We have had 230 active users in the past 60 days, which means after the calculations we need a quorum of 41 for the vote to be officially binding.
PM your votes to Administrator, please. If you would like to help us keep track publically of the number of people who have voted by posting when you do, feel free!
RESULTS: The membership determined to leave the thread as is, but to change the disclaimer. The votes were, on the question of the disposition of the thread: 22 to leave the thread locked and on the board, 18 to delete it. On the question of the disclaimer, 33 voted to use the new proposed disclaimer, 7 to use the current one. For details on how the instant runoff winnowed results, please see the relevant posts farther down this thread.
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Dear Members
The Binding Vote committee considering the question of whether the disposition of the “My Presence on These Boards†thread (AKA the wilko thread) could be brought to the membership for a re-vote has determined that it can, according to Paragraph 2 Article 7of the Charter.
The committee considered whether members would be voting under different circumstances today than they were when they voted the first time and whether a significant number of voters would have voted differently if today's circumstances had been in effect when they voted the first time. A majority of the committee felt that in this case a genuine change of circumstances does justify holding an additional vote.
Quote: 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.
The changes of circumstance that were considered were:
1. The fact that during the discussion preceding the first vote the person who started the thread expressed a desire that the thread not be deleted, and this was persuasive for quite a few people; he has since changed his mind after seeing the effects of the thread being left visible and would now prefer to see the thread deleted. It is possible that a significant number would change their vote now that they know that wilko has also changed his mind.
2. So much content has been deleted from the thread that it is nolonger useful as an historical document.
3. The membership was inadvertently misinformed as to the effects of leaving the thread visible. There were two factors to this: First, it was suggested that what outside parties imagined to be in the thread was worse than what was actually in the thread, so that if we wanted to heal wounds, keeping the thread around might be the better strategy. Second, we incorrectly assumed that the parties involved had already seen what was in the thread, whereas they had not (they had only heard about it). As it turned out, our assessment of how inflammatory the thread was and how it would impact particular members was incorrect.
HERE IS HOW THE PROCESS WORKS
All registered members may discuss and vote in this thread.
The complete text of the ballot follows.
Before voting, we continue the discussion in this thread for ten days.
Dating from the last grammar edit of the ballot wording, that means voting will open on August 12 and run through the 22nd.
At the end of the discussion, the vote opens and remains open for ten days, two weekends inclusive. The vote takes the form of PMs to the Administrator account.
BINDING VOTE BALLOT FOLLOWS
This is a two-part ballot. Please PM your votes on both parts to Administrator.
QUESTION ONE
The first part is an Instant Runoff Vote (IRV) ballot. Please rank the following four choices according to your preference for the action to be taken on the thread.
A) Leave the thread as is. No board-sanctioned action will be taken on the thread beyond possibly changing the disclaimer (see Question Two).
B) Replace the screen names of individuals indirectly referred to in the discussion with the anonymous placeholder ***** (real-life names have already been removed). The disclaimer may also be changed (see Question Two).
C) Replace names as in B) above, and then move the edited thread to Deleted Thread Storage. Only Rangers and the Mayor can access files in this area. The disclaimer may also be changed (see Question Two).
D) Delete the thread (the thread will be removed permanently; it will not be moved to Deleted Thread Storage). According to the Charter, a thread may be deleted by boardwide vote if deemed necessary to preserve the peace, security or continuance of the board.
My ranked vote for Part One:
1)
2)
3)
4)
QUESTION TWO
The second part is a simple poll, and is dependent on the ballot above. If option D) on Question One is selected by the membership, this question becomes irrelevant. Pick one:
A) Keep the current disclaimer text:
This thread was active during the upheavals on TORC and here at board77 in the first few months of 2005. Please remember as you read that many posts were made in the heat of the moment. Also, please note that this thread is no longer active; the board has moved on from these events. However, the members of board77 have decided that to delete these threads would be counter to our principles of transparency and openness.
B) Replace the current disclaimer text with this text:
This thread was active during the upheavals on TORC and here at board77 in the first few months of 2005 and many posts were made in the heat of the moment. The comments in this and every thread represent the feelings and opinions of the individuals who posted them and are not representative of the viewpoint of the board as a whole. Keeping threads from the period before the board opened is not an endorsement of their contents, but an attempt to operate according to our stated principles of transparency and openness.
My vote for Part Two:
A or B
EDIT NOTE (8-22-05): We received 35 votes by the deadline or 1800 GMT and 6 votes after the deadline.
Everyone please read this post by Jnyusa.
Edited by TheEllipticalDisillusion as per Axordil's request on 8-2-05 at 8:15 PM EST
Edited by TheEllipticalDisillusion as per Axordil's request and Eru's suggestion on 8-2-05 at 10:04 PM EST
Edited by TheEllipticalDisillusion on 8-11-05 at 4:02 AM EST
Edited by TheEllipticalDisillusion on 8-22-05 at 6:21 EST (4 hours and 21 minutes after the vote ended.)