I think it's probably a good idea to raise the bar in terms of number of participants -- and I don't think voting NP is really participating. I don't think "most people don't care one way or the other" (whether shown by not voting or by voting NP) to be a good enough reason to do something.

I agree with this.

But where do we fix the new value? I think somebody posted the statistics here or in B'cracy, but the 42 limit hasn't had too many problems being met, right? If it's never even close, then it is kind of a meaningless number, but I worry about how we determine where to fix it anew.

The 3 who care and vote no DON'T get what they want. Nor do those that vote yes get what they want either. It just means that the issue isn't decided nor is there a moratorium. It can go right back to a discussion and get voted on again.

Or am I misremembering?

You're not misremembering. But since most votes involve thread creation, then it can be argued that the 3 nay-voters are effectively getting what they want (i.e. no new thread).

Except not really, Jon. Because the issue is still open and, most likely, still being discussed.

True, dat. I guess, since the situation has yet to occur, it's difficult to say how such a thing would play out.

I admit, I'm having a hard time envisioning any issue where only 15 of us care.

I think we've had enough votes that we don't really have to worry about hypotheticals any longer. If one of these bizarre and unusual situations turns up in the future, we can deal with it then.

But if it is a thread creation issue and only 14 people care enough to vote, then I don't think it should get created.

We are so GD focused on thread creation, I guess it is the majority of the proposals, but it is certainly NOT all of the proposals. The minority voters are not always going to be the ones getting "their way" if NP is eliminted.

Didn't Jon's #s show that NP has never caused something to go through? I hate NP and refuse to use it or include it in any proposals I put up anymore, but if I read the #s right, it's never done this thing of pushing through a ballot.

Didn't Jon's #s show that NP has never caused something to go through? I hate NP and refuse to use it or include it in any proposals I put up anymore, but if I read the #s right, it's never done this thing of pushing through a ballot.

That's what I remember from when NP was discussed before. I think it did effect some votes concerning a sub-proposal to a proposed thread dealing with spoilers, but that's where I think that NP actually serves a useful purpose.

Huh.

I'm weirdly torn...on the one hand my knee-jerk reaction is "If you don't care, don't vote." I mean, "No Preference" seems to be standing up and loudly saying "I don't care." And if you don't care, why are you bothering?

On the other hand, thinking back on the few votes I remember, when I voted "No Preference" I did it because I felt an obligation as a participant in this community to engage in the process. So, perhaps "No Preference" serves that purpose...to reinforce participation even when you don't really care, so that when you DO care, you go and vote.

I'm not sure if this is clear. Mmm...coffee...

I understand "no preference" as, "favor a decision on this, but don't feel strongly which way the decision should go." It's basically a way to help reach quorum and make sure the subject is off the table for six months.

Maybe it was needed more when we were still developing the basic rules (formal and in-) for the board, and a poster could easily believe that it was more important to decide something than that the decision go a particular way. I think there should be some way to express that point of view, but I'm willing to listen to arguments that we don't need "no preference" any more.

I'm also willing to revisit what the quorum should be. But I'm reluctant to base the number purely on the number of registered posters, simply because a number of people have left over the years. Also, the list of registered posters includes sock puppets that shouldn't be counted as potential voters.

On the question of raising the vote minimum, maybe we could get a list of vote counts and see what would happen if we raised the cutoff to (randomly) 72.

Or just see how many threads would not have been enacted if we drew the cut-off line at different places.

We might also think of pegging that number to a percentage of active participants on the board, or total board membership or something that isn't as static as 42.