Speaking just for myself, I am strongly against using any system here where the math can't be easily explained. I'm gonna want to know how the votes are counted.

It can be easily explained. This is not a 'can't get it' barrier, it's a 'can't be bothered' barrier. (In Australia. I just realised this could be taken as referring to here, which is not the case.)

Procedure:

1. Each voter ranks all the candidates in order of preference.
2. The system works out the two most popular candidates, and then finds which one of them most voters prefer. That candidate wins.

Explanation:

The election is like a whole series of runoffs. Each round, people vote for who they like best and the candidate with the lowest number of votes gets eliminated.

In the next round, everyone who voted for him/her/it votes for which of the remaining candidates they like best. The candidate with the lowest number of votes gets eliminated. And so on until:

Eventually you're left with only two candidates. Everyone votes for one or the other, and whoever gets over 50% of the vote wins.

But because all the voters provided a full ranking at the start, these runoffs can happen automatically. You only have to vote once.

The balance for quick and simple can't be tilted too far away from simple, or it's like work.

go simple. choose simple.

Do people get what I'm saying about using up the good will of the board and spending capital voting? I think ita expresses it succintly.

Okay...I now understand the system, and I'm still against it.

Honestly, I thought we were only going to use this voting system thing for pro/anti type issues, not things where we'd need to rank multiple optons. I thought that we explicitly excluded thread-naming for that very reason.

OK now I'm at work, but I'm not going to get any done, am I?

Whose suggestion was this:

On the ballot the question reads: Do you think 10 Buffistas should constitute the minimum number for each vote to count? yes/no

On the ballot the question reads: Do you think 30 Buffistas should constitute the minimum number for each vote to count? yes/no

I don't get how that would work, if I were allowed to vote for both. Now that's a confusing system...

When John said the thing about there being NO POINTS, that's when it was all clear to me.

I wonder if we're coming up against some wholly other system of voting -- the "vote for three candidates out of ten for school board" system, which seems to assign three points around somehow -- and that's muddying the waters.

I am strongly against using any system here where the math can't be easily explained. I'm gonna want to know how the votes are counted.

Jessica, are you saying you didn't understand the Whedon/Monkey/Cheese Man "mathy if it needs to be" examples above? [edit: ignore this now Jessica's posted again]

billytea, you know I love you but your explanation may have confused people more, plus disagrees with what I thought Jon and I hashed out earlier in this thread.

Jessica, are you saying you didn't understand the Whedon/Monkey/Cheese Man "mathy if it needs to be" examples above?

Yes, but billytea's explanation cleared things up.

BUT, only for me, because I'm reading the thread right now. It gives me hives to think of someone (or, more likely three or four people, with another ten chiming in with a link to this discussion, and another twenty posting "RTFF") having to post a similar explanation every time we have a vote. Which is what will happen.

Honestly, I thought we were only going to use this voting system thing for pro/anti type issues, not things where we'd need to rank multiple optons.

Yes. This.

On the ballot the question reads: Do you think 10 Buffistas should constitute the minimum number for each vote to count? yes/no

On the ballot the question reads: Do you think 30 Buffistas should constitute the minimum number for each vote to count? yes/no

I don't get how that would work, if I were allowed to vote for both. Now that's a confusing system...

Okay if you vote yes on 10, then you'd vote no on 30. If you vote no on 10 then you might vote yes on 30 or no on 30 and you want a higher number which has not yet been proposed. Seriously, why is this confusing?

I'm becoming more convinced that my personal standard on this is going to be something like: Only votes where people can make a decision without reading Bureaucracy at all. That the ballots have to be that simple and clear, and be acessible/understandable to people who are just active in Natter or the show threads and have a general idea of what's going on.

Again, I'm not set on that. But that's how I'm leaning right now.

I'm leaning with Hec.

Hi, Hec!

You think making the posting rules for Press clear is repetitive? Explaining how your vote is used will be endless, and reading this thread not much help if the advocates seem to be contradicting each other.

Only votes where people can make a decision without reading Bureaucracy at all.

I agree, it's time we brought voting to the common people. And let's keep the polysyllabic words to a minimum. Please.

"Why is this confusing?" is not really an answerable question. It's like "Why do you like blue?"

This is rapidly becoming the sort of voting form that I walk away from when it turns up on a Website. That's why it's confusing.