It's really more of a guideline.

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.

Kat, if I implied this, I'm sorry. It was not my intent. I was responding to Sumi's concerns with what I meant to be more of a general explanation. I have at times felt a little uncomfortable with the level of authority granted to the original proposer. Not because I doubt anyone's good faith or fairness. But the way the questions are worded and structured is a big deal. Again, I'm not trying to suggest in any way that the questions were unfair - just that the way the question is presented determines what happens. And that determination is made by one person. I don't think you, Kat, did anything wrong or threw your power around or anything like that. I do think that more concentrated discussion among those who are part of the three threads might have been helpful in more fully considering how a merger could be structured to allow for some consolidation while having the least impact on the tenor of the threads. My original hope for the voting process was that most issues would be hammered out in discussion and the vote would really be a ratification of what had been decided in thread. That it didn't pan out that way is a criticism of the process, not of you, Kat.

I was impressed with how diligent you were in updating the proposal according to the discussion in Lightbulbs

Same here, Kat. You had a difficult task, and you handled it well.

adding a completely new question about the F2F thread two days into the discussion is not terribly fair.

Eh. My gut reaction is to ask why not -- we had time to discuss it, and could have voted it down if we wanted to. I agree closing it and spoilage lite were not the best choices we have ever made, but then neither was the Grandfather Clause. We're still learning.

On the other hand, when Trudy asked that the last proposal be amended to add a spoiler virgin thread, the reaction was that we didn't have enough time to discuss it. I'm not sure how much time we would have had on the virgin thread, vs. how much time we had for each of these 11 items.

On the OTHER other hand, it's all up to the proposer. Jim could have chosen to add the Spoiler Virgin thread; he chose not to. Kat had the option to add the F2F thread or disregard the suggestion; she chose to add it. I think leaving it to the proposer is the fairest way, as it minimizes the amount of insanity.

Yes, the very fact that something is proposed as a "problem" is going to foster dissent.

I like the "pros" and "cons" in the last ballot.

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.

I'm on board with that. Not that I was involved in the Light Bulb debate at all, this time, and actually, my non-involvement would sort of be a supporting thing in favor of "less is more". Cause, I had thought we were going to be voting on one thing, and then it turned out we were voting on 11. Not that I particularly minded, and I think the outcome was reasonable, but yeah.

it was actually Consuela ... who offered compelling reasons for why it would be okay to consolidate

Huh. Well, I wasn't arguing pro-consolidation so much as explaining why it would be okay for me. I'm willing to go a long way in favor of protecting this community as a whole, and I do feel as though some people aren't getting that. That these sorts of decisions should be made with the goal of obtaining the greatest good for the community, and for me that means, if necessary, sacrificing a Farscape thread in order to keep the Buffy and Angel threads going. (But that then takes us back to the discussion nobody wants to have, which is who are we and where are we going.)

I'm also getting uncomfortable with the, well, sniping about the outcome of the vote.

We hashed out this process in a long and painful battle over the last year. There is no perfect solution, and the larger we get the more difficult it's going to be to make these decisions. But we voted, the community made its decisions, and we live with it.

I think Kat and everyone involved did an excellent job of compiling the options and presenting the pros and cons of each question, and they should be commended. t stands up and applauds

t stands up next to Consuela, also applauding.

What 'suela said.

As for this:

But that then takes us back to the discussion nobody wants to have, which is who are we and where are we going.

We should open a thread to discuss this and call it "Where do we go from here?"

runs away, serpentine!

• applauds*

'suela, thank you for the sense-making. Ken, thanks for the earworm.

I also want to go on record that I'm really unhappy about the loss of spoilage lite. Spoilage lite was a great place for us spoilage non-virgins to flirt, make-out, get a little casting spoiler action and still respect ourselves in the morning. Now there's really no thread for us to do that (and just because I enjoy a bit of spoilage nookie now and then, doesn't mean I'm ready to ho' myself in the hard core thread.)

I am not proposing that the vote was invalid or unfair in any way. The will of the community was to close the thread and so be it.

I agree with Daniel that we may want to limit the questions on the ballot. And truthfully, I got so wrapped up in defending the need for the Previously thread, I completely overlooked the fact that Spoilage Lite was on the chopping block as well, and I should have defended that thread too. I can only blame myself for not reading it carefully, because the issue was plainly out there.