But I did not withdraw a proposal ita made. I withdrew my suggested amendment. Look three points:

1) I made a proposal to be helpful It was not found helpful. I withdrew it.

2) But given how this whole process has gone I won't accept rudeness. I really want an apology from Anthama for the "dicking" comment.

3) And I'm withdrawing because I am convinced it was a bad idea ,not because it violates process. First of all, seconding in our system (which has not been passed in any case) does not rule out amendments. Formal presentation does that (an announcement in of the vote) does that. And I will point out that an improvement in wording was in fact made after it was proposed and seconded. So what I wanted to do was perfectly within the process of how we are doing it. And we are violating our own process by having the vote start at midnight tonight. I see the need, and I'm not pushing it. but please don't use "violation of process" arguments in this particular discussion.

Since I feel I've been mischaracterized, I want to clarify. When I suggested that we hold off for a week, I wasn't trying to shut down discussion because I was uncomfortable. All I could see was anger and frustration and talking in circles in every direction & to me that's unproductive. Well, it's productive if what you want to produce is more posts, but that's about it.

We are overthinking. This is not a government. This is not a science fiction convention. This is a party. A large, diffuse cocktail party.

God, yes! I'd also say we are taking ourselves way too seriously, but I'm sure that will piss people off again. So pretend I didn't say it.

So when someone proposes something and is seconded, having to then get through a round of debate over the damn proposal is not remotely democratic. Discussion is what you do before a proposal is made. But once someone decides they want to make a formal proposal, all that's left is to have an appropriate amount of people second that proposal as is, then you vote.

Perhaps but, er, I don't think that's what we voted to do. I could be wrong. I thought we voted to propose changes, discuss for 4 days, and then vote. But whatever.

So when someone proposes something and is seconded, having to then get through a round of debate over the damn proposal is not remotely democratic. Discussion is what you do before a proposal is made. But once someone decides they want to make a formal proposal, all that's left is to have an appropriate amount of people second that proposal as is, then you vote.

We voted to have 4 days of discussion before a vote. We've had 2 on this issue so far.

Good lord, two more days of this? No one's going to be speaking to anyone.

I do not want to get into preferential voting right now. The discussion on what the hell that means seems to need to continue, if it's an option. Because about 5 posters are convinced they grok it.

Well, then, frankly, if it can't be explained in a way that the majority of the voters don't get it/like it, it probably gets voted down.

Typo, the dicking around comment was not directed at you. It was directed at the process in general, which has seemed to devolve into endless dicking around on proposals that should be voted upon.

And I regret posting. Sorry. I have tried ever so hard to stay out of this discussion, but I saw people getting very upset so I tried to see if I help get things back on task. Probably that was a mistake. And I will go back to staying out of things.

So I scrolled. No, actually, I skimmed. When I mentioned my frustration last night, I wasn't trying to get anyone to "shut up" because I was upset. I actually wasn't upset. I was annoyed and reading this thread was giving me a headache and I didn't want to have to read it anymore.

It feels like we are trying to reinvent the wheel here. Except we're not. This is a posting board. If you want to be warm and fuzzy, it's an internet community. We are not deciding on whether or not to go to war or how much the federal minimum wage rate should be or what the future of social security is.

And the worst part of these discussions is that I don't think they ever actually get us anywhere. The conversation gets all theoretical and circular and nothing moves forward. People can spit statistics all they want and compare and constrast the difference in voting methods in Bali and Barrundi but it doesn't mean jack here. We're not even a fourth world country. We're a leetle tiny website.

I need more Tylenol now.

ETA: Or I could have saved all that typing and just repeated this

We are overthinking. This is not a government. This is not a science fiction convention. This is a party. A large, diffuse cocktail party.

Good lord, two more days of this? No one's going to be speaking to anyone.

Okay, so then let's prove the idiocy of the previously voted-upon process by flagrantly disregarding it in our first official vote. I for one will be very amused.

I'm done being catty, now I am just seeking clarification. We had a proposal to determine the MVT. But I take it that has been tabled and we are now deciding to "vote" on something that isn't actually a vote, it's more of a poll to determine what people voted for. Shouldn't we call it a poll instead?

We are overthinking. This is not a government. This is not a science fiction convention. This is a party. A large, diffuse cocktail party.

Yes, this. And to go back to conversation this morning, if, in a real-life group of people who like each other, one person says, "Hey, could we not talk about this right now?" people generally stop talking about it right now. Not because they feel oppressed by the one person, but as a nice gesture. It doesn't necessarily mean the topic is forbidden for all time, but it means we aren't going to talk about it right now.

Double-post.

But I will add that this whole conversation has taken so many twists and turns, I have no idea what we're even discussing.