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.

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".

Agree.

And Theo, I think minyan is a great suggestion, as long as it doesn't come across as disrespectful. Which I'm in no position to judge.

David - ita's the only person who currently has access to that data.

We could use this current vote as a yardstick though and see how many people vote.

That was my thought. Plus we could look at the last few Mr Poll thread name polls to help us gauge the number.

A quorum of 10 out of several hundreds is NOT meaningful.

I think registered users can be divided up into several categories.

1) People who registered and are regular posters. (I.e. all the stompies and the names we see here on a regular basis.)

2) People who registered and were regular posters but have gone dark for awhile.

3) Semi-lurkers who post occasionally.

4) V.I.P. registrations, who post occasionally.

5) People who registered, posted a couple of times or not at all, and have gone the way of The Tick and Action (but not Firefly!)

6) A few double registrations for Sang or other innocuous purposes.

7) Lurkers (who don't need registration.)

I'd be very interested to know how many people fall into some of these categories, and if there's a way to make registrations inactive subject to reactivation if they haven't posted/logged in for a significant period of time (say 3 or 6 months.)

The last few Mr. Polls have gotten a little over one hundred votes, and that doesn't account for any double votes. If there's barely one hundred people voting on things, I don't see how we can require fifty people for a quorum, especially when regardless of an abstension/present option, most people who don't have an opinion won't vote. For example if 29 people want a Clem is Hott thread, and 15 people don't, then automatically the 15 people win because the other 50 or so "active" posters really couldn't care less. And that's 29 pissed off, sexually frustrated, Buffistas of questionable taste with no outlet to vent those disturbing feelings. Do we really want to risk that?

Partial X-post with David and Burrell.