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).

Oh yeah, what Sophia said is the other thing: we can make a decision, try it on for 6 months, and then revisit.

we can make a decision, try it on for 6 months, and then revisit.

I'll be in the snug with a glass of scotch and my old service revolver.