board77

What am I missing here?

Theory of statistics ... there's no way to predict what value an individual vote will take, but the mean (the average) is a central tendency and the aggregation of all votes 'regresses toward the mean.' The most likely outcome is that half the values will be above and half below the mean ... assuming there is no secular trend within the moving average ... but this is getting way too complicated for what we need on this board, I'm afraid.

A quorum serves two purposes to my thinking - it prevents a committed minority from dictating to a preoccupied majority, and it tells you when an issue really is irrelevant to the group and does not need to be acted upon.

So I hesitate to get rid of the quorum altogether. Using half of the previous vote has appeal ... we might also set a fixed number, for example 30, and say that if fewer than 30 people consider the issue important enough to vote on, then no action will be taken.

Jn

I don't think the quorum should ever be lower then the 39 voters that we required for initial charter ratification votes. If we can't get that many people to vote, I think we should just back it in and all go home.

Based on the amount of discussion there has been in the ratification discussion threads that Jn put up yesterday (read "none"), I doubt we will even get a quorum on those votes.

Voronwe -

The discussion period should begin 'officially' on Tuesday, 11:59 GMT. I see that everyone has voted in the Limitations thread here, so I will add those Amendments to the appropriate ratification thread either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Perhaps then the Rangers can send out a Global email giving the links and reminding everyone that we are a participatory democracy.

Jn

Don't be disheartened by that Vinnie. Sometimes, absorbing the material is a real effort of will; responding even more so! and you know, we're all a little worn out.

Thing is, Jny does a marvellous job in composing this text! Her work is always meticulous and well thought through that sometimes there really is nothing left to say other than to nod appreciatively. I know that's not helpful to her - she puts it out there and wants some indication of which way the wind is blowing, so I guess the least we could say is, "I couldn't have said it better myself."

I have no doubt that once up for ratification, the people will have their say - especially as their say is relatively easy: just indicating yes or no for the most part.

Don't be so gloomy V. Maybe you, Faramond, and I should go have a drink and talk about transcendental numbers.

Editted for:

Hi Impy! Didn't mean to ignore you.

Heyyyy, you're going to talk about transcendental numbers in a bar and not take me along???

(I don't know anything about transcendental numbers. I just like to listen while becoming less and less sober.)


Well, the whole quorum thingie is a quandry.

I'm wondering if we shouldn't go back to our first formulation for binding votes and reconsider our assumptions. We thought that perhaps those rules were too weak for charter amendments, but now this conversation has drifted toward the realization that they might be too stringent.

Relevant Assumptions (?):

1. That the 20/80 rule holds for life in general, and 20% activism is an optimistic expectation

2. That we eliminated the obvious dead wood by using active members over the last 60 days as our member count.
-- Is this a correct assumption? Or in light of the fact that discussion + vote always lasts 20 days, is 30-day activity more realistic?

3. That there are disadvantages to a no-quorum option that we would like to avoid

4. That mobilization will be an issue no matter what quorum number we choose.

I'm thinking out loud ...

perhaps we should go with a quorum equal to 20% of members active over the last (30 or 60) days, and add the provision that all votes will be preceeded by two Global emails, one when the discussion begins and one when the voting begins. And if (2 or 3) successive votes fail to get a quorum, the Charter Amendment Committee will automatically convene to reconsider our participation needs.

I don't know how to go about predicting our future, really. I think that all we can do is state now what we would like to see as a minimum level of participation, include provisions for mobilizing to that level as best we know how, and empower others to rethink this in the future if necessary.

I believe that the supermajority (67%) required for passage on all but the IRVs protects us from at least some of the dangers of low participation.

Jn

p.s. Thank you, Imp. I get a lot of practice explaining complicated things in simple terms, but even at that I often feel my sentence structure is Victorian.

Yes, I agree we need a quorum level, in spite of my earlier post.

I would also like to point out that I asked this very question about predicting future participation in the binding votes thread.

I'll think about these new proposals.

Sorry Jnyusa. That works out very well:

Besides, if we run into anyone else, I'll need an interpreter.


All fair statements. No real need to fiddle with the number of days.

Jn, thank you so, so much for explaining what IS was talking about. I was really lost.

I think it's a good idea, but then we might as well not have a quorum since it will be changing all the time. . .

Quote:

That the 20/80 rule holds for life in general, and 20% activism is an optimistic expectation.

I really strongly feel that 20% is far too low. Couldn't we start at 30%? 30% active over the last 30 days. We've managed to achieve that in every vote so far, right? Why wouldn't that hold true in the future? Even that *should* be too low, but if 20% is optimistic. . .

I do agree that we should have some built in mechanism for reconsidering the quorum if it continutally fails to be met, and I like Jn's suggestion for what that should be.

I'll have to think about this some more. . .

The word "quorum" always makes me think of "core", and *that* always reminds me of apples. So now, I'm going to have an apple while I ponder this.

Mossy,

If we implemented some kind of self-adjusting mechanism and I was totally wrong, it wouldn't have much of a consequence.

It's only important if I am right.

If we don't do it now and you are wrong, it could precipitate a crisis.

I think everyone now understands we need an escape hatch, but then what do we do? Do we force people to vote? Make it a membership requirement? Send out the goon squads? Install Imperious Leader in his rightful place?

My reaction to being expected to vote in presidential elections was to vote for Gus Hall (communist). I don't know that a vote is worth much unless it is done freely.



My interest is in setting up something that won't have to be revoted several times in the first year. If we start out having votes to enable votes to legitimize votes to enable votes, I think we will not be taken seriously.

If you have all of the numbers, my original suggestion takes about 2 minutes to calculate. It's 5th grade arithmetic. It can be set up in Excel and not take but a few seconds. The 50% of the prior vote is even simpler.

So, I would much rather address it now. The issues won't change. Sooner or later, someone will need to decide.

I'm with you on all relevant assumptions; though the 20/80 rule still stings I must admit. Obviously I'm too much of an idealist once again.
As to 'assumption' 2: I would still go for the last 60 days from our active member count.

Quote:

perhaps we should go with a quorum equal to 20% of members active over the last (30 or 60) days, and add the provision that all votes will be preceeded by two Global emails, one when the discussion begins and one when the voting begins. And if (2 or 3) successive votes fail to get a quorum, the Charter Amendment Committee will automatically convene to reconsider our participation needs.

bolded be me. Yes! That's about all we CAN do to rouse the members

20% over the last 60 days but with a higher supermajority… ack! I'm being unrealistic again

20% over the last 60 days of active members as a quorum with a 67% supermajority. I can just about live with that


And Voronwe & Jny: don't be dishartened. Impenitent said it very nicely - it's so true Those threads have quite a few 'views' also and that counts for something

_______________
Resident witchâ„¢

If we go by statistics and likelihoods, I have to say that ALL our votes so far reached the quorum we had!

What average is that? And what likelihood of reaching it the next time, too?

I don't think we need that complicated reckoning to find out what might work. We already have something that works.

(And the last batch of ratification threads hardly had any discussion at first, too, and mostly not a lot later, either, IIRC. )

IS, I think I understand what you're saying. . . Just to clarify: if you are right that the 80-20 rule generally prevails, and we go with 30%, then we're in trouble. So we should build in a mechanism *now* so that we don't have to deal with not being able to meet the quorum if we set it too high. And the moving averages would be a good way to do that?

Have I got that? And why 50% of the previous vote?

Let me do a thumbnail analysis here, and then possibly suggest the options among which we might choose.

There have been 10 ratification votes and that vote on thread deletion, giving 11 data points.

In chronological order, beginning with the earliest, the number of voters in each election has been:

80 - 59 - 61 - 58 - 48 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 49 - 46 - 45

There is an obvious secular trend indicating declining interest. But the big cliff is after the first four votes. So I averaged using: (1) all 11 votes, and (2) only that last seven votes where the numbers level off.

Using Voronwe's earlier figure for members active over 60 days = 183
And liberally subtracting out all RP characters = 183 - 15 = 168
and using that as my member count ....

The average of 11 votes = 53.09, as a % of member count = 31.6%
The average of 7 votes = 46.57, as a % of member count = 27.72%

The offset:
The offset accounts for the variation about the mean, and it would be traditional to consider two standard deviations from the mean a reasonable expectation that you are still 'in the same distribution.'

I calculated standard deviation using a chi-squared distribution, for those who care. (Technically this is non-parametric.) Expressed as a percentage of member count, two standard deviations from the mean of the 11 vote set is 5.58%; two standard deviations from the mean of the 7 vote set is 4.45%. Conclusion: 5% is a safe offset number for the 7-vote set. 6% is probably more appropriate for the 11-vote set.

Opinion: I don't really like using the average of the 11-vote set when the downward voting trend is so pronounced, but we can leave it as an option to vote on in committee. Since we have seven reasonably stable votes to begin from, we can use a moving average of the last seven votes if we wish. In other words, each time we take a vote, that vote becomes the most recent data point and the earliest data point drops off and the average is recalculated. (We do not have to recalculate the offset every time unless the downward or upward trend becomes pronounced.)

That would give us an actual current quorum number of:
27.72% minus 4.45% = 23.27%

or, if we round for simplicity and use a standard offset:
28% minus 5% = 23%

Using again 168 as the member count: 38.64 --> 39 votes is the quorum.
Exactly what we are using right now in fact.

If we use a moving average of the last 11 votes, the quorum number becomes 31.6% minus 5.58%, or, rounded for simplicity and using a standard offset: 32% - 6% = 26%. The quorum number becomes 43.68 --> 44 voters. That's 'wiggle room' of ~2.5 votes below the average of the last seven votes. No vote has yet fallen below 45, but the downward trend is plain, and 45 is both the median and the mode of the last 7 votes, so we would basically be saying that we could lose one more vote and then we would lose our quorum. So all in all I prefer the moving average based on the last seven votes.

Does that make sense to people?

The other thing we could do is forget about the moving average, state that having done the analysis we want the quorum set at 23%; but if the downward trend continues we will start losing quorums.

We can set the quorum at 23%, or make it the moving average of the last seven votes, and also impose a floor of 20% so that if the moving average and/or two successive votes fall/are below 20% the Charter Amendment Committee will convene to reconsider quorums.

I can't think of any other way to approach these options, folks. One thing is clear though ... 30% is too high. That's what we get in moments of maximum enthusiasm, not on a normal voting day.

Jn

Quote:

We can set the quorum at 23%, ...... and also impose a floor of 20% so that if the moving average and/or two successive votes fall/are below 20% the Charter Amendment Committee will convene to reconsider quorums.

I would go for this suggestion.

Thanks for doing the calculus on this Jny. It's indeed sobering.

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Resident witchâ„¢

But the member count was significantly lower when we voted then the figures that I quoted (which were after we had been open for five days. The percentages should be a bit higher.

If I were still a Ranger, I would go and see how many people were active the 60 days prior to June 27, when the last votes ended and we opened the doors. If (as I suspect) that number is significantly lower then 183, then Jn's calculations should be revised.

I support a floating quorum number.

The last seven average sounds good to me.

Voronwë_the_Faithful wrote:

If I were still a Ranger, I would go and see how many people were active the 60 days prior to June 27, when the last votes ended and we opened the doors. If (as I suspect) that number is significantly lower then 183, then Jn's calculations should be revised.

If you tell me how to do it, I'll be more than happy to find this out.