Dear Members (and especially our newest members),
Here are the final pieces of our Charter for ratification.
HERE IS HOW THE PROCESS WORKS
All registered members may discuss and vote in this thread.
A summary of the Charter Article we are voting on is given below along with a link to the full and complete text of the article.
Before voting, we discuss in this thread for a minimum of ten days. During those ten days, you should state bluntly in this thread anything you don’t like.. If enough people dislike certain provisions, we will remove them from the text before the voting begins and allow the committee to work on them again until they are more acceptable to the membership.
At the end of the discussion, the vote opens and remains open for ten days, two weekends inclusive. The vote takes the form of a poll in this thread, where you vote either yes or no to approve these pieces of the Charter.
The vote will remain open until Monday, August 8, 11:59 pm Greenwich Mean Time.
(Translation: voting from July 29, ~8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time or ~5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time until August 8, ~8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time or ~5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time. )
ARTICLE 8: POLICY ON Thread Deletion
The full and complete text of this article can be read IN THIS POST.
Our general policy is not to delete threads.
The only routine exceptions to this rule are troll threads that have been removed because of objectionable content (content that violates the by-laws) and Hearing threads that members have requested to be deleted (which they have the right to do under Article 5). ¶1: Routine Exceptions
When a thread is deleted from the board, it is moved into Deleted Thread Storage. The Article states how long a thread must be held there before it can be deleted permanently, based on how long the member has to appeal the results of a hearing or request a ban reversal, etc. In general, threads are held for one month beyond their potential use in a subsequent Hearing, and then they are deleted permanently.
Please remember that the purpose for deleting Hearing threads at members’ request is so that there will be no ‘secret files’ of members’ past offenses. If a member does not request that their Hearing thread be deleted, it simply remains locked in the Jury Room.
Obsolete announcements, FAQs, etc. are not deleted but moved into the History Forum.
For all of the History Forum threads that have substantial content we have created Directory threads and will continue to do so. Therefore the presence of random obsolete threads in that forum should not interfere with a member’s ability to use the forum for reading up on the history of the board.
We have also provided that any unusual exceptions, ¶2, will require a Binding vote by the membership
In order to ratify this Article, 39 members must cast votes, and of those who vote, two-thirds (67%) must vote in favor.