At this point, my only real polling questions would be to either validate or disprove the assumptions I listed above and how we would address that.

When the volume and density of discussion in a thread drops does the thread lose value or interest for you?

Do you think having too many show threads or small interest threads bleeds volume and density from the core threads?

If so, should there be some kind of check on how many small threads we create?

If so, what kind of check on thread growth would you support?

My questions are probably filled with unsupported assumptions, but those are basically the things I'm curious about. Obviously my questions lead in one particular direction so my bias is clear, but if people do think that dilution of volume and density is a negative for the group then it seems like the other questions follow.

Those are the things I want to know from the community as a whole.

I'm trying to figure out the source of bon's anxiety.

I do agree with what you've posted. What I said about not wanting to be passive aggressive-- I don't want to use anxiety and hurt feelings as emotional blackmail to get my or other people's ways. So it's not necessary to appease me just because I am anxious about things. I am just trying to give some context for how important I think some of this is.

Polling sounds completely innocuous, but I suspect we will use it to identify problems and solutions that will end up making us worse off. What poll response is going to say "I don't want anything to change"? None. We all have our wants. And those wants will be roughly equal, we will make an attempt to appease everyone, and end up with a complete shitshow of 12-person threads.

As for the Clay Shirky article, he basically says that if you don't give the core group more influence in some way, the community withers because the core group is what makes it succeed. But when you put it that way, people here protest with some notion that this should really be a democracy. So I just linked to the article so that it might be persuasive in context. Which is not to say that I think we need to change how we do things around here. I think it's fine. I don't think we should change things to give casual people more of a say.

The source of my anxiety is essentially (1) I like things the way they are and (2) I am feeling a real drive here to CHANGE things in ways that will fragment this community too far. For the first time in a long while I am planning for when the b.org that I know is no longer here. But again, I don't want to use that as a kind of club on the discussion that people want to have.

Dude, breath. Stepping into Bureaucracy is a marathon commitment, not a sprint. Only the stubborn and cranky survive.

I'm okay. I've rested. The absurdity of it all was just slapping me in the face last night.

In typical gemini fashion, I'm now torn -- part of me is becoming conviced by bon's posts that this discussion is maybe not a good idea at all, but I really wonder what the alternative is? How do we as Buffistas not have a conversation? I think we don't know how to do that. It's unpossible. (Plus, I'd also like to point out that people thought voting would be the End of the Board as We Know It. That didn't happen either)

The rest of me still thinks information and discussion will actually help, but we have to be patient about it, and not rush to either conclusions or actions. Maybe the solution is as simple as some minor tweaking of our current vote rules.

Specifically -- alter the six-month moratorium so that it kicks in regardless of whether or not the 42 person quorum is met. A lot of people have been saying they vote "No Preference" because they want the quorum to be met, don't care how the vote falls out, and just want everybody to shut up about it. If everyone has to shut up about the subject regardless of whether 42 people have expressed an opinion on the subject or not, there's no need for the No Preference option. We still have the quorum, so that if a particular proposal is not able to generate 42 votes, it doesn't pass no matter how the vote turns out. But if the quorum is met, then without a No Preference choice, we can be sure that the proposal has passed or failed on its merits alone.

Plus, if thread creation is required to garner passing votes from 42 interested parties, we know the thread is viable enough to truly warrant creation. Right now, I think we have a very real problem in that a thread can be created when three Yes people outvote two No people, and 37 other people just want them to shut up about it. That doesn't seem right to me, nor does it seem like it reflects our intentions when we instituted voting.

So, maybe we need representational government here to secure the rights and preferences of the long-time b.org community.

I can see some value in this possibility, but I also fear that seriously attempting this will cause the board to disintegrate into lynch mobs.

Serious question. If there are truly 60-70 people that are considered the "core" group of people, and the majority of those people are worried about what the board will become if there are too many new tv threads (not saying that's so, just if), why wouldn't those people not change their posting habits regardless of whether there was a new tv thread or not? If 60-70 people continued to discuss everything whitefonted in Natter, if that was so important to them, what difference would the tv thread inhabited by however many other non-core people make to their board experience?

Okay, no offense to any lurkers, but if that's the case I say who the hell cares? I'm far more concerned with the experience of the 60-70.

This statement bothers me. I don't want to be part of a community that says, "Well, we've been here forever, so our opinion counts more than yours, you n00b. Forget that we were new once, this our sandbox, and just because you're here doesn't mean you're as good as we are."

That may be the way of the world, but it's not a part of the world I'm happy playing in.

I don't think this is a short term desire, and I don't think the discussion I have been in thus far has been about trying to create a board experience from elsewhere here at the b.org. This is evident to me in that we've been discussing this on and off for years, and that the conversation *keeps* coming up, and it is apparent that there is a desire there for some members. I think the question isn't about fundamentally changing the board at all; rather, it is fleshing out something that was already there. (Though I recognize that people disagree with me on this.) For me, this is relatively simple: we have been talking about television since day one. We have created separate threads for television that caught our fancy in a particular way, but never made a provision for talking about television generally, which was fine. Now we're given the opportunity to address this in a careful and inclusive manner, of which the first step is a poll, which may or may not be helpful.

I suppose I don't see how this is damaging to the community, because for me it's like watching something new grow.

And not to stick it out with individual experiences again, but there were entire years of uni for me where I didn't use Bitches or Natter at all. I read the right-hand threads, and the handful of movies/tech/music/whatever threads. But my user experience is directly tied to those threads first, Natter and Bitches very second. I find it problematic when people call those threads the soul of the board, because I am never in either of those threads anymore (except the occasional dalliance) and I consider myself a member of this community and this discussion.

Which, I guess, goes back to the business about the poll. If my user experience--and more importantly, my member experience--differs from others member experience in important ways, I think we would be remiss if we didn't try to find some common ground. Or if not common ground, than something approaching more satisfying for our members.

bon, I only mention your anxiety because....

I am feeling a real drive here to CHANGE things in ways that will fragment this community too far.

I do feel like I'm actually taking a more conservative stance, despite my request for polling.

And really I find your anxiety endearing in a "Bon really cares!" way.

brenda! ::waves hands in the air:: Could you look at the questions I posted, and the Shirky quotes I included? Do they articulate the issues for you, particularly about core members?

Cor! Does the core members notion relate to your idea of governance? Not to revisit the issue, but doesn't it basically acknowledge the same thing?

Bev! Do you think density is a useful notion for how to view these issues? Do you think that's the right question to ask?

Cindy! Is this very far off the discussion you thought we were having? Because I do think the meta question is what's on the table now, more than just one particular thread, or even the experimentals.

I need to think about it a bit more, but I'm liking the sound of what Sean's just laid out.

As this discussion goes on, I'm getting less and less inclined to change anything.

I love the idea of a huge, wide ranging poll. But I think it be of value mostly for curiousity's sake, and trying to suss out where I'm in the mainstream or not. I do not see it (nor would I support it) as any kind of action item - bon's example of a bunch of things all having a range of support seems to me more likely to result in no action than a passel of new stuff.

So maybe what I like is the idea of a poll with something like Sean's idea to prevent too much of it from ever actually happening.

I don't want to be part of a community that says, "Well, we've been here forever, so our opinion counts more than yours, you n00b. Forget that we were new once, this our sandbox, and just because you're here doesn't mean you're as good as we are."

I didn't read that this way, connie; I thought it referred to those who care enough to voice their opinions on stuff. How can we discuss the future of the community trying to bear in mind the possible preferences of people who don't let their voices be known?

If there are truly 60-70 people that are considered the "core" group of people, and the majority of those people are worried about what the board will become if there are too many new tv threads (not saying that's so, just if), why wouldn't those people not change their posting habits regardless of whether there was a new tv thread or not? If 60-70 people continued to discuss everything whitefonted in Natter, if that was so important to them, what difference would the tv thread inhabited by however many other non-core people make to their board experience?

I know I keep coming back to this, but it's a collective action problem. Consider the following hypothetical. We all like natter/bitches (henceforth just natter). But each of us could use just one more thread. Now, just one more thread will not really reduce the traffic in natter. The problem is, the one more thread we want is not the same for all users. Here is what happens:

Users 1-12 want a comedy thread. 12 people vote for it who will post there, 8 people vote for it out of sympathy, 19 people vote against, 3 vote no preference. Comedy thread enacted.

Users 12-24 want a lawyer show thread. Rinse and repeat.

Users 24-36 just got the Survivor season 1 dvds and want to discuss them. You get the drill.

At the end of this exercise we have six threads where everyone just really wanted one more than natter, and what happened to natter?