I feel mischaracterized. I'm a monkey pants lover, not a lover of the monkey himself.

Just kidding. I think you raise some excellent points. I'd already thought of the 'the more options, the less chance of majority' thing. It's a valid issue.

My support of the no majority/no change option was to avoid the opposite slant. That it would be ridiculously easy for changes to be made to the boards. If we could have one second and five voters turned out, then a majority of three people could effect a change, and how is this different from consensus gained by a small number of people? I realize, yes, this is theoretical, and we've had no shortage of voter turnout so far. So if we oppose a change, we can vote against it, yes. But I would rather have it deliberately difficult to move things, so that we get substantial, meaningful change.

I don't think anyone would suggest putting status quo on the ballot as well as having failure to gain majority result in status quo. If we opt against no majority/no change, then we must put status quo on the ballot where it applies. Otherwise, there would never be a case where status quo would remain, if everything is decided by runoff or preferential voting.

Well, things like minimum quorum size, where some decision has to be made, obviously can't use the "have to get 50%" method.

Sure it can. Do a runoff. We already voted that 50% is required for every vote. That to me means runoff.

But that's not my argument. I say put "Don't Change Anything" as another option on the ballot. If a majority of people agree, then nothing changes.

But my argument is that, in some cases, if we can't agree on how to change, then it's better to stick with what we've got until we can find a change that more people can agree on.

Well, things like minimum quorum size, where some decision has to be made, obviously can't use the "have to get 50%" method.

Sure it can. Do a runoff. We already voted that 50% is required for every vote. That to me means runoff.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was using "have to get 50%" to mean "have to get 50% on first vote," to differentiate it from the various runoff methods.

But my argument is that, in some cases, if we can't agree on how to change, then it's better to stick with what we've got until we can find a change that more people can agree on.

Exactly.

The whole reason we're implementing the voting system is that some people felt that community decisions were being bulldozed through by a relatively small group of people. Therefore, we have to design a system that allows a vote for no change.

If there's something that people don't like, and three options for change, and none of them get a majority vote, then I'd think that sometimes that's something where we should look at it some more and see if we can come up with some other option that would get the majority vote (maybe combine two of them somehow, or something), rather than going with something that the majority initially voted against. Not for every vote, of course, but as an option to be used when appropriate.

In this case, we could add
D) None of the above. A change may be needed but I don't like A, B, or C. Let's discuss it some more and see if we can come up with better options.
E) Status Quo. Don't change it. I like it the way it is.

If D & E together got more votes than A & B & C on the initial vote/1st preference, then the change wouldn't be made, whatever the runoff decided. The majority wins.

Except, D would, presumably, then override the "no more discussion for 6 months" rule.

The whole reason we're implementing the voting system is that some people felt that community decisions were being bulldozed through by a relatively small group of people. Therefore, we have to design a system that allows a vote for no change.

I absolutely agree. IJS put No Change on the ballot.

Gotta go for now.

OK - one minor nit Bicyclops - the question of quorum (actually minimum vote) has already been settled in a previous vote. We will have one. Only the number (but above one) remains to be decided.

A general point. You know if we wanted to we could settle even these questions on a single ballot.

For example, to settle the question of how multiple options are handled, the ballot could add two questions.

1)If either neccesity or fairness require more than two options on a ballot, and "no change" is a possible decision, and no majority results, should a runoff be required?

A yes vote will require some sort of run-off whether single ballot or multiple ballot. If a prevous vote or some other practical neccesity does not exclude "none of the above" as a choice, then "none of the above" or some appropriate equivalent will be offered as one choice.

A no vote means that no change will take place if no option wins a majority.

2) If a run-off system is decided on, and in cases where a run-off must take place do you prefer single-ballot run-offs to multi-ballot run-offs.

A yes vote means, that in future votes with more than two options, if a run-off is either required or preferred you will be given the choice of ranking the options from most preferred to least preferred. (You can stll vote for just one option if you wish.) Based on these rankings the winner of a run-off can be calculated, without needing additional ballots. [Link to Jon's explanation will be inserted here].

A no vote means that if no option wins a majority, a run-off vote will take place between the top two contenders so that some option wins a majority. It is possible in such a run-off that the second choice of a majority will exist, but not be on the run-off ballot.

Obviously the phrasing would be more neutral - but these two question allow a decision between the three voting methods by two yes/no questions.

Then we can have preferential ranking in required turnout and seconds questions, but if single ballot run-off is defeated (either in favor of multi-ballot run-off or in favor of status quo weighted voting) then we won't consider anything but peoples first choice.

Er is this clear? The wording I used is way too biased; the actual ballot would be worded by someone else. But the point is that we are not predermining anything. The question of whether to use preferential voting is determined without using preferential voting, and other issues are included in the same ballot, and the ballot is designed so that votes are cast in a way that lets us use whatever method the majority favors to count them.

So nothing is predetermined. But we include all the remaining process issues on this ballot. So everything is settled in this one ballot, and we don't have to take any more votes on process for a long time.

Let me make sure: The issues (besides handling of more than two options) are A) minimum turnout required for an issue to pass B) seconds required for something to come to a vote (with zero being an option because the issue of whether to have seconds is not settled). C) whether "no" votes count towards turnout D) whether votes of "present" should be allowed and counted toward turnout E) whether there should be a seperate thread for discussions once a vote is to be taken (as opposed to discussing this sort of thing in bureucracy F) whether discussion of an issue should be closed when a voting begins or only after voting is complete.

OK, am I forgetting anything? Are any of the above questions settled? Do we want to make the questions on status quo/single ballot run-off/multi-ballot run-off apply only to this vote, and leave the question unsettled for the future? Which would mean having to have meta-discussion on any issue with multiple options or taking a seperate vote at some point on this issue. I actually prefer settling it now, but with the understanding that we wil go out of our way to avoid run-off voting so long as it can be done practically and fairly. (Because issues that are voted on are settled for six months, there are times when having only two options will be unfair - because either result will exclude a third possiblity which then cannot be brought up for six months. Although mulitple yes/no question such as I am suggesting for the question of run-off on this ballot will still let us avoid ranking in many cases.)

Back now.

I feel like I'm mercilessly picking on Hil, but I have one more comment to make on post 7040:

If there's something that people don't like, and three options for change, and none of them get a majority vote, then I'd think that sometimes that's something where we should look at it some more and see if we can come up with some other option that would get the majority vote (maybe combine two of them somehow, or something), rather than going with something that the majority initially voted against.

I think if the 3 options are indeed three reasonable changes with a fair amount of support (which they should be to even get on the ballot), you're unlikely to get a majority to vote for one of the three; you'll usually get 25%-40% for each of the three options. You'll only get over 50% when one (or two) of the options are quite significantly unliked.

I'm think this can be though of as similar to the half full / half empty question. If the three options all get close to 33%, you're seeing each glass as two-thirds empty, while I'm seeing each of them as one-third full. You're saying that two-thirds of the people are against each option, so they're all unliked. I'm saying that each option got about the same amount of votes, so they're about equally liked.