Gandalfe - the problem with an average is that one person voting 200 could skew the whole vote. Or to generalize more, if you suspect that a majority want a lower turnout requirement than you do, with averaging you have a serious incentive to vote for a higher turnout than you really want. If you suspect a majority want a higher turnout, you have the same serious incentive to vote for a lower turnout than you really want in order to compensate.

True. Well, instead of average, we could go for mean.

Hell, I'd even crunch the numbers, since I'm the fool who proposed it.

Gandalfe - I don't think a mean in this context would be any better. Unless you mean a median, and that would just be random. If we wanted a fair way to process the "everbody enter a number" there is a way - actually a slight modification something Maya suggested earlier. But that is Mathy, and thus liable to provoke wrath.

How are we handling Miracles discussion? Whitefont? Where do it go?

Sorry, my brain's not working as well as it could be right now. I just got an e-mail with some very bad news. Yes, median is what I meant. And, somehow I missed Maya's post.

Allyson, we're whitefonting. Discussion, such as it is, seems to be in Angel or in Firefly.

You know, after reading all of the above debate about preferential voting, I can't help but remembering that one of the complaints voiced in WX was that some proposals got ahead not because they had a majority support, but because those in favor of it kept bringing it up again and again and again until they got what they wanted, and how all this voting thing was supposed to fix that among other issues.

Oh the irony.

The way this conversation has been set aside (for a week, for 2 days, whatever) is a brilliant example of why consensus wasn't working for me. People were discussing - and discussing, and discussing, and discussing some more - a subject and several people voiced an opinion that the discussion was going on too long. Other people wanted to discuss more. Fine. Valid opinions, all. But then two (or three or four) people on the board at the same time reached the decision to shelve discussion. I don't know how many people wanted the discussion shelved, because there was no clear consensus, or a vote, or a plurality, or a majority. And this is why some people felt the system was broken.

Sophia, I think, was talking about abstentions not counting as votes - for majority or for voter turnout. Thing is, a person might not have a strong opinion on an issue, but still want to participate on the board and in the community. She (again, I think it was Sophia) suggested that instead of 'abstain' there be categories such as 'I think something needs to be done, but not this' or 'I think we need to talk more'. I might put forth that another reason to abstain is because, yay or nay, you might just want the issue decided so the talking stops.

Perhaps Denise is right. Perhaps we need to ask people in a simple question, whether they want votes tallied under the preferential method, or the most votes wins method.

People are using a three item ballot question to explain preferential, and show how it "will" determine the option "most" people want or can accept. Fact is, Whedon, monkeys and cheese aside, for issues like how many votes make an election count (I'm never again using the "q" word), it appears that the people who are in favor of the preferential system are also in favor of tossing up about 5 choices to folks.

What if we had this kind of scenario though?

example with a hundred people casting votes on an issue:

hypothetical issue = How many voters make an election count:

010: 25 people rank it #1, 15 rank it #2

025: 15 people rank it #1, 25 rank it #2

050: 00 people rank it #1, 30 rank it #2

075: 30 people rank it #1, 00 rank it #2

090: 14 people rank it #1, 26 rank it #2

100: 26 people rank it #1, 14 rank it #2

Where's the clear will of the people in this, even with preferential voting?

And the numbers I threw up assume everyone voting would participate in the ranking past their number one choice. I wouldn't. I'd just vote for my number one, because in this instance, I believe the minimum should be low, and if my choice ties with another choice, I don't want to give my vote to another choice in the tie-breaker.

Where's the clear will of the people in this, even with preferential voting?

I looks to me like you still don't understand how it works. In your example, you've presented the data in a way that makes it impossible to determine the next round. For one thing, you need to show, within the group of #1 choices, how the second choice votes are split.

I believe the minimum should be low, and if my choice ties with another choice, I don't want to give my vote to another choice in the tie-breaker.

Yep. You still don't get how it works. Later this morning, I will try to write up another example that uses more than three choices.

Perhaps Denise is right. Perhaps we need to ask people in a simple question, whether they want votes tallied under the preferential method, or the most votes wins method.

I am all for this. I can try to write something up for this later as well.