board77

Looks good to me. Thanks.

So...just so I can be sure about this....the vote is tomorrow?

My time zone means that your Monday is my Tuesday - and I'm just a tad confused.

Imp, Monday for GMT has already started, like about 6 hours ago, so 3PM GMT will happen in about 9 hours from the time of this post.

Should I be voting? Should I use the first post as the ballot paper?

(Do I sound like a very keen but completely stupid puppy? )

Jn will post here to announce that voting is open.

And I hate the time zone calculations too.

Quote:

Question 3:
C. Admins at their discretion may split quarrelsome or disruptive posts and move them to the Bike Racks if they threaten to impinge on member rights

Jnyusa, could you explain again why it is necessary to include the phrase 'at their discretion'? It seems redundant to me in this choice.

Are you saying, admins may split quarrelsome or disruptive posts and move them to the Bike Racks if they perceive that they threaten to impinge on member rights

or are you saying, admins may, at their discretion, split quarrelsome or disruptive posts and move them to the Bike Racks, and one of the reasons they might do that is if they perceive that said posts are threatening to impinge on member rights

Quote:

Question 1
• resolving disputes between individual members when these do not involve rules of the board

May I suggest: resolving disputes between individual members when these disputes do not involve a question of a violation of board rules

Quote:

Question 4: A thread in the Bike Racks forum is restricted to those members directly involved in the dispute, and administrators may delete the posts of uninvolved members who enter the thread in order to harass the participants. But edits and deletions must be done at the request of thread participants and they alone have the right to say who is party to the dispute.

May I suggest: A thread in the Bike Racks forum is restricted to those members directly involved in the interaction, plus whomever else they designate as participants. Those who have initiated the thread may request that Administrators delete the posts of non-designated members who enter the thread.

It seems to me that adding "in order to harass the participants" is overly specific (or do I mean redundant?). Someone might come in with completely sincere intentions, but if they aren't involved or a designated participant, then their post is just as eligible for deletion as someone who has posted with malicious intent.

Quote:

Question 5:"Uninvolved members should consider carefully before posting comments that they consider to be helpful without the permission of discussants. Sometimes even the most benevolent intervention serves to exacerbate the situation when it is made without the parties' consent or desire."

This statement would not apply if Question 4 is approved, is that correct? That is, if the thread is restricted to those involved or designated, then non-involved members aren't supposed to be posting, and therefore telling them to consider carefully before posting is contradictory.

My feeling is that this is an excellent statement if Bike Racks threads are not restricted to the participants and designates, but it is pointless and contradictory if the threads are restricted.

A modified statement might make more sense (in the case of restricted threads):

Members not designated to participate in a Bike Racks thread but who decide to do so in violation of the guidelines, should consider carefully, etc.

But if it is stated in the charter that Bike Racks threads are restricted, then it would be a violation of the rules to post in them if not a designated participant, and that would be cause for a hearing. So I don't think Question 5 can be included if Question 4 is approved.

Quote:

Question 8:The role of the mediator is to offer an objective view of the dispute and help the parties come to an agreement. The mediation may take place in private, by PM or email, if the parties desire this.

May I suggest: ... if the parties so desire.

Edit
Jnyusa, I would be happy to be second counter (and I'll need those instructions)

Cerin,

Cerin wrote:

Quote:

Quote:

Question 3:
C. Admins at their discretion may split quarrelsome or disruptive posts and move them to the Bike Racks if they threaten to impinge on member rights

Jnyusa, could you explain again why it is necessary to include the phrase 'at their discretion'? It seems redundant to me in this choice.

There is a discussion of this on page 8 of the Dispute Resolution thread and some mention of it earlier.

I have finally read up... could someone give me a synonym for impinge?

The rest is, I think, clear for me. I start to make out-prints of the ballots.... it's not easy all the time to follow (but I made it )

Cerin, several people had objection to merely "at their discretion" because that basically means they can do what they want. "When it impinges on member rights" qualifies and limits that discretion.

For keeping the time all the world over: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

You can customise it to show the regions you need: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html

Although I'm veeeeery grateful that Jny used GMT times!

Friends,

I'm postponing the vote on this because I see we are still having suggestions for different text and I can't really change text a few hours before voting without giving others the chance to discuss the changes.

This morning I have to teach and had asked Voronwe to open the vote for me, so I don't have time later this afternoon. to post various versions of these paragraphs for discussion.

So why don't we postpone the vote until tomorrow and use the rest of today for discussion.

Re time zones ... the B77 clock confuses me because I am quite sure that GMT is 5 hours ahead of me, but I've got my B77 clock set at GMT and it is only four hours ahead of the clocks in my house. I've left it this way because I figure that people are looking at the board clock for when votes begin and end, but anyway ....

according to the board clock:
EST is four hours earlier than GMT, PST is seven hours earlier than GMT.

When you vote, copy the ballot from the first post and paste it into your own post, erasing all but the options you've chosen.

I'll try to get to the text changes when I return from school.

Jn

Nin, impinge - auftreffen, einwirken, verstoßen

For quick word lookups when you don't have a dictionary, this is excellent: http://dict.leo.org

Jnyusa - the actual time difference comes from daylight saving time. Usually my clock is set to GMT +1, but during the months of daylight saving time I switch it to GMT +2 - even the Brits are now at GMT+1...

I am still not sure about "impignes"....

Nin-

Impinge - to come into close contact, encroach, infringe.

I can change it to "infringe" if that word is more common

I didn't use the word 'violate' because discretion would allow them to act on a threat of violation ... We are looking for the proper balance of discretion and limitation ... so I think we will need to work on the text a bit.

Aren't England and Europe on Daylight Savings time by now, too? When my daughters lived in Germany, I remember there being about one month when the time spread was different at each change of seasons, and then it snapped back again. Germany was six hours ahead, and 5 hours during the switch.

Jn

Thank you for the explanation, and no don't change it, I love learning new words.

Yes, Europe is on daylight saving time now, but it does not change the official hours of time-zones on this MB - I had to put mine manually to GMT +2 to make it coincide with my time. Don't ask me why!

There's also been some further discussion about the bike racks in the dispute resolution thread. It always gets confusing when discussions go on simultaneously in two different threads.

Based on the discussion in the other thread, there should probably be a question addressing the issue of whether, if one party to a dispute starts a thread in the bike racks, the other party is required to engage in the discussion. I am with Prim on this one; I don't think that anyone should be forced to engage with someone that they don't want to engage with, particularly is the other person is much more aggressive.

The other issue that came up in my mind was the question of naming the threads. I see great potential for abuse here. The title of the thread goes a long way to define the discussion. If one person starts a thread entitled "Is Johnny a stinker?" how fair is that going to be. I think that there should be a specific statement that bike rack thread titles should be fair and balanced, AND that admins should have broad discretion to change a bike rack thread title if necessary.

I might go further, Voronwe. Since the BikeRacks is intended for dispute resolution, could the thread titles perhaps be limited to the names of the people involved? Any statement of the issue is potentially inflammatory and might also draw in outsiders.

We would of course try to avoid any "wrestling cage" flavor to the titles.

So, what was wrong with my explanation, Nin?

Do try using that link, it helps!
And for English-English explanations there's www.dictionary.com

And of course you have to set the messageboard time manually - how should the messageboard know you have switched to another time?

truehobbit wrote:

Cerin, several people had objection to merely "at their discretion" because that basically means they can do what they want. "When it impinges on member rights" qualifies and limits that discretion.

The use of 'at their disrection' still seems to me to be redundant (made so by the qualifier). I believe the use of 'may' means it is at the discretion of the admin. We're saying

Quote:

Admins <snip> may split quarrelsome or disruptive posts and move them to the Bike Racks if they threaten to impinge on member rights

Admins at their discretion may split quarrelsome or disruptive posts and move them to the Bike Racks if they threaten to impinge on member rights

Does the first phrase mean something different than the second? What is the difference in meaning between the two? (If there is no difference in meaning, then the phrase 'at their discretion' is unnecessary.)

I understood "may" to mean "have permission to," which does not imply freedom. I think "at their discretion" is useful for clarity, and it adds only three words.

"At their discretion" actually says that admins can not do so arbitrarily or capriciously. Most may consider that to be implied even without those three words, but its not a bad thing to emphasize.