I'm sorry to answer myself here, but I actually had something more serious to add to part of the earlier discussion.
The convention recently had to decide on member eligibility for becoming an admin, and we discussed at length these criteria of join date and post count. What we decided on still has to be ratified by the members, so it is not yet a rule, but the things we took into consideration are relevant here as well, imo.
We also came up against this problem that no objective count really measures commitment. A person might be a member for six months and make a small number of really astounding, contributory posts, or they might spam all over the place in the first two weeks and get a high post count of no value. We decided, finally, not to quantify eligibility too much. Here is the language we voted to adopt:
• To serve as an administrator, a member should be at least eighteen years of age, have been a member for six months while maintaining a continuous, visible, and contributory presence on the board and have spent enough time on the experimental board to demonstrate an ability to perform the routine functions of an admin.
Who exactly decides what is a 'continuous, visible and contributory presence' is what we are voting on right now, but we wanted to empower someone to make a qualitative decision.
The other thing we are voting on right now is how mandatory various kinds of service should be. The vote on both these question is tied, so you can see that these are tough decisions. That says to me that deciding on the criteria for voting membership will not be easier.
But it did break deadlock for us to move away from strictly quantitative terms. It is too early to offer specific suggestions because the convention is still voting, but, for example, certainly someone who has met the eligibility requirements for an admin and has entered the admin pool intending to serve a term of office in the future would also be entitled to vote. Certainly someone in the jury pool would be entitled to vote. When all these eligibilities are determined (and ratified by the members), and we decide just how much of this is mandatory and how much strictly voluntary, the results of those decisions may suggest strongly to us who the 'voting members' should be.
And again, when we talk about voting members we are talking about official, binding votes that affect the by-laws, etc. and not polls of member opinion about sundry items like whether to delete a smiley.
Jn
_________________
"All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."
Epigraph on the tombstone of W.C. Fields.