How does one accidentally change all the NAFDA thread headers, Gar? That's what I don't get.

I know we changed them, or at least I remember it coming up. What I *can't* find are the posts relating to it.

Are thread headers and slugs grandfathered in? Decisions about thread creation, policy, blah, yes, but headers and slugs?

Because, umm, the F2F one should be changed to "we did it twice", as we're post F2F now.

My reflex thought is that if there was no discussion, it was because no one voiced an objection. But it must have come up somewhere ... Buffistas never do anything without yammering, do we?

Depends when we made the call.

Also, having written the short etiquette, I can say that sometimes when you're writing a policy document, you go with common practice and what sounds good to you and figure people will change it if it isn't what was needed. It's possible the original FAQ was written by monks who scoured the Sacred Texts of the Buffistae for Divine Knowledge of what our spoiler policy should be, but more likely, they wrote it mid-season, and just didn't think about summer casting changes.

Because, umm, the F2F one should be changed to "we did it twice", as we're post F2F now.

And, I totally think that next year the slogan should be the "3 times and you still have your soul? We'll go again."

I know we changed them, or at least I remember it coming up. What I *can't* find are the posts relating to it.

It wasn't done when we had the conversation about how to change the FAQ to reflect that cross-topic whitefonting issue from last year, was it? I don't remember changing the slugs at that point, but maybe they were changed too.

I would assume that thread header slugs, etc, would have been discussed at WX. Doesn't that make sense?

Personally, I think that the grandfathering question rests not on "did we or did we not discuss this?" because, after all, the decision to write the FAQ and the slugs was made, regardless. I think we should take them as givens, even if we can't find a sustained discussion of them.

I think the most relevant question is, which set of prior precedents are to be given priority here, the FAQ or the de facto Buffista policy? Because, as has already been pointed out, they are in conflict, and that conflict is the source of much of the present frustration on both sides of the issue. Secondly, if we can't decide which is to be given priority, is voting a fair and reasonable way to decide the matter?

My problem with saying "we never actually went by the FAQ or the slug headers" is ... we did. We used them as reference to clear up many a mispost.

So it seems perfectly possible for some people to be sure that the times like talking about ASH leaving or Buffy not being dead are exceptions, in the same way that others see it as the rule.

So it seems perfectly possible for some people to be sure that the times like talking about ASH leaving or Buffy not being dead are exceptions, in the same way that others see it as the rule.

That's why I think this is the most relevant issue to discuss. I think this is the crux of the conflict.

I think applying grandfather in this case, or any case where it is not evident that we're dealing with a situation the clause was designed to help us, is a bad idea.

I wouldn't rule it out just because this is the FAQ. But I wouldn't say it applies just because it's the faq, either.

In my eyes, the clause rules itself out here, because the range of its coverage is too ambiguous. If this proposal asked to close the music or movies threads, or yet again to open a war or politics thread, I'd yell, "Grandfather." That's seems to be the kind of situation the grandfather clause would cover, because that is the kind of situation the clause was inspired by, and was developed to remedy those sorts of challenges to our old process. That someone said the FAQ was developed by 'bullshit consensus' didn't help things here. Grandfather springs to my mind, every time I hear that phrase. But because one poster chose to term the faq development as such, isn't by itself a good reason to trot out the clause.

I'm sure there was discussion and decision making going on about the spoiler policy when the faq was being written. I don't think the faq changed itself. I don't think the slugs changed themselves. I don't think the faq should be overturned because it was written under a consensus system, rather than a voting system. I do think, when the answer to a frequently asked question doesn't (to some people) seem to accurately answer the question with an account of how things were working in actuality, we're hurting our culture more by stopping the discussion than we are by having a vote on it.

Is the faq more important than precedent where grandfather is concerned? Isn't precedent just as much a (demonstrable) part of our culture and tradition as the faq?

And, I totally think that next year the slogan should be the "3 times and you still have your soul? We'll go again."

Oh, totally.

cereal...

So it seems perfectly possible for some people to be sure that the times like talking about ASH leaving or Buffy not being dead are exceptions, in the same way that others see it as the rule.

That's why I think this is the most relevant issue to discuss. I think this is the crux of the conflict.

I think so, too. Because some people thought those were exceptions, and some people thought that the FAQ didn't cover the summer casting news items, and that when we started using it to prohibit free NAFDA discussion of summer news items, that it was part of the squeeze.

I don't think we'll ever get an answer that satisfies anyone, as to how what happened did happen. I do think, if we let the proposal continue on to a vote, we'll get an answer where enough Buffistas tell the Buffistas who didn't get what they wanted, to shut up and post.

eta... and I say that last line, totally unconvinced how this will play out. I don't want it to be take as a dig at the anti-proposers. It's recognition that of those of us hashing this out, not all of us will be happy with the outcome, but we'll at least have an answer that will make us let it go.