Would there be any benefit in re-opening the closed threads at the WX Buffista Contingency board or the PF Buffista Contingency-Contingency board? I'm thinking of Spoilers Lite in particular, but also, even due South, Farscape, Smallville, and PPO? Would there be a problem in doing so?

Silly me, I thought the reason we built this place was to keep everybody here together, not to send them off to other boards.

Well, one thing that's happening a lot more is mini-F2Fs. It's easier to organize something in-thread if it involves more than 2 or 3 people, IMO. And since we closed the F2F thread, I for one have been encouraging people to use the PeoplesForum F2F thread. And I have no apology for that.

And I have no apology for that.

I don't see that you need one. I was more making a comment on some shortsightedness of the original vote. Which is sour grapes, because I could have said something about it in Lightbulb before the vote and didn't, but it irks a bit that a thread that fosters community got temporarily deep-sixed.

No matter, F2F will reopen in October, anyway, because that's when we start planning next year's big event.

I was more making a comment on some shortsightedness of the original vote.

Oh. D'oh. Sorry -- comprehension is low pre-lunchtime.

I haven't been terribly involved in all the Light Bulb rigmarole, due to time, but I'm reasonably pleased by the consolidations and shutdowns. I think in most cases the fits will turn out to be fine, or at least pretty good; but until we've actually performed the consolidations, all we have to work from are worries and projections.

Thanks! I could not remember whether we voted for a majority or a plurality! We really need a cheat sheet.

Jon, any progress on that htmlification job? Or you want I should post my pre-edit version, for the sake of having something?

OK, OK, I'll do it before the weekend is over. Really.

Silly me, I thought the reason we built this place was to keep everybody here together, not to send them off to other boards.

(Not directed at Cindy in particular, just at the general idea of telling people to go elsewhere.)

Regardless of whether or not that was directed at me in particular, it pertains to my suggestion. To be clear to anyone who hasn't followed along the whole time, I was not suggesting we close more threads and send people away. I am trying to think of ways to ease the discomfort of those people who are upset by changes that have already happened. I don't want anyone to leave. I don't want anything else closed. This has to do with dealing with stuff that's already closed.

What I'm suggesting is that if Buffistas want to talk with Buffistas about subjects that used to have singular threads at buffistas.org, and they don't want to do it in the combined threads at buffistas.org, perhaps the Buffista stompies could open up Buffista threads at Buffista contingency boards. Maybe it would ease the transition to the newly house-kept board. We have other resources, so I thought it might be nice if we didn't keep them locked up, and instead, let people use them. But that's probably not necessary, since PF doesn't even need unlocking, right? (And is more reliable than WXing, yes?)

Well, my feeling was that everytime I asked a question in Lightbulbs I got shut down -- that the discussion was a place to let off steam on a ballot that was already decided.

Actually, it wasn't decided. My original inclination was to say close and archive all three of the threads because they are so low traffic. But I didn't. I waffled back and forth and it was actually Consuela, who is a BNF of Farscape, who offered compelling reasons for why it would be okay to consolidate.

I think in part that's a function of having the proposer have ultimate authority over the questions, fwiw. There seemed (to me) to be a fair amount of consensus over the fact that Farscape was at best an awkward fit with the other two. But that's not what the proposer chose to propose.

I don't see a way around having the proposer not have ultimate authority over the questions. I think that the whole idea is that you can VOTE against any ballot. But writing proposals by consensus won't work. The only thing that didn't make me want to shoot myself or someone else in the head was (1) knowing there was an end in sight and (2) realizing that my job was to listen and change as I felt comfortable with. It seems foolish to say that the person proposing has to take all of the changes and implement them. Because then if the person makes all of the "consensed" pieces fit on the proposal, the person proposing could very well be proposing something THEY DON'T AGREE WITH which seems like not such a good idea.

Anyway, I think Kat is proof from attack on being inflexible on her proposal. She was really involved in the discussion and updated the proposal four times with different wording.

Thank you, Nou. I do have to admit I feel like people are accusing me of being a stubborn tyrant which makes me relatively angry. I appreciate you saying that I was flexible. I don't know that I was being flexible, but I was listening and I did make changes, so being accused of shooting down questions and refusing to make changes (especially those that I didn't agree with) rankles.

People who are upset about the changes, the best I can say is I'm sorry. Yet, the community did vote which seems to be an indication of some greater agreement.

I do have to admit I feel like people are accusing me of being a stubborn tyrant which makes me relatively angry.

Huh. I didn't mention anything, but I was impressed with how diligent you were in updating the proposal according to the discussion in Lightbulbs.

Except you really let the ball drop on the bobita thing....

Fudge! That's not under a moratorium, right? We could still do it...

Not trying to reopen wounds, but in looking back at the way this ballot developed, I seems to me there were a couple of problems we might want to consider when discussing similar ballots in the future.

First, the ballot as originally proposed had four questions on it. By the time we were done, there were eleven. For example, the F2F thread wasn't even brought up until about halfway through the discussion. This limits the time available to discuss those added questions. Second, I do think we wound up with too many questions in the final ballot. The discussion was dominated by the discussion of the Previously thread, and I think the other questions may have gotten short shrift because of that. The fact that there were nine other questions exacerbated that.

I guess my point is that I think it would be a good idea if in the future we try to limit the number of individual questions per ballot to something manageable, and that changes to proposals made in Lightbulb be more amendments of the original proposals than totally new proposals. For example, adding the question about what to do with Previously if we don't close it is to me more of an amendment is fine, because it follows up on a question that is already there, but adding a completely new question about the F2F thread two days into the discussion is not terribly fair.

Let me clear that I am not proposing hard rules here, just possible guidelines for future proposals.