Gang,

Another thread is getting sidetracked by the issue of whether "Abstain" counts as a vote for purposes of the 2/3 calculation.

I am moving those posts to this thread and that discussion can continue here.

William

Discussion Thread: Talkboard Voting
 

While it did not impact on this particular motion, there seems to be a misunderstanding among TalkBoard members as to what is required for a vote to pass.


The rules for what is needed to pass a motion were changed in 2005, as shown in the below motion. It doesn't matter if TalkBoard doesn't have a full complement of members, if one or more of those members doesn't bother voting, or if one or more abstains.

In any of those cases their votes simply do not count.

lucky9876coins' count was wrong. The vote was not defeated 44%, 44%, 11%. It was defeated 50%-50%. It requires 2/3rds of those who voted to be in favor -- and abstaining does not count as voting.

Theoretically, there could be 4 abstaining, 4 not bothering to vote, and only 1 membere in favor and the measure would pass 1-0.

Here is the motion which determined that:

but the 2005 vote would be superceded by the publication of TB rules last year - and I don't recall that vote forming part of the new rules (in part because I think but am not sure) that it might have been changed again.

The actual section from the TB guidelines is:
That to me would indicate that if someone abstained, they were participating. If someone didn't vote, they didn't participate.

(Was there a later change which amended the 2005 rule? ISTR there was, but could also be making it up entirely - certainly would have happened before I was on TB, so that leaves a small window, and I could be making it up!).

The entire point of the 2005 motion was that an abstention meant a TB member was not participating. I believe that a specific motion, overruling that decision, would have to be passed to change that.

In this case, it did not matter but if some members of TB believe that abstention is considered participating, then I very strongly urge it to have a vote on the issue -- before an abstaining vote means that some future motion did or did not pass.

I'm confused.

To "abstain" is to abstain from voting. I.e., to not vote. If you don't vote, then you haven't "participated" in a vote -- you've simply failed to vote. An "abstention" is not some third kind of vote; it's not to vote at all.

Some of the confusion, istm, comes from somehow thinking that an "abstention" is in fact a vote of some sort -- but that would be an oxymoron: a vote which is not a vote.

That is what TalkBoard decided in 2005. As far as I know, it is still the rule. However, there seems to be some disagreement as witness the two posts from TB members that I quoted.

The worst possible situation is to have this still be a matter of debate when an abstention determines a contentious issue. If some TB members disagree with you (and me) they should settle the question now.

In case of disagreement on the intepretation of the rules, then Roberts applies and the TB President has the final say on what the rules mean.

Give koko his due, he did his damndest to cover all bases - including where TB members start to argue over the meaning of the word 'is' ;)

And since the TB guidelines of 2008 override the 2005 motion, they are the only arbiter of how votes are counted. It really doesn't matter what was decided in 2005, if the wording from that motion was not included in the guidelines of 2008 - which it wasn't.

But then you have our system, where someone can be voted off TB if they don't participate in 3 consecutive votes. And an abstention is not counted as non-participation under TB rules. Failure to vote is non-participation. That's why we have an abstention option - so that you can tell the difference between those who didn't vote and those who chose not to cast a vote for yay or nay.

But as I said, the fact we are disagreeing on it is immaterial - if TB can't agree, then off to Roberts, if Roberts is unclear, the TB President rules.

I see your point, but it seems to me that the TB rules just unnecessarily muddy things by using a word (to abstain) that doesn't mean what it says.

The same "participation" effect could be achieved by allowing someone to vote "present," as is widely done in other systems.

If we have to argue about fineprint of TB regulations the whole purpose is lost and forfeited IMHO. :o

No it wouldn't. It'd be an explanation by the mod who brought it up in the first place. It's not a discussion of the closing - it's a discussion of the member actions. How are members supposed to know what terrible thing happened that caused the closure of a thread so they don't repeat it again. ;)

And speaking in general terms, not in specifics, if mods of a forum were to come to TalkBoard to ask for a new subforum or forum "regulations", in order to protect a single thread that they may closed down at their leisure without a valid explanation, I, as a TB member, would be less likely to seriously consider their requests on the principle that it's not best for FlyerTalk if something that is designed for the community isn't being managed in the best interest of the community. If a forum mod is using the fact they have to moderate a thread & that's part of the reason why a new forum is needed, I just don't see that as a valid argument and view it as potentially poor moderation (although I can't 100% stand by that as I don't know all the facts).

Agreed. ^ To select "Abstain" from a vote is still participating in the vote because they selected either "Yes", "No", or "Abstain" - which were the given choices.

Yes, but it just seems ripe for confusion to use a word that means "not-to-vote" to indicate a vote.

And this is hardly a "fine print" thing, but fundamental to the very concept of knowing what it means to do business.

Voting to not vote (which IS what the language says) is either unnecessarily confusing, an oxymoron, or a distinction without a difference.

What the word "abstain" here is clearly meant to imply is that one was present for the discussion.

But misusing the notion of "voting" to indicate that may be indicative of part of the problem the TB is having in terms of, uh, clarity issues. :)

Was there any decision after the 2005 one which supports what you are saying?

Note that this in fact begs the very question at issue.