board77

Well said Cerin. I think that's an admirable suggestion.

Alatar

I'm afraid I don't think that is a good idea at all. It would be virtually impossible to get a sufficient large majority for ratification if we start offering multiple choices to the membership. Nor do I agree that Sassy's suggestion has gotten more broad support then other individual suggestions. It completely marginalizes those who are most interested in creative collaborations, and has already raised concerns among some who are worried about giving TOO MUCH importance to Tolkien by not even mentioning any other topic of discussion. It doesn't mention anything about being an international community, which is a point that was important to many people. I have followed the discussions on this subject as closely as I can, and I don't think that Sassy's suggestion even come close to being representative of what a broad cross-section of our membership would like to see.

In my opinion, we need to either stay the course with the procedure that we have agonizingly come up with, or give up altogether. If we start talking about offering multiple choices to the membership, we are going to end up with nothing at all.

I'm sorry you feel that way Voronwe. My reading of the situation is that there are two groups of people. Those who want a simple and succinct Mission statement with very little detail, and those who want each part of the society here represented. Those who want a simple statement are not offering alternatives and suggestions for "creative collaborations" or "discussions on fine arts". Those people do not want these things defined. Others do. I think at the least we should offer both versions to the membership at large. One that attempts to cater for the requested details and one that attempts to cater to the equally requested simple version. The membership can then vote on which of the two types they want.

I find many of the current alternatives to be off-putting and elitist. I'm not interested in Fine Art. I don't indulge in creative collaboration. I don't particularly enjoy intellectual discourse. I still am very happy here. However, I don't think I would have joined here if that was what I felt was on offer.

Sass's version describes the board that I'm a member of and that I love. That's what I want represented in the Mission Statement.

Alatar

Al, there's two issues here, what the Mission Statement should finally say, and how we get to determine what it says. I will address the two issues separately.

As for what it should say. I understand that you feel that Sassy's proposal says everything that YOU would like the Mission Statement to say. To be honest, it probably says everything that I would like it to say as well, if I only take my own interests into account. But I think that the Mission Statement needs to be as broadly reflective of our membership as possible, otherwise it has the effect of raising one group of members above other groups. I don't think that is either fair and appropriate. I don't participate in creative collaborations, either, but it is still a part of what board77 is about. I would be distressed if someone else said that what I was interested in should not be included; by the same token I don't think it is fair for me to dictate that things that I am not particularly interested in should not be included.

As for how to reach a decision on what the mission statement should be, there are two problems with what you propose. If, as you suggest, we offered a "detailed version" and a "stripped down version" to the membership. The result would be that the vote would be split in three between those who support the two choices and those who support neither. It would be virtually impossible to reach the 2/3 approval necessary for ratification.

But it would be even worse then that. You say you want a stripped down version that only included "Tolkien" and "good conversation". Someone else would say that it should only include "fantasy literature." Someone else would say that Tolkien absolutely should not be included because only a very small percentage of what we talk about is about Tolkien. So we'd then have to end up with four or five choices on the ballot, making the possibility of reaching the 2/3 majority (or even any majority) even more remote.

Voronwe_the_Faithful wrote:

In my opinion, we need to either stay the course with the procedure that we have agonizingly come up with, or give up altogether. If we start talking about offering multiple choices to the membership, we are going to end up with nothing at all.

Voronwe, we are staying the course with the procedure we have agonizingly come up with, thanks in large part to your unstinting generosity and strength of will.

However, in this instance we're talking about one unique aspect of the charter, different from all others because it is a brief conceptual statement without appendage or accoutrement.

I was reacting to the spontaneous, genuine reaction to Sass's statement. I have not seen that kind of reaction to any other statement. The other reactions are in the nature of hmmm, hroom, sounds ok, I could live with that category, let's just vote on something, well I suppose if we really need a mission statement ...

And I just thought, would it be so disastrous in the one instance where we are dealing with something so simple and yet vital, would it be so unworkable to offer the membership one alternative to what we come up with.

And if the answer is yes, so be it. I'm not going to argue about it. The last thing I wish to do is distress my esteemed committee members. I defer completely to those of you who have a better grasp of the practicalities of things.

I like Sassy's statement, but Voronwe is correct. There are many other statements we have liked. We've had opinions expressed from why bother to wanting something lengthy, Tolkien and no Tolkien, details of what we discuss and no detail... Not all of the possibilities can be addressed since to be reflective of just the discussion, not including all possibilities, the list of choices would be phenomenal. As Voronwe says, it would be impossible for one to win. If Faramond wanted to contribute his math skills, you would see that the number of possibilities is amazing.

We need a broad statement, but not one so broad we have no identity or so specific it applies to only a minority of us.

Jnyusa's approach to this is a practical way of guiding us through the choices. I hope we stick with it.

Please consider the suggestion withdrawn. I'm sorry to have disturbed the waters.

We know what kind of many-tentacled horror may be lurking beneath the surface.

When Sass came up with that statement I also wanted to hug her, and spent quite a bit of time trying to think of a way to incorporate that as is into our choices.

Voronwe, I know you don't want to hear this because you are taking flack from the membership about the speed of opening, but I have been wondering right along whether we would be able to complete the Mission Statement with only one vote by the committee and a ratification by the membership.

The committee needs right now, very badly, to clear some of these options from our desk. It is possible, using the above ballot, to opt for the Alatar basic by choosing only those phrases that are contained in it, or to opt for any jumped-up version of it.

What I would like to do is to clear our desk first - take a vote on the above ballot and see what our committee comes up with - whether it is a camel instead of a horse - but not decide yet to eliminate the Sass version or even the Alatar basic. Once we see three simple options in front of us that are no longer open to semantic reworking, discuss how this should be presented to the membership.

The Mission Statement is a different kind of thing from the Articles and if the committee as a whole decides that the members need to be given choices on this issue, then we should do so. There is nothing in the charter that says we can't, and it's not as if this is off the agenda.

I agree with Voronwe that it is inadvisable to give the membership more than two choices on a ratification vote because of needing 2/3 approval. We will never get ratification on a multiple choice vote, unless we handle it as an IRV. But I think that we need to discuss how it might be possible to get the membership involved in a choice here.

Before we vote on this ballot, I would like to get rid of some of those sentence 3 options. They are redundant - it would be nice to get it down to about 4 that express different concepts, so that the members are voting on which concept the consider important enough to either add as a statement or reiterate from the KP. Let me put in red the ones that I think stress different concepts, and see whether you agree.

Jn

edit: repeating here what I put in red on the previous page

• We aspire to maintain a culture of respect, equality and openness.
• We value a culture of openness, where trust leads to camaraderie and real fellowship
• We strive to assure all members of fair and respectful treatment by the community
• We aspire to widen our horizons by sharing information and experience.
• We share an appreciation for the beauty and power of language.

I fear we are getting deeper and deeper into a quagmire, but I will bow to the wishes of the committee.

Voronwe - it will be much easier to see what ratification alternatives we have once we get this giant mess off of our own desk.

I've got the choices in ballot form now ... why don't you email the committee members and tell them the voting will begin at midnight GMT tonight and they have until then to express themselves regarding different options for the third sentence.

Do you want me to post the ballot form here or send it to you by email. (The diff. between ballot form and what's on the previous page is that it has PLEASE SELECT/RANK and all the numbers etc. written in, which I did not bother doing on the previous page)

Jn

Quote:

once we get this giant mess off of our own desk

I'm all for that.

Voronwe - we need to vote on the key principles, too.

How do you want that ballot set up? And up/down vote on each principle? I thought I remembered you mentioning some semantic choices there, and we have not revisited that question.

Do you want to start two separate voting threads for these two issues? Or carry one of them in this thread?

(p.s. I've got the MS ballot numbered #30, so the KP ballot would be #31)

Jn

V. - at your request, I am posting the ballot form here. Please move it wherever you like, and start the vote to clear this issue at least whenever you feel the members have had enough time to review the third sentence choices.

BALLOT #30
This is an interim ballot to clear our desk of all the options offered by committee members. Once this vote is concluded, we will no longer make textual changes to the MS that the committee proposes to the membership but we will continue to discuss how all this will be presented to the members.

Introduction:
The Mission Statement can use one of two possible openings. In the first two questions, you would rank options within both openings. Then, when you have ranked your first choice for each possible opening, in Question 3 you will state which of these openings you prefer, and in Question 4 you will rank your choice for the text in blue.

QUESTION 1: IF the Mission statement opens with “democratically governed,” rank your choices among the following six options:

A1: Board77 is a democratically governed [internet/online/messageboard] community where members gather from around the world to cultivate friendships and engage in discussion. Our conversations cover any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

A2: Board77 is a democratically governed [internet/online/messageboard] community where members gather from around the world to cultivate friendships and engage in discussion. Our shared enthusiasm is the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, but we embrace any topic of interest to our members.

B1. Board77 is a democratically governed [internet/online/messageboard] community where members gather from around the world for lighthearted conversation, in-depth discussion, and creative collaboration. Our discourse covers any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

B2. Board77 is a democratically governed [internet/online/messageboard] community where members gather from around the world for lighthearted conversation, in-depth discussion, and creative collaboration. Our shared enthusiasm is the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, but we embrace any topic of interest to our members.

C. Board77 is a democratically governed [internet/online/messageboard] community where members gather from around the world to discuss any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

D. Board77 is a democratically governed [internet/online/messageboard] community where members gather from around the world to discuss a wide array of topics, such as Tolkien, philosophy, politics, and lighthearted chat.

PLEASE RANK YOUR CHOICES with #1 being most preferred:
#1=
#2=
#3=
#4=
#5=
#6=

QUESTION 2: IF the Mission statement opens with “international,” rank the following seven choices.

A1. B77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard]
community. We strive to provide democratically governed forums where members can cultivate friendships and engage in discussion. Our conversations cover any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

A2. B77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard]
community. We strive to provide democratically governed forums where members can cultivate friendships and engage in discussion. Our shared enthusiasm is the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, but we embrace any topic of interest to our members.

B1. B77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard] community. We strive to provide democratically governed forums where members can engage in lighthearted conversation, in-depth discussion, and creative collaboration. Our forums cover any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

B2. B77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard] community. We strive to provide democratically governed forums where members can engage in lighthearted conversation, in-depth discussion, and creative collaboration. Our shared enthusiasm is for the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, but we embrace any topic of interest to our members.

C. B77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard] community. We strive to provide democratically governed forums where members can discuss a wide array of topics, such as Tolkien, philosophy, politics, and enjoy lighthearted chat.

D. 77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard] community where members can cultivate friendships and engage in discussion. We are democratically governed by the members and for the members. Our conversations cover any topic of interest to our members, from current events and philosophy to fine arts and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

E. 77 is an international [internet/online/messageboard] community where members can cultivate friendships and engage in discussion. We are democratically governed by the members and for the members. Our shared enthusiasm is for the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, but we embrace any topic of interest to our members.

PLEASE RANK YOUR CHOICES with #1 being most preferred:
#1=
#2=
#3=
#4=
#5=
#6=
#7=

QUESTION 3: Do you most prefer the openings that begin with “democratic” or those that begin with “international”

PLEASE SELECT ONE:
A. Board77 is a democratically governed [...] community ...

B. Board77 is an international [...] community ...


QUESTION 4: Rank your choices for the text in blue

A. internet
B. online
C. messageboard

PLEASE RANK YOUR CHOICES with #1 being most preferred
#1=
#2=
#3=

QUESTION 5: Rank your choices for the third sentence, if any:

A. We aspire to maintain a culture of respect, equality and openness.

B. We value a culture of openness, where trust leads to camaraderie and real fellowship

C. We strive to assure all members of fair and respectful treatment by the community

D. We aspire to widen our horizons by sharing information and experience.

E. We share an appreciation for the beauty and power of language.

F. None of the above. No third sentence.

PLEASE RANK YOUR CHOICES with #1 being most preferred
#1=
#2=
#3=
#4=
#5=
#6=

Jn, I had already posted the form of a question for the KP (as well as the Goals) in the first post of this thread (along with my original question on the Mission Statement). It simply asks the committee members to approve or disapprove each KP. I think that is sufficient. I'm going to start a separate thread for this "interim vote". Then we can either do a separate vote for KP and Goals or combine them with a final vote on the MS.

Ok -

(1) the current form of the KP ballot in the first post does not allow us to vote on them individually. I don't know if it's necessary to do that at all ... in my opinion we could almost do the vote as a poll thread - up/down on the whole schmear.

(2) I thought we were going to postpone goals - move them to the end of the charter. We haven't discussed them at all, and there seems to be a consensus that we don't need to do that right now. They have no bearing on the opening of the board. And, actually, putting together our goals for the next year, let's say, is something that probably should get a good bit of discussion from committee and membership but it's not something we have to settle on right away.

Jn

Jn, the KP question does all for approving or disapproving the individual principles, since the second choice asks that the member list whichever principles she or he does not approve.

As for the Goals, as I said before, we need to say SOMETHING about goals, even if it is just to say that we decided not to include any goals at this time. Otherwise, sure as can be, someone will complain that one of the things that we said we would address before we opened would be goals, and so we can't open until we address them.

Jnyusa

Could I get your quick reaction to two things:

The attempt at combining language/trust in the third sentence. Is this worth pursuing?

We value a culture of openness, leading to trust and fellowship, as we value the beauty and power of language, which inspires our conversation (dialogue, writing, creativity -- trying to replace discourse, which I think is superior, we probably can't use conversation either, for the same reason we can't use discourse).



My explanation of my difficulty with 'Our shared enthusiasm is the writings...' and the suggestion of adding 'for'

Our shared enthusiasm is for the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, but we embrace

I'd really like to be able to consider that construct because of its succinctness, but I can't get past 'is the writings'.

Thanks.

Cerin - I did add the word "for" on the ballot options. I just haven't been going around correcting the text everywhere that it appears. Sorry, I should have noted that earlier when I did it per your suggestion.

I like the combination your propose for the third sentence, but I have to put it next to the others to see the continuum. Let me do that and then come back here.

Ach! "for" is still missing in Q2A2. Perhaps Voronwe will be kind enough to add it in the ballot thread because I can't get into that thread.

Jn

Will do.

I noticed a couple of problems with the ballot, after voting has started.

I believe Option C of Question 5 (the third sentences) has a grammatical (or semantic) error.

I believe the 'of' should be deleted, so that the sentence would read:

We strive to assure all members fair and respectful treatment, etc.

This would mean that we try to insure (guarantee) -- through our governance methods and by-laws -- that members receive fair and respectful treatment.

I think the current sentence means, we try to assure members that they will receive fair and respectful treatment (as in, 'don't worry, you'll be treated fairly'). I don't think that is what we mean.

I think the second thing I noticed doesn't qualify as an error, so perhaps there is no justification for changing it.

In the constructions using 'Our conversations cover any topic ..., that is A1 in Q1 and A1 in Q2 I believe it should read

'Our conversation covers any topic ...

I'm sorry I didn't notice these before. I guess reality is sinking in that something is actually going to appear to the public, and I hate the thought of it containing any clumsiness or error.