Hah. Sorry, I had no idea it had a different meaning in the US!

Welcome to b'cacy.

"Table!"

Right up there with "Spoon!"

"Table!"

Next bureau title?

Kevin, look closely at the voting rules [link] before you propose a thread. If a vote doesn't pass there is a 6 month (I think) moratorium on the issue. Waiting for an airdate (or at least an air month) might put a thread proposal in a better position.

That I did not remember. Cheers, aurelia.

Moving this over from Lightbulbs...

I know Wolfram won't be online to discuss his idea for a "thread creation threshold" until after Passover. (An idea that I like a lot, BTW.) But I had a random thought pop into my head as I was reading the Lightbulbs thread and thought I'd toss it out there.

You know how there's always an open enrollment period with benefits? Once or twice a year, you can change your benefits. What about applying a similar policy to thread creation/deletion? Instead of having multiple proposals and discussions throughout the year, we do it twice a year (say, January and July) and discuss all the threads proposed at the same time.

This might improve the process in two areas. First, we reduce the number of times that we have the same conversation to two. I do think the more frequently we talk about yes thread vs no thread, the more weary we all become, which can lead to heightened emotions on both sides. Second, my hope would be that, in discussing all potential threads at once, it would enable us to look at the big picture, see where there's overlap in the proposed threads, etc.

I don't know how anyone else would feel about this idea but I figured I'd toss the idea out there. Some version of this, combined with some version of Wolfram's suggestion, might help things.

Interesting, Kristen. This might be a good solution.

I like the idea, Kristen, but maybe we should shift the months a little to take into account the tv season. Maybe March and September or something?

Not to dump on a good idea, but I'm remembering some of the time-sensitive votes we were supposed to have in the past, and... actually I think we didn't do a single one of them on time. So the idea of scheduling a "plan" period is admirable, but might not be practicable.

We're the people who had the grandfathering legislation pending for months, just sitting there with nobody willing to push it all the way through. It didn't get dealt with till it was actively getting in the way of some other vote going forward. (And boy was that a kerfuffle!) We were supposed to do a gut-check vote on how long the moratorium period should be, 3 months after we voted it in, and we... just never did it. We just never did. It was technical, procedure-y, an unemotional detail, but...

I think I am saying that there's a good chance we might be, as a community, too cheerfully half-assed to stick to a schedule.

My only fear re: an open enrollment period is MASSIVE OVERFLOW!

I work in an HR place, currently. Open Enrollment is Hell Time. SO MUCH is happening, it's craziness.

However, that's not really applicable here. I mean, we won't be dealing with several hundred confused steelworkers trying to figure out their dental plan. I do think there is a legitimate concern that there will be a large amount of saved up proposals bursting forth all at once and the discussion will be confusing and weird.

My idea for easing the process is cutting the discussion time in half. In the beginning four days seemed to be a goodly amount of time for serious consideration and reasoned debate. Now, as Jessica pointed out in Lightbulbs, it feels like an endurance test.

People seem pretty set in their positions. They will either, based on their personal board ideologies, argue against, argue for or examine the thread proposal as a discrete entity. The purpose of the debate period is to try and sway people to your way of thinking, but at this juncture I don't think we need four days. If you're not convinced in the first two, you're probably not going to be.

Now. I hear I'm supposed to provide "final wording" for my thread proposal before it goes to a vote. Where do I post that? Here, or in Lightbulbs?

My idea for easing the process is cutting the discussion time in half. In the beginning four days seemed to be a goodly amount of time for serious consideration and reasoned debate. Now, as Jessica pointed out in Lightbulbs, it feels like an endurance test.

Some people can only post on weekends and some evenings; others can only post on weekdays. The four day period was designed to make sure everyone has a chance to comment.

Also, nearly all the posting this time around happened in the first two days. It wasn't until after the first two days that things (volume and tempers) calmed down. If we limited the discussion to only two days I think we'd have even more bitter feelings, not less.