Kat, if it's any consolation to you, I think your interpretation of the text is correct. I don't believe it was intended, and I do believe a good portion of it was frustration and confusion. Because, for someone who does get it, not getting it just doesn't make sense. I've noticed that a lot of us also come to the support of people we care about who aren't posting, or aren't posting loud and often, and I can see doing it -- I do it a lot, so of course it makes sense to me, but to someone with a different kind of brain, it doesn't seem to compute.

I don't care about PV. I'm perfectly willing to try it, though, if anyone recalls, I was against it when it first came up in bureacracy. That was many thousands of posts ago.

I don't care if we try it because it seems very important to some buffistae.

I don't want it because it seems very important not to do it to some buffistae.

I worry about too many changes too fast. I worry about frustration should a runoff have to occur more than onceto get the results of one vote sometime in the future.

So, I think I've absorbed all the reasons for and against, and I don't have an answer. I just don't. I don't think we can know the ramifications -- just like we didn't foresee not being able to come to consensus in the proper number of days when we voted to shut this thread down at midnight on the 4th day. That's why I'm willing to try it, though not at the risk of offending people I care about.

As Jon notes, what would've been considered a Buffista consensus was reached about trying the preferential voting.

Um, no. We have folks today running ramrod over folks who posted yesterday. Thanks, Kat, for recapping yesterday's discussion for a run-off seeing as it was convienently forgotten today. Because I was surprised that Jon could say I was not clearly for a run-off rather than preferential voting when my memory said that I explicitly suggested a run-off.

Right now, I am so frustrated and annoyed at the whole voting process that I really should haul myself away. I feel like my voice has been mischaracterized and misrepresented by others who had a vested interest in marginalizing it. I think it's ridiculous that I need to plant my ass in Bureaucracy and Voting 24/7 if I want to avoid this in future.

I like PV, because it just seems to me like the more-elegant and –time-effective version of runoff-- I can't comprehend why runoff is any more compelling to other people. I mean, unless I'm really, really not getting something (which, you know, is, er, possible!), they're not that dissimilar, are they? One just happens instantly. The other doesn't.

So... I'm strongly on the side of PV, but if it goes that way, I'll walk the runoff way (I mean, we WILL have a runoff, right? That's not the issue here, right?) without flinging myself around or pulling out hair or threatening to hold my breath until my face turns blue.

This is just to state my position.

I don't see why a run-off would be anything other than an immediate vote, no further discussion needed.

... Feeling a little short of breath Gandalfe?

Astounded, really. I mean, I know none of us ever shut up, but, damn!

OK, I've thought about it, and I realized that my only real objection to regular runoffs as opposed to instant is my own impatience. And this is my issue, not anyone else's. So my position is going back to "I'm fine with whatever."

We have folks today running ramrod over folks who posted yesterday.

I got the feeling that there were objections to doing the preferential ballot, and I asked that the ballot be put aside despite the deadline.

I don't really know how we can both craft the ballot and discuss the issue in here. We don't want to have a vote to determine the vote.

Do we need to define what a consensus is? Would that be any different than voting to decide the ballot itself? Going back through the thread and counting opinions is just an unofficial kind of voting and subject to the exact complaints that a handful of people in Bureaucracy were determining policy.

The way Buffista consensus worked before was by momentum. Which turned out to be problematic to some people because if you weren't around when things gathered steam you were out of luck and felt unrepresented. Nonetheless, that's how it was done because it was the only way to move things forward and avoid this kind of stasis.

It seems preferable to me to try things out. It seems closer to the spirit of avoiding votes on voting, and layers of protocol. There was a willingness (not just in this particular discussion) to give preferential voting at least one airing to prove it's ease of use and tallying. The burden seems to be on the folks that want PV to show that it is easy.

Aside from that, the only times we've made headway on any of these issues have been when people have dialed down the rhetoric, stepped away when they were frustrated, did not characterize disagreements in opinion as personal attacks, did not look to take offense, operated on the presumption that people were working for the common good and not their personal agenda, and simply agreeing to move forward on things provisionally.

I don't care whether we do preferential voting or a runoff. But I can guarantee that assigning or imputing motive to somebody else's statements will derail this discussion.

I got the feeling that there were objections to doing the preferential ballot, and asked that the ballot be put aside despite the deadline.

I don't think they asked that it be put aside. I think Sophia didn't feel comfortable posting it when people's feelings were so hurt.

I agree with you though that I don't think anyone had the intention of running over anyone who disagreed.