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.

But you're using what I think is an arbitrary number (posters) to set a boundary. I don't see why the number of active posters has anything to do with the price of tea in China. We don't know if the readers are twice that, or 15 times that.

If the outcome of this doesn't work, we can change it, right?

Here's why I think 2 -- 100 is a good range: It runs all the way from meaningless (IMO) to the maximum number of voters we're likely to get ever (assuming the first two votes had the largest turnout).