Personally, I would hate to be excluded from the process even if I agreed with the outcome.
This, and feelings like it, are why we have the voting process in the first place.
In the ancient past, there was the Bullshit Consensus, and lo, when we wanted something to happen, we talked it to death and in the end the decisions that were made were made mostly based on who had the stamina to keep making their points after everyone else had given up and gone home. And we called it "consensus" and it mostly worked out.
Until, of course, some decisions were made that were less popular than the consensus-builders had been assuming, and people began to speak up about it, and words like "bullshit", "disenfranchised", and "cabal" were thrown around, and there was much unpleasantness and many hurt feelings and eventually we realized that we needed a system where everyone could have a voice and thus was born the Cheesebutt and its associated practices.
That.
And we are doing something immediately what with the collecting of funds and such.
I don't need a vote to ask Buffistas for donations for random acts of paypal. We don't put board fixes to a vote if things go wonky, we don't vote on thread titles (that's an example of bullshit consensus).
And in this situation, there's nothing stopping anyone from saying, "I'm a Buffista, and I support this strike," or whatever. As individuals, we can still make a group statement. That's different from officially making a statement on behalf of the organization. Not that we're organized.
I mean, it adds up to a group statement. Not a Group Statement.
I'm resigned to the necessity of this vote, if only because it makes most of y'all more comfortable with the statement.
I'd still like for there to be a procedure to truncate voting, but I'm not sure I'd be able to make the case for a hypothetical that would meet some urgency standard. The odd thing is, every entity I've ever been involved with or help set up, including a non-profit board on which I sit, contain provisions to shorten time for urgent matters. And every court system I practice in contains rules for emergency motions and shortening time. So to me, it's almost a defect in our current voting system that we don't have any such provisions.
I've yet to see anything that qualifies as urgent or emergency. Significant, yes, but not urgent.
Since I'm posting in this thread, I'm well aware I'm trying to shut the door of an empty barn. At this point, I'm just speaking up so that when we have this, "Do we have to vote on this" discussion the next time, I'll have recorded my opinon that I don't think we need to vote on those issues which don't seem to be causing any dissent.
Also? I think we may be setting a precedent by treating an issue on which
nobody
(i.e. nobody I can recall; if I'm wrong this whole post is moot)
has voiced dissent
as if it
needed
a vote. Please note I'm talking about the issue itself (whether or not Buffistas.org voices public as-a-board support for the WGA). I seem to recall that we started voting because
when we were disagreeing
about an issue, the er...more tenacious people always "won". It also seems to me that the arguments which inspired us to codify a process in the first place revolved around thread creation (citation).
In other words, from time to time we were faced with issues on which there was no clear consensus for much of the discussion (and truly, much of this lack on consensus revolved around opening new threads). Eventually one side would get sick of arguing. The people who could argue longer and stronger seemed to sway the rest of the people. Some people noted they gave up not because they were actually swayed, but because they were sick to death of the discussion. They gave up on the outside, but felt a lot of resentment on the inside.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like we're missing the forest for the trees. I don't recall reading any posts that said, "No, I don't want us to support the writers," or "No, I have enough problems with the strike that I would not feel right to have the board support it," or the like.
If there is no dissent
about supporting the WGA,
I'm not sure why a vote is needed, here. We don't vote when we do other things in the name of the Buffistas, like send flowers or cake or whatever to the cast and crew of a canceled M.E. show, or books to First Book in honor of Marti's sprog.
We decided to vote on 'important issues' but we (wisely, in my opinion) never defined 'important'. The next time we want to do something as "The Buffistas" -- like send Joss a goat because he has a new show or a new baby, are we going to have to vote on it for a week, first? What about the Zero Population Growth Buffistas? What about the Buffistas who no longer like Joss? What about the vegan Buffistas who don't want a goat exploited in order to meet human needs which can be met in other ways?
A hundred years ago when we were making this voting policy, someone likened the struggle to the Tyranny of the Easily Upset versus the Tyranny of the Obnoxious Blowhards. Plei? Kat? I don't know, but I liked it. A lot.
I believe the original poster was saying s/he was an obnoxious blowhard who'd rather live under the Tyranny of the Easily Upset than the Tyranny of the Obnoxious blowhards. As an obnoxious blowhard myself, I usually agree with this. The one time I don't agree is when we start Submitting to the Potential Tyranny of the Easily Upset Yet Seemingly Hypothetical Dissenters.
I think this is one of those times.
We don't vote when we do other things in the name of the Buffistas, like send flowers or cake or whatever to the cast and crew of a canceled M.E. show, or books to First Book in honor of Marti's sprog.
And we're not voting about sending money to Allyson to send cookies and ponchos to the picket lines, which is already happening. We're voting (mainly) on changing the masthead logo, which is a change to the site, at least as big as adding or closing a thread.
That, to me, is the difference.
Point taken, Jess. My only reason for posting is to note that, to me, voting seems senseless when no one has expressed dissent.
