Frankly, I would like a poll to see what everyone feels and what they want. I can see good points for many different methods of discussion, and I would be happy to place my vote to make the board useful to the most people. I don't want to vote to shut anyone up and I also don't want to vote to appease only the loudest voice if it is a minority either.

Not surprisingly, I agree. I'll use the board however it is structured. It is the people not the thread structure that keeps me here.

I love polls, but I agree that they only serve to generate more conversation. My opinion on the lurkers - if you never post, never vote, never express an opinion, then you are not going to get a say, by choice. Infrequent posters are not lurkers. We just miss seeing you a lot.

I don't actually hang at any other boards, but it is my uneducated guess that usually some stompy just sets the structure and that's it. We seem to like the talking, polling, and voting. This is how we do it.

Or, at least, creating threads when there's a clearly articulated need, rather than polling to find out needs that seemingly can't be otherwise discovered or articulated.

I really don't want to add to your angst, bon, but it seems to me that there was a clearly articulated desire, which has been delayed. The delay was to give a cooling off period (I know, that's not the terminology that was used, but I hope it's close enough). It was also, I think, because the folks here tend to care about what each other think and wanted the opportunity to really determine what that was.

While we may end up with a vote, it seems to me that the genuine goal of most, if not all, here is to get as close to consensus as possible. A poll may or may not be effective, but I don't see how it could hurt, and it may help. Some have mentioned that the results may be mis- or differently interpreted. That's fair, but I think that it's happening already without the poll.

If we can get the data from usage stats, great. I would be interested in getting a better idea of how and why people come here, though.

I like the sprawl metaphor a lot. I've felt fairly marginalized at this board for some time (and I'm not pointing fingers, b/c this is pretty much my own damn fault since I don't have the time to invest in the board like I used to) and these days mostly stick to threads where I feel more at home.

I get where bon bon is coming from. I'm not sure that polling will produce the best answers, because this is a deliberative process with quite a bit of nuance needed. But I don't see any other way to gather information, either, so I am tentatively in favor of polling, provided that no new information-gathering methodology is proposed.

provided that no new information-gathering methodology is proposed.

So my plan of hiring The Amazing Kreskin to read our collective mind and report back to us is NOT a good one? Dang.

I would vote for Uri Gellar, but only because our spoons are improperly bent.

We could pull in the Wolfram & Hart mindreaders.

Forget the mindreaders, get Files & Records.

I think the poll, should a poll happen, should include a question about general satisfaction with the board:

Do you like b.org the way it is? What would be the one thing you would add to it? remove from it? If you have dissatisfaction, can you pinpoint reasons why? things too fast/too slow/people no longer here/people I don't know/discussion in places I can't go/not the discussions I want/general malaise for "the way things were"/I like being upset so I'll never be happy with anything/other

I agree with this.

d, I don't think of you as a lurker (I also think that lurking is value neutral, FWIW) - I recognize you when you post. I really think of lurkers as people who only read along and never post. And I want to know about them (because I am, apparently, insanely curious about this issue), yet they are unknowable. It's a conundrum. For me.

I can't really contribute to the actual discussion yet, but a couple of pieces of data:

Lurkers vote. They also contribute. Not either in huge numbers, but I'm always seeing names I don't recognize. So unless there are people who only ever post in the (very few) threads I don't ever read, I'm going to call those people lurkers.

Also, remember this poll from a while back? [link] Just FYI.

I like how "ticky box" won.