Thank goodness. I don't think we can take another hiccup in this process.

Midnight, the 21st East Coast time

So that would be 9 PM board tme, right?

One could easily make a case for 0001 GMT, which, I believe would be 5 PM CDT board time. That's the international release time (But since the UK are on summer time, it seems the UKians are getting it 11 PM BST).

Aren't time zones wonderful?

finding out that Hogwarts gets nuked from space.

Damn you!!! You've ruined the surprise!

t runs away

Once we settle on when, we should probably post in press that such is our intention. To give people who are still subscribed to the closed thread a chance to unsubscribe if they so choose.

I'm astounded anybody thought even for a second that early spoilers were going to fly.

why does this site have to house a thread for every discussion 10 people will vote yes for?

I know this was msbelle hyperbole, but this is why I like Kat's "No More No Preference" idea. Let each proposal stand or fall on the nuber of yes/no votes only.

Okay, I'll put this stirring stick down and slowly back away now...

I'm astounded anybody thought even for a second that early spoilers were going to fly.

Honestly, I'd count us lucky we haven't been spoiler-spammed yet. (There's a group of people on LJ - or possibly just one jackass with multiple logins - who's been spamming people's journals with highly detailed "X happens on page Y" type spoilers for a few days now. I don't know if it's just on LJ or if other forums have been hit as well.)

Not that we'd come up in a Google search for HP discussion, but still...

I know this was msbelle hyperbole, but this is why I like Kat's "No More No Preference" idea. Let each proposal stand or fall on the nuber of yes/no votes only.

When this issue first came up a few years ago, when we were first developing our voting procedures, typoboy made a really good argument for NP votes. I'd completely forgotten this particular argument until a few days ago when I was researching the rules. Anyway, here it is:

And I think that "no preference" if actually expressed in a ballot should count. Because we have a minimum voter turnout. It just seems silly to me, that if the voter turnout is exactly at the minimum, and the proposal passes, that a no voter will have reason to reflect that if she had voted "no preference" instead of no, the proposal would have failed, that her "no" vote caused the proposal to pass.

I think not voting should count as not voting. But actually taking the trouble to cast a ballot, even if the choice is no preference, should count towards the minimum voter turnout.

Speaking of typoboy, someone a while back asked for a definition of "binary walk". Gar provided one here.

And the vote at the time of whether NP votes should count towards the MVT was 72 Yes, 20 No. Not that people's opinions can't change in four years...

I vote "no preference" when it is important to me that an issue is settled, but not important to me how it is settled. What's important to me, is that most of the Buffistas who care which way it is settled are happy. Otherwise, the only information I have on which to base my opinion is the expressed opinions of my fellow talky meat. I already know what they want, because they make it plain. When I vote no preference, I am voting for:

1) Everyone to have to shut up for 6 months

2) To make the most Buffistas who care about an issue happy

I'd hate to have the no preference either changed or taken away.

More than once, I've "voted with a bullet" on ballots in local, and state elections, i.e. where I can choose mulitple candidates, I only choose one. In essence, I'm saying I have no preference among most of the candidates, and I have my reasons for it.

The same is true when when I vote no preference here. The people who don't like "no preference" can exclude it from the ballots they craft, and can choose never to pick it on a ballot where it has been included. Those of us who like it have our reasons for selecting it, and just because you don't find them compelling to you, it doesn't follow that it's not compelling to us.

t sits by Cindy

t offers chocolate frog

You know, every now and then it just pops into my head that Cindy is perfect.