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.

Well, like, if they don't care themselves whether Cindy gets her CINDI'N'VIGO4EVEH thread, or they haven't made up their mind yet; but they think it's something that ought to be voted on, just not by them. They're saying it's something they think the community really ought to seriously consider and think about. And if the abstentions are bigger than anything else, then it's the people saying it's somethign the community needs to think more about-- it's not ready for a vote yet, not with those options, at least.

In my mind. At the moment.

I'll vote ABSTAIN if I'm making the point, or stay mum if I'm leaving the stuff to others.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Say we require that, picking a number out of the air, at least a hundred Buffistas register some sort of vote.

Rebecca's proposal to create a thread devoted solely to Alyson Hannigan has 60 yes-votes, 20 no-votes, and 10 abstentions.

Does she get her thread? No, because 100 people have not taken part.

Should she then round up ten people who don't care?

I was seriously thinking a quorum would be, like, 10 Buffistas.

I'm anti-quorum anyway, but I see a distinction between my responses to issues I may neither want to vote yay or nay on.

There are the people who have a separate id for Sang Sacre?

That's true but it's only about five or six separate IDs.