[Theforum] Re: voting

[Madhu Menon]

At 09:42 AM 1/30/2002, isaac wrote:
>But more like: "Go with current results, but can we also look at notifying
>people privately (as well as on the public list), and having a minimum
>duration for acceptance of votes."

Both very reasonable points.

a) Notifying people: Probably for the first time, we've logged the
discussion and the vote all in the same place in a public location. That's
the wiki. This saves people the hassle of looking up archives (trying to
find the email which has a vote's results can be painful - try it). Martin
not only logged the vote result, but also some key issues (e.g., Matt's
email, which many people felt explained the decision properly)

b) Minimum duration: At *least* 48 hours, unless the vote is on a Friday,
in which it should take longer. Different countries, time zones, etc.

I also suggest we prefix emails calling for a vote with something like
"Vote: " or "[Vote]" while sending them out so these emails are easy to
filter. Allows people joining in late to view the discussion in one piece.
It also lets people who are pretty busy at the time (and therefore skim
over messages) to read important messages like a vote issue first.

About percentages for voting: The problem with any kind of minimum vote is
that the "electorate" numbers keep fluctuating as people join (or leave -
has this happened yet?) theforum. Out of the 69 members, not everyone is
active (and by active, I mean not dormant). What if 39 people don't vote at
all? And out of the remaining 30, 75% vote "+1" to a vote? We have to work
around these limitations.

In India, for example, amendments to the constitution have to be voted in
by a) A simple majority of the parliament members (>50%) and ALSO at least
2/3 of the members present and voting.

Now, getting simple majority itself can be difficult. On the other hand,
deciding on something major (like, ahem, IRC policy) when only 5 people
have voted won't work either.

IMO, we need to have a system where:

1) We have a minimum number of votes that must be cast before a decision is
taken. Since our numbers aren't constant, I propose we have a percentage of
the total members as this threshold, say, 25% (example only). So if we have
60 members today, we need at least 15 votes before a +/- 1 decision can be
considered binding.

2) Out of the votes cast, we need a majority for a decision. Now, should we
make that majority >50% or something like 67% (2/3)? IMHO, we need a
convincing majority. So at least 2/3 should be required.

What really concerns me is the number of people who don't vote at all. At
this time, theforum has 69 members (
http://lists.evolt.org/mailman/roster/theforum ). If you look at the email
addresses, you immediately recognise some of them. There are others,
however, who have never come out of lurk mode.

Now, lurkers don't bother me on a list like thelist. But since this is a
forum for active debate *and* decision making, how are we going to get
things done if people don't vote? My point is that if we keep waiting for a
majority among these 69 members, we may end up waiting on most votes. The
maximum number of votes (positive and negative both) on any issue to date
on theforum (IIRC) has been 23 votes. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.)
That means more than 50% of people didn't even vote.

What do we do for this problem? Something drastic like taking away a
person's voting right if he or she hasn't voted (unless he or she
explicitly abstained) even once in the last three votes on theforum? Or
something else? If theforum is "your chance to guide the community you
love", people should be doing some guiding, damn it. ;)

Regards,

Madhu
PS: If this message seems to be somewhat disjointed, I apologise. It was
written in parts. I've got guests at home, see.

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Madhu Menon
User Experience Consultant
e-mail: webguru at vsnl.net