Probably elsewhere, so that it doesn't get interrupted by a fight over font size. But I'm darned if I know where. Maybe in each shows' respective thread?

I'd think that would go in Natter or the show threads, with announcements in Press. It seems like that's where those things have usually been.

Thanks!

Sophia did a good thing by putting a FayJay "Voting Discussion: We're Screwing In Light Bulbs AIFG!" Mar 20, 2003 6:46:02 pm EST link in her proposal. It lets you skip to the start of the discussion and reminds less-involved voters of the thread's existence.

even if a war thread gets a fourth second (and it's been less then five hours I must add), it won't be discussed for two weeks at the earliest, and won't be voted on until three weeks from now.

Since we voted for discussion to close when the vote goes up, can't we start a new discussion in four days and vote on it after the other vote closes? That would bring the third issue to vote in 12 days, on the first of April. The only problem is we'd have the voting discussion thread still open while the first vote was up, so people might try to discuss it.

If no more than four people will second a formal proposal, then no more than four would vote for it, and it would lose anyway, right?

Nah, it's different. See Sophia's

I have to preface this with the fact that I am in favor of opening the war discussion thread if a fourth is forthcoming. What harm will it do.

and I have the opposite position, where I was champing at the bit to get Wolfram's proposal seconded, but would have voted against it.

Nou--

I will vote against it. I just think it has caused so much unecessary discussion I wouldrather just vote on it and have it lose than continue chasing our own tail.

Why is this so diffucult!

Why is this so diffucult!

Almost done! Almost there. I swear to dog, this fucker is almost hammered into place and once that's done it'll be fair, and everybody will get it and everybody will contentedly live by it. Contentedly!

Contentedly!

I have this strange satisfied feeling whenever we hit a deadline or a threshold and can mark some stage of the process DONE! with a big rubber stamp. I don't know if I like rules or structure or what. It's nice to know "we did that part, here's what happens next." Gives a feeling of progress. And the voting proposals and forms are very professional and efficient. Just like the board itself.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

- Douglas Adams

From way back about McCarthy and innocent people's lives: he hassled your own personal parents, Gar, do I remember that correctly?

Wolfram - clearly you were shouting out to me when you asked for objective people. ;)

So the relevancy of the thread I'm even proposing may be stale and moot by that point.

Just to second what Nutty said. If the war is over, or the topic is otherwise stale by the time it comes up for a vote, it wasn't worth adding a thread. We don't have threads for individual current events. We discuss current events in Natter and the other threads.

And that's assuming a third issue isn't railroaded through before the war thread gets a fourth second. That's unreasonable too.

It's unfair to say the other topics are getting railroaded through. Buffistas bend over backwards to see the other point of view. It's why it takes 42 of us to screw in a lightbulb. The other issue that's now in the discussion thread wasn't railroaded. It seemed more important to more people to discuss it first, and it seemed more important to more people to even fully second it, before your issue got seconded.

You might say I only feel it's unreasonable because I want to see the thread happen. You might say I'm confusing irrationality with failure to agree with me. So I'm asking those of you who can be objective on this - does it make sense for an extremely relevant topic to be tabled indefinitely the way the war thread has without any recourse to the active posting community at large?

If the topic of war was forbidden in the other threads, I would have fourthed your motion. But this relevant topic (not the "having a thread topic", but the actual topic of "war") is welcome in the other threads. So, I do think it is unreasonable to set aside our precedent merely on the grounds of convenience. That's why I have changed my mind between last night and today.

Convenience is not a strong enough reason to negate our precedent. I can give a hundred examples of things that make a thread inconvenient for some (cats, diets, kids, dates, scotch, math, religion, Survivor), but I won't. The point is, most threads, even the focused ones are "cluttered" to each of us, with at least one thing each of us feels keeps us from reading the convos that do interest us, in a timely fashion.

God. I'm so angered by this that I cannot believe it. In fact, I am aware that we've lost a poster over this who had her registration deleted because she just can't handle this level of bickering.

Kat - I'm sorry you are angry. I hope it passes.

I've been swayed to thinking that this topic should have to wait out the waiting period, but for some reason, saying that someone left because of the bickering rubs me the wrong way, and not because I'm upset that someone left (although I am upset about that).

I think a lot of the times, the reasons things start to feel nuts in this thread, is because someone posts in a way that seems to be "accusing" someone of something - whether it's railroading or (in essence) *making* someone leave, or *making* someone sick to their stomach, or frustrating someone. A lot of times, there are conversations that are just sort of detailed. Then someone comes in and characterizes the conversation as an argument, or at least implies it. Then lo and behond an argument does break out. It feels like an unfair appeal to emotion.

It sucks if we lost someone over this. But we lose people for all sorts of reasons. We lose people because they can't keep up with the board, too.

(edited to put my whole post back because it's been responded to and I didn't want to make the person look crazy)