Implying that people need to be brainless to participate in this thread isn't particularly funny to me. So, yes, your comment did bother me. Thank you for your apology.

I've read this thread, and I still don't understand the implications of the vote.

I think I'll go to bed.

Well. It's been a fair while since I posted here. I don't have much to say, and I hope what I do have won't make anything worse.

So, look, reason I stepped out was because I was, like many people, feeling pretty upset. I felt (right or wrong) that the fact the discussion turned unpleasant was being blamed solely on the people in favour of preferential voting. I found this doubly upsetting because the main reason I was arguing for it was because I believe it to be the fairest practical method, the one closest to our previous consensus model and the one most likely to help forestall such unpleasantness in the future. Instead, I felt like I was being accused (not personally, as part of the pro-pref group) of pretty much courting or at least being insensitive to such unpleasantness. (And of being a Vulcan. I minded that less before Enterprise.)

Nothing like real life to provide some new perspective on things. So I felt I needed to give voice to the above rather than let it fester; but I also want to say that I know no one else intended any offence, and the discussion caused hurt and frayed tempers all over. I would also like to apologise for any part I played in making anyone else feel upset, uncomfortable or alienated.

Signed,

billytea (Not a Vulcan.)

Hey, billytea. I don't feel blameful towards anybody for the out-of-handness. I think our nature is to scrutinize and discuss. Inevitably perhaps, when we turned that million watt attention at our own collective navel things went kerblooey. There was a weird feedback loop, a mobius strip of some kind.

Anyway, I valued everybody who contributed in good faith - which means everybody. Because I don't think anybody came in here intent on derailing things at all. I think everybody was trying and everybody cared. Unfortunately, that seems to have made matters worse. But now this vote is up and I hope it clears matters. I hope.

Hey, billytea. I don't feel blameful towards anybody for the out-of-handness. I think our nature is to scrutinize and discuss. Inevitably perhaps, when we turned that million watt attention at our own collective navel things went kerblooey. There was a weird feedback loop, a mobius strip of some kind.

Anyway, I valued everybody who contributed in good faith - which means everybody. Because I don't think anybody came in here intent on derailing things at all. I think everybody was trying and everybody cared. Unfortunately, that seems to have made matters worse. But now this vote is up and I hope it clears matters. I hope.

Yeah. I agree.

Hell, while I'm at it:

Is it me, or did anyone immeadiately wonder how many Buffistas it takes to change a light bulb?

That's in the FAQ.

t laughing like a drain

Is that the answer in the FAQ? ("How many Buffistas...?" "Check the FAQ.") Because if not, we really should consider it.

t timid

Uh. Yeah. I have a question about the ballot.

Say there was the hypothetical lizard, who is embarrassed for two reasons, and one's that she hasn't been reading this thread faithfully for the past few days, because it's making her crazy; and the second's that she, like other people, didn't have the same definition of "simple majority" in mind that, like, John H did.

So this entirely-hypothetical lizard voted "no, I don't want a simple majority", because she doesn't want this

Choice 2 means that a choice could win even though it received only a fraction of the total votes cast. For example, if there are five choices that receive 22%, 21%, 20%, 19%, 18%, the choice that received 22% would win with no further balloting.

to be true. And she thought her no-side had lost; but, it then turned out her no-side was really the yes-side, so maybe she DID win. But whatever. She needs to vote again.

And it seems to her (but maybe she's just being an idiot) that what you're asking is how to interpret the results of the last vote. Not polling for a new vote. (You say "future votes"...? But you don't say what's going to be done to decide this specific problem of what-majority-means. So that's how this hypothetical lizard is reading it.)

So what should this lizard do? She had voted "no", before, but the "yes"es won. Ought she say Choice 1, to have her vote count for the most? Because, I mean, it kind of seems this is sort of a meta-poll. Unless our lizard is confused. As she probably is...?

Think of it as a new vote, Liz. Vote for whichever makes the most sense to you regardless of your last vote.

In the case of this hypothetical creature, let's call her Becca Reptile, she voted LAST time for SuperMajority without meaning to. It turns out that's OK, since SuperMajority (and his sidekicks, Jerry Mander and Phil E. Buster) got their butts kicked hard.

In this vote, you want to vote for Option 1. You're saying that you want more than 50% of the people to approve of something, or it won't happen, however that >50% is determined (which is what a lot of the last several thousand posts have been about).

Maybe Phil E Buster's not dead?

Well after reading the couple of hundred messages attempting to formulate the perfect polling process all I can say is, "Don't you wish you'd given them a politics thread?"

Now, after another 900+ posts and 4 days spent trying to formulate the perfect polling process, I repeat, "Don't you REALLY wish you'd given them a politics thread?"

My two cents: This whole issue, or set of issues, began when the board broke and the Buffistas sought refuge back at WX. At the time, the breaking of the board itself, celebrity postings and outside links to those postings, unpleasant and trollish behaviour, and thread proliferation were all raised (or re-raised) as problems or potential problems, most of which were interconnected. The debate about these issues raised some other concerns regarding the decision making process, specifcally decisions being taken when larger, more vocal segments of the Buffista community were around which left some others feeling left-out/over-ridden/out-shouted.

So in the last week or so we've discussed the decision making process, polled the Buffistas community, concluded that most of the active members favour a voting process to make decisions about serious issues or changes within the community, and calculated a figure for the 'active members'. Now we need to figure out how many of the active members are needed to be fairly certain that any change or policy decision is really necessary and also a way of deciding things that have more than two possible answers.

At this point I would just like to add that as a person who has spent 5 years studying politics at a tertiary level, has worked in government at both state and federal levels, was part of the constitutional convention, and is an Aiustraiiiliiianiii citizen born and bred, even I ended up confused and cranky at various times in the past fifteen hundred or so posts. I therefore have nothing but sympathy for all those who are not particularly politically inclined or for whatever reason have been upset by much of the discussion of the last few days.

This is in no way meant to be disrespectful of the many well-written and erudite posts on voting procedures, democracy, community values, and such, nor is it meant to be patronising or critical towards those who ask questions or air their feelings of disquiet, but is only meant to acknowledge that in this on-line, not physically-in-the-one-place-or-one-time, community meeting board, straightforward, logically progressing debate is not always possible given that people can jump into the debate at any point and with any level of lead-up knowledge.

I would also like to add that ALL of the aforementioned problems/issues/concerns, as well as the ones that have been raised in the last few days (eg. numberslutting and Wrodding), come from the same root cause as most societal problems in real life, population growth. Like most things I guess, an in-joke such as numberslutting within the active component of a hundred or so people has the potential to become annoying and thread wasting when practiced by the active component of 800 or so people, especially when the practice of it infers inclusiveness in that Buffistas community.

I think I've forgotten whatever it was that I was going to say, but I'll finish by supporting Jon's suggested ballot as it comes across as clearly written, easy to understand, to-the-point, and contains some requisite Buffistas humour.

Sorry for being so wordy but remember that even Greek (birthplace of democracy) politics no longer works as smoothly and democratically as it did when only male citizens were allowed to participate and political assassinations or incarcerations were popular ways of clarifying the discussion.

Edited to contextualise Greece.

Think of it as a new vote, Liz. Vote for whichever makes the most sense to you regardless of your last vote.

OK, really, it isn't about re-interpreting the results of the last vote?

Because the ballot says "future votes". It doesn't say anything about how we were going to resolve this issue of *whether there's going to be a majority or not*. Because... that *wasn't* resolved by the last vote, was it? Because we don't know whether people were sincere or not!

And if not, then maybe possibly the ballot is confusing to people with the size of reptile brains.

Which, you know, maybe there's only one of us. But. Um.

t dies of shame again