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Is there a ranger who can tell us the number of users who were active in the last 30, 60, and 90 days and the number of users at the beginning of each of those periods?

According to Hobby, yes, they can do this. Shall we give it a try and see what the numbers are?

Jn

Just an early morning/late night thought or two. . .

Quote:

• how frequently can you revote on the same issue?

Six months to a year in between votes. Perhaps I'm being pessimistic or unrealistic, but I don't like the idea of one small group of people bringing up the same issue over and over and over again, only to have it defeated every time. Perhaps there should be a limit to how many times something can be brought up? For example, only twice every two years.

Regarding the quorom, it seems like for a binding vote the quorum should be perhaps 50% of members active within a given period of time, say, the last three weeks. 30% (that's our current quorum, ja?) just doesn't seem adequate for something that's binding.

Mossy, I'm thinking that for revisiting a proposition a second time, 3 months is probably sufficient because things change very fast on a messageboard. But if a proposition has been defeated twice, then I agree with you that the wait should be lengthy ... at least six months or more so that we wouldn't have to defeat the same proposition more than twice in one year.

Regarding the quorum, could some kindly Ranger try to pull a number for us so that we can see if that works: # of posters who have posted in the last 30 days, for example.

Jn

OK, I'm going to try to assemble whatever agreement we may have reached on this.

I am working from the premise that some one(s) need to be in charge of this voting process, and that this would be a committee for which any member might volunteer.

Idylle: You made four points originally.

1. There should be a normal voting cycle, e.g. votes are always held on the first Friday of the month, so that members know when to look for them.
2. The Mayor should have to power to override the normal voting cycle and bring pressing issues to a vote on his/her own initiative or at the prompting of the members
3. Members should be able to request a vote on any issue - crucial to a democracy.
4. There should be a formal acceptance period prior to the vote in which the issue is discussed and ballot wording is resolved.

You were ambivalent about the revoting issue.

Mossy, Prim, and Voronwe: you all agreed on two points:
1. There has to be some expression of support from the membership for holding a vote on that issue - not just one person's whim
2. There should be a time limit before a revote can be held. Mossy suggests six months to a year, nor more than two in two years; Jnyusa suggests 3 months for a second vote, no more than two in one year.

Idylle: In response to my first draft, you disliked the amount of discretion given to the commitee.
1. Committee should not decide wording independent of the members bringing the initiative
2. Committee should not decide what percentages will be used to determine a win.
3. But we agree that the same percentage cannot be used for all voting forms.

Regarding a quorum, both Hobby and Voronwe tell me that it is possible to determine how many members have been active within a particular time frame.
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We have only suggested a composition for this committee in the thread on Standing Committees - a loremaster, a current ranger, a former ranger, and two other members. The loremaster and rangers are there to assure that the vote does not violate the Charter.

Possible Compromise #1: We can widen this commitee, eliminate a ranger perhaps, and say that the members bringing the initiative will also be on the committee. That way they will have a say in the ballot wording and the voting form used and can argue whether their proposition is sufficiently different from some other proposition to justify a new vote.

If they are on the committee, they will also count the vote. Or, we can exclude them from counting the vote ... but there is always more than one person counting a vote so this may be inconsequential.

Possible Compromise #2: We can specify the winning percentages for each form of vote. Off the top of my head ....
POLL: cannot be less than 51%
IRV: cannot be more than 51%
Aggregated: must be more than 51%

Using those boundaries, we can decide on percentages and then the committee cannot guarantee a win or a loss by jiggling percentages.

Another Question: In the first draft, was the following threshold acceptable to you or not? If not, please state your preferred alternatives:

A request from the Mayor, or from two current administrators, or from five registered members regardless of status will be sufficient to convene the Committee on Binding Votes.

Another Question: Do you agree with Idylle that there should be a normal voting cycle and only extraordinary issues would be voted on at a different time?

Another Question: Do you like the idea of specifying a quorum as a percentage of active members during a particular time period? Farawen long ago suggested a percentage active within the last two months. Mossy suggests 50% active within the last three weeks. Faramond generally was unhappy with how weak our ratification quorum was and wanted tougher requirements.

Jn

Compromise 1

This is much better and I can agree to it.

Compromise 2

I agree with the idea, but I'm not sure about the numbers.

Question 1

OK

Question 2

Of course.

Question 3

Well, we have days weeks fortnights and months. I prefer 50% of the active posters in the prior month. It would be nice to have some clue about the current ratio.

Re #2 - those are limits rather than specifications.

POLL: cannot be less than 51% - but we can set it higher.

IRV: cannot be more than 51% - only because multiple choices do not often whittle down to more than 51% unless there was virtual consensus to begin with. They are designed to funnel plurality into simple majority, not to produce supermajorities. The alternative to IRV would be multiple choice with plurality winning and that, I think, is less desirable.

Aggregated: must be more than 51% - we have done this kind of vote twice, using 67% and 80%. There seems to be agreement that more than 51% is needed.

Jn

p.s. the question about current ratio has been asked several times now. I will PM a Ranger tomorrow and try to get an answer.

I like both compromises.

Jn, perhaps a Draft Ballot on this would be possible at this point, and would help move the discussion to a conclusion.

Voronwe - I agree.

But could you or another Ranger please do the experiment and post here how many of our current members have been active during the past 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

I think we really need to see what form that information takes before considering quorum options.

Jn

I quite like compromise #1.

Compromise #2 would be all right, but also uncertain of the numbers.

Question #1 & #2: That's fine.

Question #3: Yes. And I agree with Faramond that our ratification quorum needs to be larger.

Quote:

But could you or another Ranger please do the experiment and post here how many of our current members have been active during the past 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

Okay. These figures are not quite accurate because I have not gone through the list of RP ID's and eliminated them from the count

Total Active Today (July 1, 2005): 92
Total Active Yesterday or Today: 118
Total Active during the past 5 days: 139
Total Active during the past 30 days: 175
Total Active during the past 60 days: 183
Total Active during the past 90 days: 192
Total Active some time: 203
Total Members: 213

Excellent! Thank you, Voronwe.

And about ten of those are RP characters, and there's Administrator and Mayor which are both 'extras' ... s0 192 in the past 90 days is almost 100% of our total membership.

And on any given day, about 90 members are active, which is roughly half the number that are active in a 60-90 day period. So may 50% of members active over the past 60 days is a very good count for a quorum.

Interesting that this is precisely the formulation Farawen proposed without having any data in front of her.

Jn

First of all, some of those 192 members active in the past ninety days are RP characters. I'd say its closer to 90% of our total membership being active in the past 90 days then to 100%.

I think 50% of the membership active for the past 60 days is much too high. Even figuring in for RP members, that would give us a quorum right now that is probably more then twice as big as the 39 person that we have been using. I think there is a very great chance that we would not be able to reach such a quorum on must votes.

90 days? Or a lower quorum number? Maybe I should put a couple choices up and people will simply make a decision?

30% over the past 30 days
30% over the past 60 days
50% over the past 60 days
30% over the past 90 days
50% over the past 90 days

Would anyone prefer a different choice?

Btw, I'm going to start working on a ballot now and will put different options into the ballot, but it will be a draft so there will still be opportunity to ask for more choices.

Jn

I've put a draft ballot at the top of the first post, trying to incorporation all the alternatives discussed here.

This one was a witch, friends. Please read it carefully for necessary modification.

Jn

You surely put a spell on that one. Looks to me one fine ballot

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Resident witchâ„¢

That's quite a ballot, Jn.

My only comment is regarding Questions 14 and particularly 15. I can imagine some situations where different percentages are appropriate for poll votes, particularly aggregate poll votes. The 80% was appropriate for the when to open poll, and 66.7% would have been too low. But the 66.7% was appropriate (IMO) for the second Article 6 vote, and 80% would have been too high. So I would like an option added to Question 14 to the effect of "C. The committee will choose whether 51% or 67% is appropriate for this vote." And I would like an option added to Question 15 to the effect of "C. The committee will choose whether 67% or 80% is appropriate for this vote."

As for Question 16, as far as I am concerned, the only reasonable percentage to be required in an IRV is 51%, so I don't have any desire to see a similar choice added to that question.

Thanks for all of your great (and hard) work on this.

Looks good.

One small thing:

In question one, it says

Quote:

Voting is conducted by the standing Committee for Binding Votes.

This rather sounds like the committee is doing the only voting. Perhaps it could be clarified that the comittee votes on whether to open a vote to the membership? That is what it means, right?

Voronwe - I will definitely add those choices to those two questions. That was the formulation, btw, that Idylle objected to so strongly, but it is a real dilemma for me because I do think that different percentage might be appropriate for different votes.

Perhaps it will not be so objectionable now that we have the originating members on the committee (that was compromise #1), which will prevent the committee from diddling percentages to scuttle the vote.

Anth: This rather sounds like the committee is doing the only voting. Perhaps it could be clarified that the comittee votes on whether to open a vote to the membership? That is what it means, right?

Um, that's not exactly what it means. The committee will only vote (take straw poll) on whether to hold the vote if there is disagreement over its similarity to another recent vote. Generally, if mayor, two Rangers, or five member requested the vote, the vote would simply be held.

It's the committee's job to pull everything together - put up the announcement, write the ballot, count the votes, etc. That's what I meant by "conduct." If I change it to - "The voting is organized by the standing commitee..." would that be more clear?

Jn

Jnyusa wrote:

Anth: This rather sounds like the committee is doing the only voting. Perhaps it could be clarified that the comittee votes on whether to open a vote to the membership? That is what it means, right?

Um, that's not exactly what it means. The committee will only vote (take straw poll) on whether to hold the vote if there is disagreement over its similarity to another recent vote. Generally, if mayor, two Rangers, or five member requested the vote, the vote would simply be held.

It's the committee's job to pull everything together - put up the announcement, write the ballot, count the votes, etc. That's what I meant by "conduct." If I change it to - "The voting is organized by the standing commitee..." would that be more clear?

Nevermind, it's fine. I must have misread "conduct" as something else Thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood. I suppose that's what I get for trying to read convention stuff right after I wake up.