board77

Not a big deal, but probably better not to indulge in that kind of humor here. With as many smart-asses as we have here, things could devolve quickly.

Just my opinion, of course.

Allow me to make a final plug for my polling dissent idea.

I propose that the proposal will fail if 20% of the total board membership votes against it.

Not everyone on this board shares our enthusiasm for the Constitution. Not everyone will vote. In fact, given that anyone could join the convention, I’d guess that most people with a serious interest in the procedure are already here. Letting the rest of the board vote is a necessary step, but likely to not be a major one. Even so, it could fail. A good Constitution, liked by all who behold it, could still fail.

Apathy. It is unavoidable. A 50% quorum requires something in the vicinity of sixty votes. A 75% quorum requires close to ninety. Board77 is not a major part of everyone’s life. Some post in a couple of threads only, some come only occasionally. Not everyone follows or cares about ‘board politics’. Some people simply ignore announcements. Our Constitution could fail simply because people do not vote.

Also, let’s consider a person who doesn’t vote. They could simply be uniformed, but more likely, I think it means that they are happy to let others handle everything. In other words, they will accept whatever the committee comes up with and the board in general votes on. A system in which a quorum and a large majority is used assumes the opposite; that someone who does not vote will not approve of what the convention produces. This, to me, does not make sense.

My system overcomes both these problems.

The votes cannot fail because people do not vote. If no-one votes, we win. People who do not have an interest in the process are assumed to trust the convention and the other board members. The convention is trusted to produce a good result, and someone who didn’t vote or didn’t even look at the threads can’t complain afterwards; they had every opportunity to do so during the process. It leaves us with the high moral ground, and gives us the best chance of passing the Constitution that we are about to put weeks and a lot of effort into writing. Remember, anyone could join in the convention. It is a simple, practical and safe procedure.

Alright V, I won't follow my odd sense of humour around anymore in this constitutional convention thread.


Good argument, LM, even though I still don't agree with it. I think there's still time for Jn to amend the ballot.

I did amend the ballot ... hours and hours ago.


Jbtw, I'll send an email out to everyone tonight asking them to look at the ballot tomorrow so that we can start the voting tomorrow night (that would be early, early Thursday morning in Europe.)

Jn

Tonight? What time is it there now? It's about 4pm on Wednesday here (Australian Eastern Standard Time).

Time zones could prove a nuisance...

Well, I'll try to make sure it's a full 24 hours, so that the time zone it happens to be in doesn't matter. I intended to do it earlier and got sidetracked. It's now tomorrow here so .... I'd better get cracking!

Jn

I just want to say thanks to Faramond. Without that detailed explanation my head would have gone into warp
Jny I fear your geekiness has rubbed off. I'm actually looking forward to trying this out. - got your emails

Nothing further to add from me till we proceed. Just cracking my knuckles and hoping I'll be able to keep everything straight
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Resident witch

Could we ask the memberships who wants voteing rights? Just a straight forward e-mail saying if you want to participate, we need you to agree to vote. If you don't you wont be part of this constitution, but we will still expect you to agree with it, and uphold anything in it, and face the consiquences of abusing it?

I can see the hge flaws in this, but it would at least give us a ball park figure tio play with on who is actually going to be part of the vote.

I see it as the duty of every citizen to vote. It bugs me even that here in the UK you don't have to go to the polls. I want to see properly enforced fines for people who won't do their civic duty, dammit!

In a B77 context, however, I think it should suffice to send an email out to the membership to tell them there's an important vote about the future of the board, and to insist that silence is not acceptable and that for a vote to be valid individuals need to hit a respectable turn out level.


Anyway, I'm just checking in to say that I'm all caught up; to complain that you do all your discussion overnight and never during my working day; and to stress that any votes we hold in here (I love the IRV idea BTW) do run for 24 hours. And if it's over the weekend, please will someone text/phone me and tell me to get my arse in here, as we're often too busy to think to turn on the computer.

The ballot looks fine to me, but I am as ever willing to defer to people more experienced in voting systems than I am!

Din - sorry but that is not necessary right now. Right now only the panel will vote on the issue and obviously, having volunteered ALL panel members need to vote according to the system (instant run-off) that Jny has proposed. When ALL the votes are in from the panel members Jny and I (and someone else if it's wished) will add them up and compare our results... unless of course there are any major objections to this proposed IRV system. Jny has sent out an email alert to everybody on the panel and the timelimit of 'objection to the proposed IRV' is 24 hours.

As to which members (the B77 members at large) want, or are being given voting rights, well, I think that needs to be discussed further down the agenda when we get to members rights, duties, code of conduct etc. Right now I don't think this is relevant. There was a suggestion on the table to possibly created different levels of membership... but we'll get to that in good time For the time being I think we pretty much have an agreeement (though not final yet) amongst the panel members that all members as of 1st April currently have voting rights. Wether they excercise that or not - well, no-one can force them. All we CAN do is make sure people are informed, and to that effect it has been suggested that a general email alert will go out to the membership once the first voting thread on constitutional matters goes up to the public.

[edit for Leoba snuck in here just before me - no worries, I'll text ya ; besides I have a hunch that Jny will send out email alerts again if it comes down to another 24h get your butts in gear type of thing ]

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Resident witch

Alandriel wrote:

Din - sorry but that is not necessary right now. Right now only the panel will vote on the issue and obviously, having volunteered ALL panel members need to vote according to the system (instant run-off) that Jny has proposed.

I know . It was an idea for later when we take this to the populous.

In Australia I believe there's a small fine for not voting. Just enough to be annoying, not to be debilitating.

We can't do that here, for better or worse. But we can remind people that they get the board they deserve.

I too am caught up.
I would like to take this last opportunity to plead for simplicity, efficiency and getting this in place as soon as possible.
Ok I am ready to vote.

For down the road a bit, I think we should PM all members when the time comes to vote, in order to alert them. Posting a sticky will not ensure all will read it. A PM is much more likely to be read. Whether people vote or not, is up to them.

Perhaps we could have some sort of straw poll to get an idea of how many members will actually vote on this constitution?

A straw poll sounds like a good idea. I vote we put it to the vote whether to have a straw poll.

(slaps Lidless sensible)

Is it possible to broadcast PMs?

So far as I know it is not, Ax. An email would be much easier and more practical then PM each and every member separately. Lets give poor Jn and Viv a break.

*joins Ax in slapping lidless*

There is an option I think to mass email members from the admin panel. That ought to be pretty painless.

Is there a set time for the beginning of this vote? (Greenwich time)

<slaps Lidless for good measure>

Voronwë, the reason I suggested a PM, is because there is a method to send a PM to all members. All you have to do is write one PM. I figured that would be the easiest thing to do.
When I suggested a straw poll, I meant voting for the type of straws we use to stir things up.

I went to look at the email I sent and it doesn't have a time signature on it, but I know that I sent it out between midnight and 1:00 am Eastern Standard Time last night (this morning).

So between midnight and 1:00 am tonight (tomorrow morning) I will post here that the voting can begin.

I thought we were going to vote in the thread. Can't everyone just paste the ballot into their post? I will repeat the ballot in the first or second post of this thread to make it easy to find.

Jn