Edit: wait, excuse me. I think I misunderstood something here. If we are talking about an interloper protesting their removal from a Bike Racks thread, then no, this should not be contestable. It should be up to the principles in the thread, 100%. The Ranger is simply carrying our the request to which they are entitled.
I'd like to clarify something about this aspect of the proposal (as far as what I intended in writing it this way).
Up 'til now, the burden to ask that unwanted posters' posts be removed from a BR thread, or to decline the offer of help, has been on the BR thread participants.
I believe the sentiment was expressed by at least one person in the recent discussions, that this was in fact burdensome, because it could involve a reticence to hurt a friends' feelings, etc.
I devised the proposal this way so that once the participants had decided and announced who they wanted involved in their resolution, they would not be required to continue dealing with people intruding on their conversation, whether in the best intentions or not. Of course, you can't prevent people from offering by PM, and then it will have to be up to the participants to politely refuse.
I do not think it should be up to the participants to have to ask that an intruder's post be deleted; I do not think they should be required to assess any public offer of assistance after announcing who they want participating in the thread. I think it should be automatic, that the post of any name they have not listed, will be deleted. There is no reason they could not mutually agree to additional participants and notify the Rangers after the discussion had commenced.
This was meant to address the concerns of those who would have preferred a closed Bike Racks so that they didn't have to keep dealing with this type of interference.
As to why the interloper should be notified by PM, that was simply a matter of courtesy and/or informing someone who might not know the rules. Fixer, weren't you involved in something like that? Would you have appreciated a PM explaining the situation?
Regarding straw polls, I don't like the idea of asking the membership via informal poll which amendment should be put up first. If a straw poll is done, I believe the result should not be binding in any way on how the committee decides it is best to proceed. (This did not end up helping the ToE committee, IMO, and only created a great deal of annoyance and subject fatigue.) I think the only fair way to do it is to put both proposals up together, as has been described.
Ah, but that's a decision, not just an action, because it may not be clear as to whether something is a joke or not...certainly not immediately. I could certainly see two people faking a convincing argument for kicks...and there were those who thought MariaHobbit and Mummpizz were joking when they started their dispute thread, and they were quite serious, just not particularly nasty about it.
I strongly disagree, Ax. I do not believe there is a single person here who believed that Lidless and tp had real problems they were trying to work out. I do not believe a single person here believed that the second mock thread participants really had problems between themselves that they were trying to work out. I remember the Maria Mummpizz encounter, and I don't recall anyone saying at the time that they thought they were joking. I think it was clear that umbrage had been taken and they were not joking.
This to me is the Emperor's new clothes scenario. We all know damned well when someone is pretending, so why do we have to jump through hoops about it? Why must our hands be tied so that we can't deal with deliberate bs quickly and perfunctorily?
If two people pretend to have difficulties and go to the Bike Racks pretending to resolve them, and two Rangers agree that that is what is going on, Administrator should move the thread (so that the irate joksters can't harrass a particular Ranger about it).
If you really believe that this is a decision, that is, that such a thread could possibly be legitimately perceived as real, or that a real dispute that has been witnessed and left evidence in threads could really be taken as a joke, then have this decision be contestable. But I would find it regrettable, that we don't have the willingness to call a spade a spade and be done with it.
Consider all the disputes we have observed as members of this board and others. When have you ever doubted you were seing a real dispute? When have you ever doubted you were seeing two people joking around?