I disagree. I might care enough about an issue to think that it should be decided one way or another, even if I personally have mixed feelings on the issue. I just want it decided!

Exactly, also, many people may just not give a damn about an issue, one way or another, but cast an abstaining vote out of deference to those who care deeply.

Obviously I disagree with both these statements because people can show they want an issue decided (or deference to the issue raisers) by posting in the discussion (here or in a separate thread if that's what is decided) without having to go ahead and vote abstention (which is also a bit oxymoronic.)

And regarding the number for quorum, I think 50 is way too high for most issues, and I would set it somewhere closer to 10. (FYI, minyan is 10 people.) The big issues (like the current one) will automatically get more people and the small issues - well I think 10 Buffistas should be enough to matter.

But we've gotten more than 50 votes on recent thread-naming polls. And I don't think 10 Buffistas are enough to make significant changes to the site. I don't, sorry. I'm sure there are many groups of 10 people who would like a new thread added. We can't afford to add that many new threads. Etc.

But we've gotten more than 50 votes on recent thread-naming polls. And I don't think 10 Buffistas are enough to make significant changes to the site. I don't, sorry. I'm sure there are many groups of 10 people who would like a new thread added. We can't afford to add that many new threads. Etc.

I'm not saying 10 people are enough to get a new thread. I'm saying if 10 Buffistas care about something and nobody else bothers to vote it should matter.

OK, I realize I can't come up with an issue that only 10 people would care about. So I abstain. (Heh.)

But if we are to have a minyan requirement at all, I would want abstention to count. Because an abstension says "this is issue is important enough to me that I want it decided, but I defer to others on HOW it is decided". An abstention is the equivalent of being present at a meeting but not voting. It still counts towards the quorum. If voting "abstention" is too oxymoronic for you, how about voting "present". This only makes sense if we have a quorum requirement. But if we do than allowing some sort of vote that counts towards the quorum, but does not decide the issue make sense, or is at least worth debating and voting on.

I realize that I am becoming Cranky McCrankypants on this thread but here goes: If someone doesn't want a quorum, they don't want a quorum, period. But if we do vote it in, then it means most of those who voted DO want one, and therefore it needs to be meaningful. A quorum of 10 out of several hundreds is NOT meaningful. Neither is a quorum that includes abstentions, IMO, but if the number were meaningful enough I might be okay with the idea.

Honestly, I think that any issue will get to the voting stage would have anywhere from about 75 votes to well over 100, so I would think a quorum of around 50 would be reasonable. 100 would be too many, I think, for some resolutions to pass.

But that's ONLY if the quorum votes passes. Otherwise, 1 vote is enough, theoretically, the change the structure of the board. Like I said, I doubt that we would get to the voting stage with anything that generated that little interest on the board.

Honestly, I think that any issue will get to the voting stage would have anywhere from about 75 votes to well over 100, so I would think a quorum of around 50 would be reasonable. 100 would be too many, I think, for some resolutions to pass.

But that's ONLY if the quorum votes passes. Otherwise, 1 vote is enough, theoretically, the change the structure of the board. Like I said, I doubt that we would get to the voting stage with anything that generated that little interest on the board.

Yes. This.

Yay! Agreement with Jesse! I feel so validated!

If we can reach a strong consensus on the issue now, I don't see why we need to wait for a vote.

Um, because we are currently voting on whether or not to change from a consensus rule to a vote rule. Seems problematic to me to push something through under the wire just because I might want it.

Because an abstension says "this is issue is important enough to me that I want it decided, but I defer to others on HOW it is decided".

FWIW, this is exactly what I meant when I abstained on question 4. I mean, yes, we need to have a particular discussion/voting time limit, but I personally don't care what it is, so I'm willing to let people who do care make the decision.

Question to ita and the other admins:

Can we get numbers on how many registrations have never been used? Also, I've seen allusion to the fact that we can't figure out how many people are active on the board. Is that so? Is there no way to look at the tables and say "There are two hundred people who have posted more than 15 times in a month"? (Arbitrary, but roughly average to every other day.) Because John's Perl script on WX seemed to track that activity pretty well.

It seems difficult to know where to set a quorum/minyan/minimum without knowing how many people are active posters. We could use this current vote as a yardstick though and see how many people vote.