This item is a marker to start the calendar ticking on a proposal to require a delay of several months between member re-votes on the same issue. I'm hoping that someone else will draft the language, since I'm kind of busy right now.79 responses total.
I propose that no member may bring to a vote any proposal that accomplishes substantially the same objective as a previous proposal until at least 6 months after the end of voting on the previous proposal.
I would like to suggest that discretion be given the voteadm, subject to review by the board in the event of complaint, to determine whether or not to bring to a vote any proposal the voteadm considers to have been made either with spurious intent or without reasonable expectation of effecting change that would be supported by the majority of likely voters on the issue.
While I understand the sentiment behind this, I'm not wild about it, I must say. How about "no more frequently than once per quarter", which is essentially 3 months.
Hrm, how about some guidelines for "reasonable expectation of effecting change that would........" Replace that with a "supermajority" rule of thumb. Like "any proposal that won or lost with a margin of more than 60%".
I think it would be more in keeping with Grex tradition and style to give discretion with oversight rather than fix a hard limit in stone. Besides, if we go with discretion, we don't have to define precisely what is subject to the delay and what isn't. That avoids one path to madness...
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No. What failed was communication. The discretionary system worked just like it is supposed to.
I like other's idea of giving discretion to the voteadm. THis needs to be a bylaw amendment, since voting procedures are covered in the bylaws.
This proposal is an absurd attempt to limit free speech, and I hope someone does something to stop it.
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Here's my suggestion for wording the proposal. I actually thought about entering this over the weekend, but decided to give Jamie a chance not to do what he did. Oh well. Proposal: the following paragraph should be added to Article 5 of the CYberspace Communications bylaws: d. If, in the opinion of the vote administrator, a proposed motion is substantially the same as a motion the membership has already voted on within the preceeding 6 months, the vote administrator may decline to bring the motion to a vote. The proposer of the item may appeal the vote administrator's decision to the Board of Directors. The Board's decision is final.
Not necessarily so! If it is the will of Landrew, I mean the grex founders, and current baff, that there be no hard & fast policies, that discretion rules the day (carried out by overworked and underpaid grex volunteers), AND that the "policy" of "no policies" is clearly communicated to grexers, then I have no problems with running this "computer club" that way. "Buyer beware". I just hope that running with no policies is acceptable for a state non-profit corporation or whatever...
Don't you think it'll be more of a pain in the ass to go through a bigfat appeals process than to just vote the repeats down?
Or how about a different approach? Do not limit the *frequency* at which a proposal may appear - just limit who may propose it. That would mean that jp2 could not repeat his proposal, but if he could get another member to do so, then so be it.
No, I don't think that works at all. I'd much rather have the issue be the standard, not the person.
There's a certain appeal to that idea. Keeping in mind that motions must be made by members in order to be voted upon, why not simply restrict the same member from posting the same proposal, or one with substantially identical purpose and effect, more than one consecutive time within the same 6-month period?
Colleen slipped in.
Is "voteadm" an official position, appointed by the Board? Are there term limits, same as the treasurer and Board members and such? It seems to me that remmers has always been the voteadm, and that he has the position because he wrote the voting software. Is "voteadm" a staff position, an administrative one, or what? I certainly don't mean to imply anything against John Remmers, but I think the questions are relevant to the proposal.
Something else that's relevent to the proposal is the conspiracy underway to
pass it.
I recently received a copy of a transcript of a conversation held between its
proposer and Society of Members of Old GreX member John Remmers:
krj: Hopefully I am creating the conditions so that my still-vague
proposal gets voted on in the same time period as Jamie 2.0
This indicates a concerted effort to trick users into passing his proposal,
not because it's good and wholesome (fibrous and thus easier to pass), but
because, he thinks, GreXists don't like jp2. remmers (user remmers) not only
agreed with this strategy, but, look at this:
remmers: The main effect is likely to be passage of your proposal. ;)
gave a wink (and, assuredly, a nod) to suggest that he would do almost
anything to see the proposal pass.
Why does the membership of New GreX stand for this nonsense?
Dang, I lost another lengthy posting; eaten by Backtalk. Briefly, it seems to me the least intrusive thing to do would be to allow a super-majority of the Board (5, 6 or 7 of 7) to dismiss a user proposal, if they think it was intended as harrassment.
#21 sounds reasonable and simple...
1) What's harrassment? Is Jamie's proposal 2.0 harrassment, or just an
unwillingness to concede defeat?
2) Board meetings, on a monthly cycle, don't necessary align with our
online voting cycle.
the board could be permitted to agree online or by email and thereby dispense with any vote that meets some minimum requirement of similarity with a prior proposal which failed by a substantial margin. Still some definition required, but reasonable wiggle room to not be pinned to specific lines in the sand.
As demonstrated by 20, krj's proposal is the only one intended as harrassment.
re resp:23: On-line voting can be done. Or the president can collect votes by phone call, subject to confirmation by the Board members at the next meeting.
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Without use of his right hand!
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What about the parts where remmers and krj conspire to force the thing through at all costs?! DIDN"T ANYOEN READ THEM!?
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So is constipation, per response #30.
I like the vote admin discretion, with supermajority board override.
Has anyone made a proposal yet that if a psychotic person with root access, but no specific authority, destroys any posts and/or items those posts/items must be automatically restored while discussion is pending?
No, because we don't think it necessary.
There is a fundamental principle here: If you don't trust the system's administrators, don't use the system. Rules can be broken. No amount of rules will prevent the rules being broken.
Wait; what if a psychotic system administrator goes on a rampage deleting files and crashing the system, then subsequently resigns from staff. Are we still bound by what she...I mean, 'the person' did when they were still 'on staff' ?
Yes, that has been made *QUITE* clear, thank you. And let me also add that if for any reason I choose to continue to vist and/or post here, I *WILL* be making copious copies for parody or whatever other reasons I may decide. Feel free to spread that around. I mean, it wouldn't do to have the val-types coming back a *second* time whining about how no one warned them about us mnet meanies. Ooops; if you did that wouldn't you "chill" the speech of your social misfits? Wow, tough choice. Oh well, sucks to be you. Ya'll may think you won a battle, but you lost a much larger war.
<naftee snuck>
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: You should spend less time screaming and more time thinking, cyklone. Take the time to READ what _I've_ said here, in all of the items on the subject, and think about the totality of its meaning, and see if you don't agree with me: You really should spend less time screaming and more time thinking.
Right, he should think about the community! The users! The totalitarianists! The vandals!
Re #40: And if you think #38 was a "scream" you need to take the time to try to understand what you are reading. Here's a hint: even though you and I do agree on some things, when you see "ya'll" in something I've written that means it's directed at grex as a whole, not at you. Capiche?
Yeah, I understand the plural nature of "y'all" (e'en if Lewis Grizzard disagreed. :) However, #38 was a direct response to me, as you noted when pointing out that naftee slipped in.
SHEEESH. Do you know the difference between commenting on the *thoughts* in a post as compared to the *poster*? Trust me, I know who I directed #39 toward, and if it only "reaches" you then I will be sorely disappointed.
I tend to identify with my thoughts. I'd really rather that item authors be allowed to remove their items, including any responses that others might have made. But I don't think that is going to happen. I've made a proposal to prevent it, even. Why not work to have the proposal I've made pass? Why continue the histrionics? Or do you really think it's helping?
I'm leaning towards aruba's wording in resp:12 for the implementation of my proposal.
re38: dude, people DID make copies.
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You're interested in little boys?!
Instead of involving voteadm and the board in whether a proposal is
"voteable" or not, I'd prefer a process that leaves control of that
in the hands of the members themselves. How about something like
this, added to the bylaw on member proposals:
In order for a member proposal to be voted on, at least
10% of the membership must endorse bringing the proposal to
a vote. Endorsement shall consist of a statement by the
member in the proposal item, agreeing that the proposal
should be voted on. A member may withdraw his or her
endorsement at any time prior to the start of voting.
This is an online analog of the petitions required by various
states to get issues on the ballot.
I mean, voteadm might think that something shouldn't be voted on,
or the board might think that something shouldn't be voted on, but
if 10% of the members think it should, then it probably should.
On the other hand, if the proposer can't even get 10% of the
membership to agree that it should be voted on, it probably
shouldn't.
The sentence about withdrawing endorsement covers the case where
a member likes the first version of the proposal but not the
final wording.
Excellent suggestion, remmers! I endorse it fully. (As presently phrased.)
Do we know that ten per cent of the membership regularly reads the coop conference?Also, this seems to diverge from Grex's tradition of giving privacy to voters; might a vote to agree to vote on an issue, however subtly, be considered giving support to the proposal?! These and other issues are what Grex needs to think about.
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I like that too - thanks remmers. To jep - I don't know that voteadm has any "official" status, so that was a problem with the way I worded it, you're right. John's idea is a better one.
How do we determine "membership"? At least one member does not seem to use the loginid which possesses the membership.
I really like remmer's idea in resp:50. resp:55 I think we can work through that. Either we can require that the endorsement come from the login id that has the membership or we can accept it if someone (say a staff member) vouches for the loginid which doesnt possess the membership.
I like the idea in resp:50. Re resp:52: Think of it as signing a petition. By definition it's a public process. This doesn't conflict with the eventual vote being a secret ballot; it's perfectly legitimate to sign a petition that you eventually vote against. Re resp:55: I would say that any member who wished to endorse a petition would have to do so as the loginid that holds the membership. It's not exactly a big hardship.
The treasurer can tell which login ids are current members. The treasurer can also tell if a current participant has a login id that holds the membership that is different from the login id that they are using in this conference. If a member wants the "pseudo" login endoresement to count, the member sends an email to the treasurer saying "Hi, I'd like the endoresement I entered in coop as pseudoid to count as my member endorsement". As long as this email comes from the Grex memberid account, we should be fine. the only caveat is that some people are creating accounts that look to be attempts to mislead people. For example there is a new account, va1erie, that on first glance might be valerie. I doubt that it's really Valerie Mates who created the "va1erie" account, since I noticed a posting from the misleading account that didn't sound at all like Valerie. The treasurer would just have to be awake at the switch.
Gull slipped in. I don't think gulls opinion about whether its a hardship or not should be binding on the member who wants to maintain a separate identity for membership. Let each member make up their own mind.
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Yeah, it's not a big deal to connect people with memberships.
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Let's take remmers' idea out for a spin, shall we? How many members would have given endorsement to jp2's and jep's proposals? I would have endorsed jp2's proposal. I'm not sure I would have endorsed jep's - not because I was against it, but because I considered item restoration to be covered by jp2's proposal, and saw no reason for special treatment of jep's items. Other members?
I would have endorsed jp2's proposal the first time, and voted against it. I would not have endorsed jep's proposal the first time, and I voted against it as well.
I would have endorsed both proposals and would have voted against both of them. I wouldnt endorse jp2's most recent proposal.
I'd like to back remmer's idea; it's both a low enough percentage to get backing for a proposal and likely high enough to screen some things that might count just as noise.
P.S. No need to indicate how you would have, did, or would *vote* on the proposals (unless you want to). Just trying to gauge whether or not you would have *endorsed* the proposals, i.e. supported being allowed to be taken to a vote.
I see two problems with the concept of an endorsement threshhold. First, an endorsement threshhold does little to address my prime concern, that an election settle an issue, at least for a good period of time. Jamie's proposal got about 20% support from the membership, and that level of support would (hypothetically) allow the proposal be brought up again, again again, constantly. Second, Grex has in the past been very proud that it allows any single member to bring an issue to a vote, and I'm not enthusiastic about moving away from that. Feel free to try to convince me.
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Ken - it sounds to me like a lot of the people who voted for Jamie's proposal the first time don't want it brought to a vote the second time. So I think your first objection will take care of itself. If we had a group of 9 or more members who not only disagreed with policy but also wanted to be relentless about it, then yeah, we'd vote on the same thing over and over again. I suppose if that happens, we can try something else.
Most systems of parliamentary rules require that a motion at least be seconded before being voted on. I don't see a problem with requiring some minimal show of support before bringing an issue to a membership vote.
Re resp:69: I think the odds of it getting endorsed would fall rapidly with each iteration, as people lost interest. Under the current system, this doesn't matter; even if his proposal gets zero votes next time he puts it to a vote, he can still keep forcing it to a vote over and over. I would have endorsed both jp2 and jep's original proposals. I would not endorse jp2's second attempt.
The anonymous web reading votes were much closer to 50-50 to start. The revotes were, IIRC, tweaks that finally made the policy acceptable to a majority of members.
Yes.
I'm inclined to let this proposal die and defer to remmers' item:122.
Let that proposal die, and GreX will too.
let it die.
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
You have several choices: