And there is at least one example where preferential voting makes sense.

One we decided to have a minimum voter turnout requirement - without deciding what that would be. if you ever had an example where you have to decide between multiple options this is it. Of course as somone said you can just have the choice with the most votes wins. But ya know what especially in a case like this the odds are that it won't reflect what the vast majority want. If you want simplicity and don't care whether the decision making process is rational or fair , why not flip the approapriate D&D die. You have four sided, six sided, eight sided, ten sided, and twenty sided. And there are ways to combine them to get any other number of choices. If "good enough" and "simple" are the only values and "fair" and "rational" are not important, because the issues at stake are so trivial -why not roll dice? If "fair and rational" are important values enough that we want to vote at all, then preferential voting should at least be considered.

Anathema--

The reasons I thought voting would work better is

1. I felt that when we had conversations where we came to a consensus, we had no way of knowing whether or not it was a consensus in any sense of the world. Many people feel very strongly about thread proliferation, and it seems like they just gave up, because people who wanted new threads (myself included) shouted them down. They were upset.

2. When we had consensus conversations, it was very hard to keep them on track. They got very circular and into minutea (much like this has. They seemed to have no end, becuase it was hard to tell when a consensus was reached.

so why snark at me for understanding you? I'm caught between offended and baffled here

Go baffled, choose baffled!

Seriously. I wasn't snarking.

If we continue doing things by consensus, and we respect each others' feelings to the point where certain points get a veto as soon as someone says "this is making me feel uncomfortable" then the most important things are going to get ignored.

We're only going to achieve consensus on things that nobody really cares about very strongly and the things that people do care about will be under the carpet.

No, I get that Sophia. I understand those feelings. My interested just perked up when I read that there some hidden issues that are apparently too controversial to be brought up at this time.

DX did a threadsuck and counted, and 2/3rds of the 1500 posts on this issue have been posted by 14 people.

Wow.

Just...wow.

And I still can't figure out what it IS that has caused so much circular, unresolveable discussion. How we decide to create new threads?

I mean, is that IT? *That's* what's making people get cranky, and teary, and nasty, and making it spill over into other threads?

Wow.

If "good enough" and "simple" are the only values and "fair" and "rational" are not important, because the issues at stake are so trivial -why not roll dice?

Gar, I'm starting to really resent the tone of your posts. God knows we can all argue this to death, but please don't imply that people who disagree with you aren't interested in what we think is best for the board.

OK, I apologize for the "cool kids " comment because it offended people. We have an issue, the number of people who constitute minimum turnout that would seem a test case for preferential voting.

DX did a threadsuck and counted, and 2/3rds of the 1500 posts on this issue have been posted by 14 people.

Oh.

Ack.

I should really shut the hell up, then, if I'm one of the fourteen (and I have a sinking feeling I am). Because it's not like I care so much about any of this -- I'm happy we're voting, but I don't really have strong opinions on abstentations or number of seconds, and the preferential thing is just way over my head.

Actually, we have a Slightly More Critical Issue.

Which is to say, clearing up the majority confusion.

The argument I hear going around and around is:

"The logical and mathematically correct way to determine preferences among multiple choices is preferential voting."

"I don't like preferential voting. It confuses me and/or will confuse others."

Lather, rinse, repeat. I don't think anybody's positions are being changed by either of those statements any more. The cases have been made.