I didn't mean to step on your toes as a statistician, DX.

You never have, John. You've been doing it longer than I have, anyway. I'm being perfectly truthful in that I have no idea what y'all are talking about. I was just randomly clicking to the end of the thread to see about natter, and Nutty's post mentioning me was what popped up, and it was disconcerting is all. I'll catch up tomorrow I guess.

Sophia - Just a point, out of any gang of X bureaucrats, I bet if we polled all 800+ members of the community, your name would rack up the lowest number of votes for annoying member of the gang of 14. You've consistently been only reminding us to focus. Thank you.

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About this section of proposed ballot item 3...

ITEM 3: VOTER TURNOUT

How many Buffistas does it take to make a vote count? Do abstentions count toward this?

For the first question, put a number between 10 and 100 into this box, please: [ ]

Is this range artificially high? Is that false feeling of consensus raising it's ugly head again? There were posters (ita and yours truly are the only ones I can remember, but it seems there were more) that took the position that if people can't be arsed to vote "no", they shouldn't be able to shut down a proposal by not showing up to the dance.

I get the impression that there are exisiting threads that only have about 10 to 15 regular (nearly-daily) posters. There are some existing threads that don't get posts for days. (Hi - UnAmericans! with no posts on March 2, March 9, or March 10.) Since many times, voting is going to be used to approve or shut down a thread proposal, shouldn't the number range to more accurately reflect how we use the board?

John H's stats (Kafka post# 7311) show that 99% of this conversation came from 67 Buffistas. We had 135 voters on the first ballot. In actuality, that's probably 95% of active users. We had 100 votes on the second ballot. This process has gotten so ugly, that I can't imagine seeing 135 votes again.

Could we please change the proposed range of 10 to 100 to something lower? Way lower?

I understand (and to some extent favor) those who are all for keeping the status quo. But if people can shut down proposals by not showing up, it seems to encourage disinvolvement. If you're against thread proliferation, then show up and vote down a proposed thread. We want hurdles to slow down change, but we don't want to block it completely.

There's a big difference between being totally anti-proliferation, and knowing you don't have time to add a new thread to your life, and so not getting involved.

If people (with search capabilities and math skills) think I'm being unreasonable, then I have a request. Do what John H did on the 5 most active threads (exclude this one - there is an artificial reason this is so active), for the month of March so far, and see how many posts in how many threads are by how many people, and then come up with a proposed range from there.

Or - change the range to something like 3-25. Because dammit, if 24 Buffistas out of the 25 Buffistas who care - want a new thread - and nobody else can be arsed to give their input, shouldn't they get one?

I bet if we polled all 800+ members of the community, your name would rack up the lowest number of votes for least annoying member of the gang of 14.

Cindy, I think you said exactly the opposite of what you meant here.

And now I'm paranoid that I would be voted the *most* annoying member.

As for # of votes to make a vote count ... eh, more than 2, less than 20. I have no strong opinions at this point.

Cindy, I think your range is too low. There was a proposal to put the bottom number at 2, which I think would be fine. Leave the range 2 -- 100, and people who want 20 can say that. People who want 10 can say that. And ALL THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RIGHT can say 50. (Um, you guys know I'm not really a megalomaniac, right?)

Time frames here. My issue at the time was that using pref. voting "just the once", which was the issue at hand at the time for forming the proposal would weigh things in favor it becoming the standard. Just like I honestly think having a vote on voting ends up being a "well, of course we can vote, we're voting now!" issue.

But if enough people had voted no on voting, we would have STOPPED voting. My feeling is this: it's hard enough coming to an agreement among the small number of people who actively participate in this thread. I can't imagine a discussion-based decision-making process that would really include a significant number of people. Being clear that discussions will take place over several days seems like the most important first step to me. That way, everyone can say their piece, if they want to. So many people were cut out of the process in the "old way" of doing things -- you could go to bed and wake up to a significant decision having been made. At the very least, I think making sure we take multiple days to do things is A Good Thing.

Cindy, I think you said exactly the opposite of what you meant here.

Goodness, thank you.

Sophia - you're the least annoying of us all. That's what I meant to say and have edited to make that happen.

And now I'm paranoid that I would be voted the *most* annoying member.

No way, you'ver posted less than I have.

As for # of votes to make a vote count ... eh, more than 2, less than 20. I have no strong opinions at this point.

I don't care what the number is so much as that I think it should reflect how people use this board. I think making the upper number 100, is a way higher standard than anything we've ever had here.

Cindy, I think your range is too low. There was a proposal to put the bottom number at 2, which I think would be fine. Leave the range 2 -- 100, and people who want 20 can say that. People who want 10 can say that. And ALL THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RIGHT can say 50. (Um, you guys know I'm not really a megalomaniac, right?)

This is why I think maybe we should do some analysis. 10 to 100, or even 2 to 100, is way too big of a range to get a meaningful answer in a vote, whether we go with median, mean or mode.

If you take out Natter, Bitches, Buffy, Angel and Firefly - do you really think that 50 people would show up to vote about the threads they don't use?

Now, I'm saying, take Natter, Bitches, Buffy, Angel and Firefly (or whatever our 5 hottest threads are) and analyze how many people do how much of the posting in them. The most active threads are really how we, by default, define our community - what our focus is, what interests us.

Figuring out how many people post how much in the most popular threads will help us determine a range that's reasonable for this minimum vote total thing. Jesse, other than those threads, there probably aren't 50 regular posters in any thread, even fairly popular ones.

But I don't think just regular posters have opinions. I'm not a regular poster in the music or movies thread (or really, any thread other than this one and Natter), but I have opinions out the wazoo!

Also, Jesse? It will leave your megalomaniacal biases and my megalomaniacal biases out of it.

I mean, if we see on average that 100 unique users post daily, and X of them make up A% of the posts in the popular threads, we'll have an idea what reasonable vote totals should be.

But Cindy, posting isn't an indicator of anything other than posting. There are people with a different sort of self control than I who read and don't post whose opinions are also valid.

If you make the spread more "reasonable", then I'll be forced to vote 15 when I really mean 10, and that's having someone else's subjective interpretation shape my decision. I prefer the too wide net.

But I don't think just regular posters have opinions. I'm not a regular poster in the music or movies thread (or really, any thread other than this one and Natter), but I have opinions out the wazoo!

Right. And you'll get to express them in a vote. But requiring a minimum for the topic to come to a vote, requiring a (any sized) minimum vote total for the vote to count, requiring a 50%+1 vote majority, for any topic to pass are already hurdles an issue has to pass. Are we going to make the minimum vote total for new issues insurrmountable? Because really, that's a big change in philosophy from before.

Before, if more people that cared to chime in on an issue, wanted something, they got it. Our only real problem was, as we grew, we had trouble determining whether we were making our decision because more people agreed, or because loud people spoke last.

You have opinions on lots of things, so show up and vote.

But Cindy, posting isn't an indicator of anything other than posting. There are people with a different sort of self control than I who read and don't post whose opinions are also valid.

I don't get this objection, because the more prolific of us, aren't getting any more votes than the lurkers.

I'm talking about setting the range for the minimum vote total, that's all.