Wait. I thought the voting process was going to address PRIMARILY thread creation. Now we want thread creation to be a separate procedure?

I officially give up.

Also giving up. People who didn't want the music thread, were angry, because they felt like it got forced in. People who did want the war thread were angry, because they felt like it got delayed out. And lather/rinse/repeat.

Voting was created primarily to address thread life: creation/shuttering/proliferation/limitation

Giving up. Exactly now.

Sean, you have no idea how hard it has been for me to keep straight what the grandfather proposal means and it's been almost impossible for me to determine how I want to vote that I'm just not going to vote at all.

For whatever reason I can't get my head around this. I know what Grandfathering is. When I read an explination I kind of get it, until someone else tries to explain it to me and then I get confused again, I'm not clear about the implications, and during all of this people keep throwing out new ideas and new issues and it's becoming impossible for me to keep straight what is directly connected to the vote and what is just conversation.

It's making me feel incredibly dense and stupid.

Edited to say---please do not try and explain it to me again.

Also, I know we can't please everyone all the time. We haven't been able to please everyone all the time from the very beginning. My frustration right now has nothing to do with the voting process itself. I'm frustrated because I can't get my head around this one issue.

So... let's all chill, and not change anything right now, and go have some lunch and maybe ice cream, and reconvene sometime later.

Sean, I do sort of see what you're saying. We're a multiplicity of voices, all yammering in the wilderness. That does sometimes make for irritatingly circular discussions. But the irritatingness has been around for a long time, and I don't see it as any worse now than 6 months ago (although possibly not much better). And as askye points out, we have a thing now, a plan, even if it's a flawed plan, and I really don't want to start all over again on the plan.

Let's not go chucking out baby with bathwater, not yet, not now. Especially not because of the events of one week. The people who are exhausted with voting, did they feel that way when we ratified msbelle's disciplinary procedure? I suspect not. It's just this week, let it pass, and see how we feel next week.

Discussion is open for four days. No one, absolutely no one has to discuss for all four days. It's open for that long so a good number of people have the opportunity to have a voice.

If you could find the universal half hour, Sean, that would be great, and we can rest comfortably knowing everyone would be able to say "Well, did you think of it this way?" and then it would be done. Otherwise, my reflex would be to suggest that anyone who thinks one day is a good time, to spend no more than one day on it. Any one day in the four allotted. And then just wait until the vote opens.

Anti-proliferation voice here, but if you said that any thread 12 people wanted gets created, no discussion necessary -- we'd have every thread every suggested. That's not a check at all, and I think that "12" isn't the problem.

Wait. I thought the voting process was going to address PRIMARILY thread creation. Now we want thread creation to be a separate procedure?

No. WE do not want thread creation to be a separate procedure. I suggested it as AN EXAMPLE of something that we might want as a separate procedure. I learned my lesson last time. I will never, ever propose anything again.

FWIW, I do think the voting procedure is overkill for thread creation. I think it has great value for discussing how we run the board.

I know, askye. this is why I'm making the points that I'm trying to make.

This whole thing has turned into an unhappy, hurty thing for a lot of people - exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do.

I want you and Allyson and Steph to not feel stupid when you come in here. It makes me unhappy when you and they feel dense.

I want Burrell and Cindy to not feel like the room is full of seriously crazy people when they stop by.

I want Bureaucracy to not make people cry any more. Voting was supposed to make people less unhappy with the process that we had. In some ways, it has made people much more unhappy than ever before.

I want that to stop, because I want my Buffistas to be happy, even the ones I disagree with completely and think should be locked away where they can't infect others with their dangerous thoughts.

And now maybe I should step off for a while. I wanted to make some points, but now I'm just talking myself in circles and making the waters just as muddy as everyone else.

ita, 12 was top-of-my-head. I'd be happy with 5, seriously. (Edit: or 50.) But I'm pro-proliferation in general -- as long as the bandwidth is okay, I have no problem with a juggling bologna thread, if that's what people want.

But I remember the process of starting threads through discussion. It sucked out loud -- people changed their minds and it was very hard to get a read on the Will of the Buffistas and the term "bullshit consensus" started getting thrown around. If, say, 42 people had to agree on a thread before one was started ... we're talking hundreds of not-that-interesting posts to wade through, and the possibility no decision would ever become clear.

I'd rather avoid that, even if the voting seems rather overkilly.

It's not the number that's the problem for me. It's the methodology.

I don't see any problems with a vote, barring the week delay. And I can live with that.

It's not the number that's the problem for me. It's the methodology.

I don't see any problems with a vote, barring the week delay. And I can live with that.

Yes.

And we've never even used the process for its intended purpose. We've only used it to further bog down the process.

We need to try it before we chuck it.

Here's what we did: We actually did decide that at least 42 people had to care enough to show up to vote yea/nay on thread creation, and that at least 22 of those people had to vote yea, if we were going to create it.

That's all we were doing - and we detailed ourselves to death in the doing.

I think I'm agreeing with you, ita. What I was trying to say was, in theory, it would be great if 12 people agreed they wanted a "GUnn is HOTT" thread and a Stompy created it.

In paractice, it doesn't work, and it doesn't work in ways that annoyed me much more than voting.

That said, I really hope the grandfathering is he last procedural vote unless an extreme situation arises.