OK my dotpoint post got made redundant by some other posts while I was typing it, I think.

saying "There are important things that we could settle with voting, but I can't say any of them out loud" is just another way of saying "Yes, the voting will only be used for frivolous issues," isn't it?

I was trying to say "if I bring up something highly controversial and we vote on it, at least then we know what 130-odd people think" rather than the situation where I bring it up and one or two people say they're offended and I should stop. I'll take the "five people hate me now" on the chin if I can ask for a vote and see what the other 125 think.

against the addition of the amending, because I don't believe it was part of the specifics implied in the first vote

Yup.

This is the vote we knew we were going to have.

The prefs-voting thing is a vote we didn't know we were going to have to have and took people by surprise.

I liked the idea of the small, tidy "What exactly did you MEAN when you said majority?" vote. Which is the (A) 50%+1 (B) Plurality and with amended (C) Australian ballot .

On an item with three or more choices, the only way to get to 50%+1 is with an automated run-off system like the Australian ballot. Therefore, I think that (C) should be removed, but a short paragraph be written explaining the implications of (A) and (B).

i.e. (A) means that in the rare cases where a ballot question has more than two choices, there will need to be runoff ballots, or you will have to vote preferentially (and I still promise to write up a clear explanation of the system). (B) means that a choice could win even though it received only a small percentage of the total votes cast.

Is there any chance that you can just slow or even stop this thread, just for a little while, to give someone who is having a hard time keeping up with the traffic (like me) a chance to read it?

I tried to take notes, but then I leaped over a big middle section to get to here and post before I have to take off. Here are my notes:

Important posts in B.

jengod "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 3, 2003 12:33:37 am EST Jen provides commentary on voting.

DavidS "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 3, 2003 4:50:24 pm EST DavidS argues for simplicity

billytea "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 3, 2003 5:58:35 pm EST billytea explains the Australian voting/ranking system

(skipped ~200 posts)

DXMachina "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 4, 2003 10:27:29 am EST DX runs stats on the people posting in B-cracy.

Anne W. "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 4, 2003 3:17:36 pm EST Anne make a suggestion

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And there is a cool kid mentality. For example:

No, seriously? Raise the standards for a slut. The signal-to-noise ratio is getting, to my mind, really fucking annoying.

This was one of the first series of posts I read when starting to read on the voting.... I realize it was countered eloquently, but ... wow.

Also, there IS a cool kid/been-here group and a newer group. FWIW, Gandalf is correct, people ARE jumped on when they first start to post if they ask a question - and not everything IS in the FAQ.

On an item with three or more choices, the only way to get to 50%+1 is with an automated run-off system like the Australian ballot

Nope. You're assuming that people will be more or less evenly divided among the three choices, which doesn't have to be the case.

I was trying to say "if I bring up something highly controversial and we vote on it, at least then we know what 130-odd people think" rather than the situation where I bring it up and one or two people say they're offended and I should stop. I'll take the "five people hate me now" on the chin if I can ask for a vote and see what the other 125 think.

Ah, ok. Understanding sinks in.

you will have to vote preferentially

Edit to "will either have to vote preferentially or have one or more runoff elections".

I think even that's going too far, Jon.

A lot of people weren't considering voting systems or ballots with more than one cholce on them at all. Or they might be happy with lots of runoffs.

There is one issue on which the first ballot was unclear for a substantial portion of voters.

Clearing that up will be a Good Thing.

You're assuming that people will be more or less evenly divided among the three choices, which doesn't have to be the case.

True, but you don't know that going in, so you need a system ahead of time to deal with that (somewhat likely) contingency.