provoke someone.
It's a word! What's your option, I-blame-noah-webster-girl? "Quorateness"? "Quoraciousness"? "Quoraciosity"?
We currently have 110 voting members. It was recently reported that we'd added user 800. Therefore we currently have about 14% of our population actively engaged in the site during (the last/a) 24-hour period. We'll see how we do by the end of the voting cycle.
Some small percentage of that 800 is double registrations, right? There are the people who have a separate id for Sang Sacre?
No, of course not. But if we discuss an issue and 30 people vote, but the quorum is set at 50, it's invalid. But if there were another 30 people who had followed the discussion but didn't feel they had anything invested in the outcome, those people only show up if they abstain. Now, you can argue that if there's that little interest even among people bothering to cast a vote, it shouldn't go through anyway (and I lean towards this position). But counting abstentions does provide information you don't otherwise have.
Whether to allow for abstaining votes on most questions is something I think we need to discuss further. It may be better to include that option only in a case like this, where there is more than one question being put forward.
I'd say at a guess that we've probably got about 200 or so mostly active posters - those are going to be the most likely voters, as well. And that's fine.
