And minion, minyan, funyun, it's all very cute, but really -- what we're talking about is voter turnout. I propose we just use that from now on.

The Q-word means "people physically present" and has no meaning. None of us is physically present.

So we're requiring people to be intellectually present -- to come along and take an interest, read the debate.

If, having done that, they think "I don't care either way" they should please not just go away, they should register the fact that they attended to the discussion with some kind of a neutral vote.

We've been calling that an "abstention" but it doesn't have to be. In Australia it's called an "informal" vote.

People have been posting that we are obliged by law to vote in Australia. Not so. We're obliged to turn up at the polling place and stuff a ballot into a box. Nothing says we have to vote for any candidate.

So in order to reach a satisfactory level of voter turnout we may have to ask Buffistas who don't care, but did read the vote thread, to indicate that they did so.

Okay, my perspective from just counting the ballots. Absentions should be considered absences. You vanish for the sake of that vote. It's patently ridiculous to ask people to register their lack of interest.

Jon, I just was worried that we could end up with something like 20 votes for each choice, and then 21 votes for the winning choice.

Sorry, I should have explained what I meant by a "preferential ballot".

• Everyone ranks their choices
• Ballots are sorted by first choice
• If no choice receives 51% of the vote, the choice with the lowest number of votes gets resorted by those ballots' second choice
• If still no choice receives 51% of the vote, the choice with the now lowest number of votes gets resorted by those ballots' second and third choices (depending on which hasn't been eliminated yet)
• and so on.

This is how the People's Republic of Cambridge, MA (and other places, I'm sure) conducts much of its voting. There are variations of this system but I don't know their details.

Absentions should be considered absences.

I was under the impression that we only had abstain on this ballot because we had more than one item to vote on at once, and perhaps the form couldn't process a "blank" answer?

This is how the People's Republic of Cambridge, MA (and other places, I'm sure) conducts much of its voting. There are variations of this system but I don't know their details.

And if our current vote turns up a win for straight majority?

because we had more than one item to vote on at once, and perhaps the form couldn't process a "blank" answer?

Honestly, it was an arbitrary decision on my part. I figured better to include it than not. With "radio buttons" on html forms, once you select a choice, you can't change it to no choice; you can only pick a different one (unless you reload the page). I could see people complaning if I didn't include abstain, but I couldn't imagine anyone complaining if I did include it.

The 50% would have to be of active users though, not registered users. There are about 800 people registered here. My guess is there are about 100-150 regular posters. I can't even think of that many off the top of my head.

I even think requiring 50% of active users voting is too high, not to mention, it probably endangers some existing threads. I understand the anti-proliferation feeling and share it in the abstract, but when I see the redundancies, I feel a little differently about what actual proliferation is and how it's viewed by some of the stronger anti-proliferation voices.

And if our current vote turns up a win for straight majority?

The end result of preferential balloting, once you've gone through the iterations, is a straight majority.

The end result of preferential balloting, once you've gone through the iterations, is a straight majority.

Well, yeah, okay, but that's certainly not what I thought I was voting on - I thought I was voting on simplistic American-style "biggest number wins." (Which is not to say that I've got any issue with preferential balloting, because I don't. I rather like it, actually.)

People have been posting that we are obliged by law to vote in Australia. Not so. We're obliged to turn up at the polling place and stuff a ballot into a box. Nothing says we have to vote for any candidate.

Specifically, I've been saying that Australians are obliged by law to vote. And I did clarify that this does not oblige you to select a candidate.

This is how the People's Republic of Cambridge, MA (and other places, I'm sure) conducts much of its voting.

This is how the Australian system works too.