One more thing, before I shut the heck up.

It looks like there's weight being attached to the decision that "hey, voting, why not?", but in my case, at least, it wasn't a mandate. I wasn't thinking, "Oh, damn! We need to vote. Things will be bad if we don't vote!", I was thinking "ah, sure, why not. Maybe it will speed things up, take some of the discussion levels down."

Assuming that we voted because we had any massively serious opinion about it? Probably not a safe assumption to start out with.

It's fourteen people who've been doing a lot of the policy gabbing. That 120 of us showed up and pushed a button DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT'S THAT IMPORTANT TO US. It just means we voted. That's ALL you can read from it.

And we voted after reading constant reposts of the get out the vote messages. Would 120 Buffistas have pushed the button if there hadn't been a lot of encouragement to do so, or would 106 of us not noticed or bothered? Who knows.

But I really, really, really, in the grand tradition of feeling REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE, don't like the implication that voting meant there was a mandate.

I wouldn't have voted for it if I'd known there was that assumption.

I found the discussion here to be heavy, boring, and mind-numbing. And it was the same 14 people talking around in circles, reinventing the wheel a hundred times over, and I'm sorry I ever brought up voting.

It seemed so damned simple, and turned into an ocean of red tape and a 300 pound thesaurus of words that all meant, "take this fucking poll."

I found myself wanting to pull the plug on folks' internet connections. I voted, and had no idea what I was voting on, or what half the words in the vote meant.

And the entire purpose of the poll was to find a way to make decision making quicker and less painful.

Instead, making a decision about decision making turned into the hundred years war and I don't know what the hell happened. I avoided this thread for about 400 posts, because three hundred of the posts all said the same thing, in increasingly bigger words.

And what the hell is a quorum?

And now I'm frustrated with Cindy because I said that I'd write up a clear example but instead of waiting she wrote two long posts that I stopped reading halfway through because this -- "In this hypothetical, nobody's first choice got eliminated." -- tells me that she still doesn't get how it works.

Reason 1 I didn't shut up is because of the earlier post (I think by you, Jon) that said you'd thought "we'd" reached consensus to use the preferential method, at least for the ballot on the voting minimums.

I didn't want you to get that mistaken impression again.

Reason 2 I didn't shut up is because you gave a simplistic example for a complex ballot. We're not always going to have 3 choices, when we need the preferential system. We're going to have 5 or 6 sometimes because we are Buffistas.

Reason 3 I didn't shut up is because I have time this morning, and then probably not again.

Reason 4 I didn't shut up is because after I posted the one you stopped reading, I realized that I didn't take into account that you would just take the two highest of all 6 options, and so posted a second example, where just exactly that happened.

Reason 5 I didn't shut up is because I think this is getting railroaded through, when we could have an easy vote: most votes vs. preferential - yet when that was proposed by Denise last night, it was given little to no consideration, and that's exactly what makes me feel like it's being railroaded in.

Sorry I frustrated you. You frustrated me too, maybe that'll make you less frustrated?

you'd thought "we'd" reached consensus

I apologise for that.

you gave a simplistic example for a complex ballot.

I said I'd write up a better one.

so posted a second example, where just exactly that happened.

Nope. You still don't understand how it works.

I think this is getting railroaded through

I said a couple of times that I was in favor of a vote.

maybe that'll make you less frustrated?

A little bit. ;)

t edit And, seriously, if you want to discuss thtis further, I'm happy to do so via email. Let's not clog this thread.

It seems simple to me. If you want to vote, let people suggest something to be voted upon, then, if you get a second, you vote. Or if you want, require a third, a fourth, whatever. And a seperate thread that allows no discussion must be created for this purpose. Not to disallow discussion, but to keep it out of the Voting Proposal Thread for the sake of simplicity and sanity. Let discussion take place here or in natter, but not in the official thread.

Set a simple method for proposing a vote, and then vote on it. Then it is over. Discussing is fine, but discussions are not required to make voting legitimate. Voting is what makes voting legitimate. I see a lot of posts in here sayins, essentially, "Oh, that's something we don't need to vote on."

Well, if you are going to vote, everything needs to be voted upon. Who decides that they are important enough to decree that an issue doesn't need to be voted upon? How does anyone have that inherent power?

So someone proposes a vote, someone seconds, and then you vote. And then it's done. And you can discuss or not as you please, but thinking that endless discussion must somehow then provide a critical mass that somehow seems to allow for a vote, that's no different than the blah-blah-Buffista method.

If you want voting, you must establish a rigid system for proposing an issue, and one that does not include needing to get some bogus consensus out of endless discussion. There should be parameters that are simple to understand. A seperate thread where people could post saying, "I want a vote on X," and then others could follow it up with, "Second," and "Third," that's the way to go. A seperate thread where only motions and seconds can be made, so that it's easy to see if the criteria for having a vote has been met without having to sift through endless discussion.

Any thread that allows discussion in it will be impossible to comb for this purpose. So a seperate thread only for proposing and seconding must be established.

Otherwise, it's all still just jerking off. It's just the same people talking endlessly to no democratic purpose.

Anathema - You prod buttock.

Personally, I hate it when someone says "I don't want to talk about this anymore" (or here, or today) and we stop, both because it lengthens the conversation and because it seems like artificial brakes on a natural process. If someone needs a break, they can take it, but they shouldn't be able to mandate that break for everyone.

But that's me.

As for the rest of it, I agree the simplest process is to a)do preferential voting Just This Once and see how it works out and b)include a question as to whether people would prefer preferential voting or simply letting the choice that gets highest number of votes win in the future.

The only opinion I have left is what Denise (and others, me included) have already said -- we need to clear up what people were voting for when they picked "simple majority".

First. It may make so much else moot.

Then, should the non-plurality definition of majority take the day -- go preferentially nuts.

Re: How we decide to shut up.

I am incredibly tired of Trying To Fix Things. It seems to me that every few days somebody discovers something else that is wrong with the culture and proposes how to fix it. And then we talk endlessly. And then something else needs to be fixed.

I don't think we need to be fixed. And whether or not we do, I am tired of talking about it.

This is not "I'm high-status, shut up now". This is one tired poster stating her opinion.

What Betsy Said. Only I am high status. I have a crown. It has sparkles. You must obey.