With you on the precision of language loving. But Brenda's right, when all don't share the same lexicon, it obscures rather than reveals.

ed. to add: I reallyreally wanted to use 'obfuscates' there, rather than obscures. Heh.

What we're voting on is not-now, no way vs. maybe, in six months.

Nope, that's not it. I think some of the difficulty we're having with this issue is that it feels like what we're doing is opening things up to be monkeyed with starting on a certain date. That's not it.

Right now, things we voted on cannot be revisited for six months, pass or fail. Things that have never been voted on can be brought up at will, if anyone has a mind to.

Should Betsy's resolution pass, that won't be the case. Things we've voted on will have their own clock. Things we discussed under the old rules cannot be brought up until September 20th. The only things that can be brought for a vote would be entirely new issues that have never been addressed.

We wait six months to vote whether or not we want to demolish Bureaucracy, or we can do it tomorrow.

Why would we want to demolish Bureaucracy?

I like new words, and like talking about them, and what I really like, in rules-y documents, is saying something and being exact in my meaning so it can't be misinterpreted or twisted later.

I cant misinterpret something I can't understand. I'm unable to interpret it at all.

When you guys write these things, I wish you would write them for an audience that is reading quickly from work and needs a clear, concise, SIMPLE explanation of the proposal so that I can make an informed decision on what this is all about without having to call erinaceous for an expert opinion.

I often feel that I'm simply not smart enough to make a decision about a message board devoted to cult/homoerotic television shows. We don;t talk this way on thread. We speak in simpler terms.

Okay, I think what is giving some folks the hives is the idea that EVERYTHING is potentially up for a vote. So why don't we just decide that this isn't the case. We don't want to open up the possibility for voting to fundamentally change Buffistas.

What we're voting on is not-now, no way vs. maybe, in six months.

Yes = maybe in six months.
No = maybe tomorrow.

Can we bring up whether or not we want to have voting anymore? Is that also in the 6 month grandfather thing?

Since we voted on voting (heh), it doesn't need to be grandfathered. It already falls under the we-can-review-it-in-six-months category.

Well, we voted to have voting, so theoretically, yeah, 6 months from when voting was invented, we could have a proposal to stop voting. It makes no sense to me, and I think the peanut gallery would go bananas at the confusingness, but it could be done. No way I'd second it, but it could be proposed.

But we voted on voting, so it is not covered by grandfathering. Grandfathering covers only decisions made before we invented voting.

And if I want none of our old decisions brought up for voting at all?

That's not part of what's been proposed. The current proposal (if approved) does make some old decisions harder to vote on, i.e. someone has to remember to propose again come September, but we haven't yet had a proposal on making things difficult to undo.

I think I'm just confused as to what the point is? We wait six months to vote whether or not we want to demolish Bureaucracy, or we can do it tomorrow.

Ha! In fact, because we never discussed demolishing Bureaucracy before, and we've never voted it down, you can propose we demolish Bureaucracy tomorrow. I mean, you'll lose, but you can propose it. (The "make Bureaucracy users-only" proposal was just voted down, so it can't be tried again for 6 months -- November.) A General TV thread was discussed before we invented voting, but never really voted down so much as forgotten about: and if the grandfather proposal passes, it means we can't propose a General TV thread again until September.

Basically, it's "We made old decisions (before voting). Some good, some bad, whatever. Those old decisions: should we treat them just like votes, and have a waiting period of 6 months before you can bring them up again, or not?"

Why would we want to demolish Bureaucracy?

Oh, I was just using it as an example to make it clearer to me what the grandfather thread would accomplish in terms of time limits.

or possibly 8 elephants in a living room (I hope we're pink elephants)

Pink. leather Gingham.

Don'tcha read me at all? :)

I'm sorry, Wolfram. I shouldn't have used you as an example. That was rude.

When I thought you were using Jon B as your example, because you started with his paragraph about the exact amount of time in four days, that was all right. Wolfram has just been under a lot of singling out pressure lately.

Firefly 3: You Did Take The Sky From Me, You #%(&@#&

I laughed at this and scrolled back up later to laugh again. It is a nice break from the other stuff.

When you guys write these things, I wish you would write them for an audience that is reading quickly from work and needs a clear, concise, SIMPLE explanation of the proposal

I think we should take this instantly to heart. There's always a simpler way to explain something like computers, but I never think to look for it until someone tells me I'm making it way too complicated. Then I realize. We have to keep some precise language to make a good True or False question, but some of the heretofores are just us playing a Wittgensteinian language game with lawyertalk and can go.