Your wish is my command, Nilly.

Proposal:That the community, if it is practical to code, allow individual threads to be designated, "Accessible only to members of the community," and restrict access to those threads only to registered users. Any such threads to be so designated shall be determined by separate proposal and vote. If the proposal passes, the coding of this feature shall be added to the features request list.

Background: We have had a couple of situations where unregistered lurkers have caused some problems for members of the community. One felt it necessary to change her ID after one of her posts was quoted elsewhere by a lurker, identifying her as the person who runs a specific web site. Another was stalked by two people, who then made threats to the admins regarding her posts, and the posts of her friends on the board, which ultimately forced her to leave the board. Earlier today, Zoe violated her banning. She has also begun to send e-mails to members of the community, which has caused some concern. I would like to be able to discuss situations like these without having to worry about who is watching over my shoulder.

When I was first thinking this, I had in mind that possibly two threads would wind up being protected, Bureaucracy and Bitches. Bureaucracy for the reasons noted above, and Bitches because members occasionally post there about very personal issues. Other folk may think of others. Regardless, we would vote before changing any of them.

I know we pride ourselves as an open board, but I don't see a problem with the proposal on that score. All I am proposing is that if someone wants to read a restricted thread, they join the community. This is not a great hardship unless one is banned. This is not meant to be similar to the forums at WX that require one be vetted and given a join code, or asking to be put on a friends list at LJ. We don't restrict membership.

I don't like the idea much, myself.

AFAICT, it's effectiveness is to prevent banned posters from reading B'cy, right? It has no other teeth, right?

What's the point?

edit: xpost

I'm opposed to it as well. I don't see any reason to keep anyone from reading Bureaublahblah, ever. If Zoe sees us saying this, so what?

We limit posting to registered members, but I'd really rather not see us limit reading to them as well. And anyway, the proposal wouldn't have stopped any of the incidents in question from happening.

I second it for a vote..

I'll second that proposal. (Though, like ita and amych, I'm not sure it's of much practical value.)

I'm against it as well. There are, and always have been, a large number of lurkers here. We've always been inclusive of them, and often times they'll delurk after several years (like Moonlit) and become a part of the community. If they're locked out of Bureau, they can't follow what's happening in the board. I don't think you can make the special case status for Bitches. People talk about personal stuff everywhere.

Right now, I'm against it.

One felt it necessary to change her ID after one of her posts was quoted elsewhere by a lurker, identifying her as the person who runs a specific web site.

I don't see how the proposal would help with this, even if we restrict every single thread.

Another was stalked by two people, who then made threats to the admins regarding her posts, and the posts of her friends on the board, which ultimately forced her to leave the board.

I would need to know more about how the two people even found out about the board before deciding if this is a good enough reason.

Earlier today, Zoe violated her banning. She has also begun to send e-mails to members of the community

What amych said. And how would the proposal help?

I'm generally against the proposal, because I don't think it will fix the problem we have. I will, however, second the proposal to get it to the voting stage, because I think it's a worthwhile thing to hash out and/or vote on.

I would need to know more about how the two people even found out about the board before deciding if this is a good enough reason.

If this is the situation I believe it to be, it was mentioned to her friends during normal conversations. When said poster began withdrawing from "friends" they lurked, and it went from there.

I am starting to go through WX Bureacracy to help Nutty with her cataloging of Buffista procedure. Because I can never remember, I did do up a Short Form of voting procedure to help us keep track of how manyseconds, etc.

Hopefully someone can help clean it up and we can post it somewhere quick, until we get the big project done?

Voting Procedure Short form

1. A Buffista makes a proposal in Bureacracy.

2. Four Buffistae are needed to second the proposal.

3. If/when that occurs, we need to do the following

• open up lightbulb thread
• post the proposal in the lightbulb thread
• announce the discussion in press with a link to the lightbulb thread.

4. Discuss for 4 days.

5. At the end of 4 days, the original proposer re-forms the proposal into a ballot, trying to do this in the most fair way. The proposer has final say over the ballot wording and voting procedure (ex. preferential voting). It may be helpful for those who don't like to read the long discussions for someone to volunteer to sum up the pro and con arguments. We need to:

• create a ballot (Jon B)
• get a volunteer to count votes
• announce voting in Press
• close the lightbulbs thread

5. Vote for 3 days.

6. Count the votes. The proposal must win a true majority (51% of the vote). 42 Buffistas must vote for the vote to be valid. The result is posted in Press.

7. There is then a 6 month moratorium on discussion/proposing of this item.