Examples of extraordinary circumstances:

(These are mostly hypothetical and do not accurately represent any current discussions.)

1) A vote on whitefonting Angel in Buffy thread, and Buffy in Angel thread. Majority wants all spoilery info whitefonted according to non-NAFDA rules. So the board institutes no posting Buffy info in Angel and vice versa until after Australians see it etc. Then a month or so later, M.E. crosses over the two shows big time. Now it's become impossible to discuss one show without the other, and the overwhelming majority of posters want to do away with the previous rule. But the moratorium says no vote can take place on this for several months (and by that time after one show has ended ends its run.)

2) Joss is floating a new spinoff show - "Willow, the All-Purpose Witch/Hacker/Researcher/Bad Guy Hunter" and everyone's talking about it. It's become the only topic in spoilage lite, and someone wants a new thread for it. The proposal gets voted down. Two months later the show starts airing on CBS after Touched by An Angel.

3) Nutty's cottage cheese Butt announces its candidacy for president of the united states. But the board last week voted down a Nutty Butt thread, and now it's taking over Natter.

Edits shown.

(a) 6 months or (b) everybody who disagrees with me gets killed and we vote again.

It's the Council of Nicea all over again t /obscure Bible history refernce

I think 4 or 6 are the logical choices, and I'm being very quickly swayed to the 6 is the One True Answer faction, however I'm still open to bribery.

Also, I was previously of the mind that language about extraordinary circumstances was needed, but I think Kat may have conviced me otherwise.

I think that extraordinary circumstances demand extraordinary responses.

I.e. we make it up when it happens.

For instance, we handled Sept. 11th perfectly contentedly (odd choice of phrase there) in Natter. Should something equivalent happen, I'm sure we'll be able to agree on whether to new-thread it within a couple of hours. Your surety may vary.

I'm with Betsy.

Also, I've changed my mind about even needing to include it in the ballot. We are a reasonable people, and fully capable of recognizing when our rules need to be bent or broken.

That's true, we did have all the 9/11 stuff in Natter, all panic and monkey-grooming gestures, all the time. We scrolled like nobody's business, but we were all together on it.

Then again, I'm seeing as how the whitefonting policy had been decided, then modified less than 3 months later because the circumstances changed (crossover of ideas and characters in canon).

Then again again, that was done by Bureaucracy consensus, and I haven't seen any giant kerfuffles about it.

I keep thinking about the fact that the board here is six months old, and what that means.

You're kidding, really?

It feels like forever ago that we got here.

Wrod.

As long as the ballot has exactly two choices and one of them is 6, I'm okay with it.

Me too.

Because 6 is the One True Way. Go 6! Choose 6!

Yeah!

Hmmm, there really isn't a whole lot to say about six or four or three.

My argument remains the same: the point of the moratorium is to ease friction and stop rehashing. More months equals more ease. One year is too long. Three months seems too short. Hence, six. Or possibly four (except that's clearly the wrong answer).

Okay, I think I'm done.

I'm way willing to let a Bureaucratic Consensus re-open issues under extraordinary circumstances. We are not rule bound. The rules are tools, we are not the tools of rules! t /Seuess-esque

I can't help feeling that designing the ballot shouldn't really be happening in parallel with the campaign.

Otherwise you may end up with something like:

How many months is a final decision final for?

(a) Six.
(b) Wrong.
(c) Apple.

How many months is a final decision final for?

(a) Six.

(b) Wrong.

(c) Apple.

Pfft. You didn't even put Monkey on the ballot.

I think 6 months is too long -- 6 months ago, I was just back from my honeymoon, Buffy's season premiere had just aired, and the board was brand new. But OTOH, 3 does seem like it might feel like we're deciding the same things every time we turn around. 4 is probably Just Right.

(If it does turn out that the vote is 3 vs. 6, I'd vote 3.)