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Article 7: Binding Votes: VOTE OVER: Discuss continued

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Thu 07 Jul , 2005 7:14 pm
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Faramond - thank you

Question 7: your count is correct. I misrecorded Hobby's vote

Question 14: I agree that Eru's vote on this question should not count

Question 19: my second "B" was your vote - because you objected to [4]. But that's one of the things I wanted to include in a new thread for a couple clarification points ... so I'll leave it an A as you've indicated and we'll talk about it a bit further elsewhere.

I'm just too absolutely pooped to do this now because I've had my 3-year-old granddaughter with me all day.

Jn

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Thu 07 Jul , 2005 7:48 pm
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One thing I would like to revisit. I would like to consider whether to add the text in blue (or something similar) to the following text:
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A binding vote cannot be held for a proposition that has been defeated by an earlier vote during the past 6 months and the same proposition cannot be voted on more often than twice in one year, unless a genuine change of circumstances justifies holding an additional vote. It is the responsibility of the Committee to determine whether the proposed vote is allowable. If the committee is divided, a straw poll will be taken and a simple majority of the committee members will decide whether the vote is allowable.
What if a month after a vote is held, something occurs that makes it clear that a different answer may be appropriate? Do we not have to have some kind of mechanism to accommodate such a situation?


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Eruname
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Posted: Thu 07 Jul , 2005 9:45 pm
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Jnyusa wrote:
Question 14: I agree that Eru's vote on this question should not count
I would appreciate it if it could. It was a typo made late at night. It should have read D, A, B, C.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 08 Jul , 2005 1:29 am
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Oh - OK Eru. Fixed.

I'm just finding time now to get the ballots and results put into the archive.

Jn

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Fri 08 Jul , 2005 1:33 am
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Three-year-olds. :P

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 08 Jul , 2005 3:43 am
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Ballot and results have been moved to ballot archive. Approved text is in first post.

Jn

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Mon 11 Jul , 2005 10:27 pm
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Bumping this up because we're not really finished with it.

Three things need to be considered/revisited and possibly voted on as amendments to this article before we put it up for ratification:

1. Voronwe's additional text, which I and two others considered clarification consistent with our discusison but which Faramond considers a substantive change. If we vote on other changes to this Article I will include the addition of Voronwe's text to the ballot, as well as the removal of the redundancy.

What we voted on, strictly, went like this:

A binding vote cannot be held for a proposition that has been defeated by an earlier vote during the past six months and the same proposition cannot be voted on more often than twice in one year. It is the responsibility of the Committee to determine whether the proposed vote is allowable. If the committee is divided, a straw poll will be taken and a simple majority of the committee members will decide whether the vote is allowable.

After two unvoted changes, the text reads like this:

A binding vote cannot be held for a proposition that has been defeated by an earlier vote during the past six months unless a genuine change of circumstances justifies holding an additional vote. It is the responsibility of the Committee to determine whether the proposed vote is allowable. If the committee is divided, a straw poll will be taken and a simple majority of the committee members will decide whether the vote is allowable.

2. Under the following:

¶5: Actions which cannot be undertaken without a Binding Vote of the Membership

1. Moving to a new server
2. Altering the terms of ownership for the board
3. Elimination of a Forum and/or restructuring of the forums which would entail mass renaming and/or moving of subfora and threads.
4. In the deletion of threads, any departure from the policy stated in Article 8.
5. In the creation of new forums, any departure from the policy stated in Article 9.


Faramond has objected to the inclusion of #4. I have not glossed over this one-person objection (and in fact withheld this article from ratification because of it) because there is a principle involved in ¶4 and ¶5 which we failed to address during discussion. This would in fact be the only place in the Charter where we stated that one Article must be used to override another Article. A strong argument can be made, I think, that such a provision is not appropriate. If a provision of some other Article is to be over-ridden it should be done through an Amendment process.

I would like to have more careful discussion about this before finalizing the Article and sending it for ratification.

3. We are reconsidering how quorums will be determined in the charter amendment thread, and the decision made there will probably be applied here as well.

Jn

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Faramond
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Posted: Mon 11 Jul , 2005 10:34 pm
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I think the circumstances under which a member vote can be used to delete a thread need to be spelled out in Article 8. If we want a member vote to be able to delete any thread, then I think we should say that in article 8, for example. I don't see the point of doing work in that article only to have this one potentially override it.

Same for the question about Article 9.

This is my initial impression, anyway.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 12 Jul , 2005 11:02 pm
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Meanwhile Cerin proposed another text addition, which I will add momentarily to the collection of things on which we will need to vote again.

Addressing the issue of when revotes might be taken:

... unless a genuine change of circumstances or serious ramifications not previously recognized justify holding an additional vote.

This goes a bit beyond the additional text that Voronwe proposed, imo, by adding a new reason why a thread might be deleted, but please discuss your impressions as to whether this fits with our intent or not.

Faramond - I hvae reached the conclusion that I agree with you regarding Article 8 and 9. Anything that regards voting in connection with those articles belongs in those articles and not in this one.

Jn

Last edited by Jnyusa on Wed 13 Jul , 2005 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Faramond
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Posted: Tue 12 Jul , 2005 11:31 pm
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Right, well serious ramifications not previously recognized would, for example (and only for example, I ain't sayin' anything else here), have kicked in with the possibility of re-voting on Wilko's thread.

I don't really like it, but I think at this point I'm going to have to trust the binding vote committees that form on these things to act wisely.

I suppose we can't just make an iron law that a vote can never be revoted on a few month later, because there could be times when it is honestly needed.

This is a democratic board, and if people are really determined suddenly to have a re-vote, I guess they'll get it.

If the intent is to all a sudden revote when the first vote suddenly looks like a horrible mistake to all involved, then yes this new text fits our intent.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Wed 13 Jul , 2005 12:41 am
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That was not precisely my intent ... but I'd like to hear what other committee members think about this as well.

Jn

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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I've gone back and forth on Cerin's suggestion. I actually thought of suggesting something similar when I made my original genuine change of circumstances suggestion, but I concluded that it was simply too broad, and really could be applied to any circumstance where people decided for whatever reason that the result of the previous vote was wrong. But maybe that's not such a bad thing. If the previous result was wrong, it should be fixed. But on the other hand, what's the point of having a limitation on revotes if it really doesn't have any meaning. So I'm not sure what I think about this. :scratch


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MaidenOfTheShieldarm
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I'm not sure I approve. . .

For one thing, in general, things are discussed quite thoroughly. It seems that someone would spot and really serious consequences beforehand. Plus, I don't like that people could just up and decide to undo a vote because things aren't going quite as planned.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Wed 13 Jul , 2005 1:05 am
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See, I would consider 'unforeseen consequences' a genuine change of circumstance if they were serious enough.

The way I was thinking about your text, Voronwe ... and I'm sorry now that I did not make more effort at getting explicit text the first time around ... the way I was thinking about your text was that it implied something affecting the whole board, but it does not say that explicitly.

Maybe that is the modification that we need, rather than new text that broadens the discretion of the committee, but rather ... for example

"unless there has been a genuine change of circumstance affecting all members"

Or maybe that is too narrow ... [sigh]

Others please weigh in!

Jn

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IdylleSeethes
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Since I am the one who originally called for no hysteresis, let me start out by saying I think I was wrong. For reasons that Jnyusa mentioned elsewhere, it may not be the wisest choice. The recent re-discussion of Wilko hammered that into my hard little head.

Jnyusa has suggested:
Quote:
unless there has been a genuine change of circumstance affecting all members
Being a convert, I think this may be too weak. :blackeye

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Jnyusa
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this may be too weak.

I'm not sure I follow -- do you want to limit or broaden the circumstances under which a revote could be held?

Jn

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*Alandriel*
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Posted: Thu 14 Jul , 2005 10:29 am
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Just popping in to cross-reference this to the new ballo thread that has now gone up.

Ammend Binding Votes

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truehobbit
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Posted: Fri 15 Jul , 2005 6:46 pm
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Let me first say that I think that three days from starting the discussion to starting the vote is a bit too short - sorry to have to say that!
Quote:
Faramond has objected to the inclusion of #4. I have not glossed over this one-person objection (and in fact withheld this article from ratification because of it) because there is a principle involved in ¶4 and ¶5 which we failed to address during discussion. This would in fact be the only place in the Charter where we stated that one Article must be used to override another Article. A strong argument can be made, I think, that such a provision is not appropriate. If a provision of some other Article is to be over-ridden it should be done through an Amendment process.
I think this refers to question 3 in the ballot, but I don't understand a word of it, I'm afraid - it doesn't seem to be the same thing as in the ballot thread either.

As to the way it's explained in the voting thread: I already asked about that there - I don't understand how having the same point in two articles can end up being contradictory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I came here to look for a definition of "serious ramifications" - yes, it's broader than Voronwe's text, but also clearer, in that "change of circumstances" is more difficult to define than "unforeseen serious ramifications" for a committee having to decide on a re-vote.
So I like it. :)

Mossy wrote:
Plus, I don't like that people could just up and decide to undo a vote because things aren't going quite as planned
Firstly, no one can just "up and decide to undo a vote here" - if you've followed the discussion on wilko's thread, you'll have seen how difficult the process is to get there.
Apart from that, however, in my opinion this is what democracy is all about - giving everybody a handle to try to change the course the community is going if they think it's going the wrong way.

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MaidenOfTheShieldarm
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Posted: Fri 15 Jul , 2005 6:58 pm
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truehobbit wrote:
Mossy wrote:
Plus, I don't like that people could just up and decide to undo a vote because things aren't going quite as planned
Firstly, no one can just "up and decide to undo a vote here" - if you've followed the discussion on wilko's thread, you'll have seen how difficult the process is to get there.
I admit that I haven't. I wasn't involved in Wilko's thread, ergo I have no real stake in it.

I was exaggerating a bit, but it seemed to me that if five people decided that they didn't like something because things were turning out as they thought, they could ask for another vote. I apologise if I was writing under a misconception, and sit corrected. :)

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 15 Jul , 2005 7:59 pm
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Hobby, this discussion started on June 22. :Q

The committee is losing interest, I'm afraid - there just was very little comment before the first ballot until peope had to actually show up to vote. I'm not psychic - I don't know what people find confusing unless they say so.

The issue with #4 and #5 is that in Article 8 and Article 9 it states that a binding vote is needed to do something other than the general policy.

Then in Article 7 it says that exceptions to provisions of Article 8 and Article 9 can be overriden by a binding vote. That could be interpreted to mean that we could get rid of the binding vote provision of 8 and 9 by holding a binding vote on it - But we could not do that! We would have to ratify an amendment to the Charter to do that.

We should not repeat the reference to Article 8 and 9 inside article 7. All I want to do is take it out.

Jn

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