Sagy

Out of curiosity (and probably lack of knowledge ), at what point/why/who decided that "participating" in the "A motion shall pass if two-thirds of TalkBoard members participating in that vote vote ‘yes.’" context includes abstain votes?

Is this simply a question of interpretation which a future TB (president?) can change at any time or does this truly requires a change to the Voting Procedures? I hope that at the very least everyone agrees that the current Voting Procedures are open to interpretation.

Thanks

Spiff

This truly requires a change to the current Voting Procedures.

Jenbel

The problem is, that seems a bit unclear. As I said up thread, when I was on TB (and I was on something like 2006 - 2008+/- 1 year), we worked to the rules that abstentions were not counted as participating, per the motion that wharvey mentions up thread, which predated my time on TB.

During that time, we also redid the guidelines now used, with the rules on participation. Abstention is an uncommon event, so perhaps post guideline adoption, there was quite a break before it had to be considered again.. and that's the point at which the current interpretation was used. But neither koko nor I can recall if it was explicitly discussed during the guidelines preparation - someone who is currently on TB would need to go back through the discussion relating to the relevant sections to find out if it was (heh - good luck with that ).

Spiff, if this requires a change to the current voting procedures, can you say when the vote was passed which changed it from the practice of 2006 - 2008?
Edited to add - I have found the motion mentioned by wharvey above, in which it was agreed that abstentions didn't count towards total votes cast http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...s-tallied.html

Spiff

I've also done some research and it appears that the original 2/3 requirement of all eligible voters actually was formalized in 2001.

Jenbel

So there have been two votes making abstentions not count? Why then have we arrived back at the position where they count again?

Still haven't seen a good argument advanced for counting them btw.

gdeluca

I could not agree more. We do deserve to know where TB members stand on the issues and, while it may sound harsh, an abstention vote is cowardly, unless for good reason as stated in previous thread.

tcook052

Sorry but I completely disagree as I think they are fairly clear. Whether everyone likes them or not is an entirely different matter but IMHO they are unambiguous to this reader. Just MHO and YMMV.

Sagy

In reference to:
Clear that people voting "Abstain" are participating or clear that they are not participating in that vote?

tcook052

Clear that by abstaining they are participating in the ballot.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...uidelines.html

ii. TalkBoard members may register their vote of yes, no or abstain while the voting period is open.

vii. A motion shall pass if two-thirds of TalkBoard members participating in that vote vote ‘yes.’

A registered vote for an abstention to me constitutes a member's participation in the ballot on the motion and don't feel it could or should be interpreted any other way.

Again though TB can decide to change the wording should it see fit, though it will have to do it by the current rules of a 2/3 majority of all participating members.

kokonutz

This is the whole problem with the TB, and the reason that it becomes increasingly irrelevant every year: the forces of status quo and incumbency become stronger and stronger and stronger. And so nothing ever gets accomplished. And so as the TB does less and less, the moderators step in and do more and more of the TB's work.

I don't know if I agree with B747's implication that this is something that the moderators on the TB are doing on purpose or not, but I do note that many of the forces of status quo and 'keep barriers to change high' and 'do-nothing' are the TB members who happen to also be moderators.

I think it would be a VERY interesting experiment to ask TB members to take a leave of absence from their Moderator duties for their term of office. Or, in the other direction, give non-moderator TB members access to moderator forums and meetings. I wonder how differently the TB would perform.

Sagy

While I understand your position and I agree that you are presenting a possible interpretation, there is also another side:

1. One possible meaning of abstention is not doing or not participating. So one (of several) reasonable interpretation of "registered vote for an abstention" is that the member choose to document their non-participation.
2. Based you the above interpretation there is absolutely no difference between registering an Abstain vote and registering a No vote. At the very least this should lead one to look at other possible interpretations.

To be clear, I'm not stating that your interpretation is wrong, all I'm saying is that there are other reasonable interpretations that could be just as valid.

There was such a vote that by a 7-2 margin decided that abstentions didn't count towards total votes cast. Based on Jenbel post above, this was the practice until 2008. Was there a subsequent vote that changed this? In not, why do we need another vote?

tcook052

Sorry but with due respect I can't agree those interpretations are in fact reasonable. The wording specifically says TBers must register their choice of yes, no or abstain and that act of registering one of the three options clearly constitutues participation and fail to see how it could be read any other way. If A TBer were not to cast a ballot at all then that would be non-participation but to to me that would be the only way to achieve that.

As to whether an abstention is a defacto no vote that is something beyond the TB wording and again is something TB alone can chose to change if it feel it necessary.

The new TB guidelines with this wording was adopted and passed in 2008 so TB is bound by it and would require a 2/3 majority to revised all or portions of that guideline.

Q Shoe Guy

Here, here, that is issue plain and simple as more power in concentrated in fewer and fewer hands !

Markie

The electorate had plenty of choice at the last election to return non-Moderators. I personally don't agree that Moderators on TB are trying to move decisions to the Moderators - well at least this one isn't. . My primary reason for this belief, is that the decision making process within the Moderators is even more hard to influence than in TB!

I do think the 'everything is Ok, we don't need to change anything' group on the current TB is larger than the 'it's time we changed some things' group. It suggests we'll have a year of impasse, much like last year.

I am regularly complained by other TB members, as moving too fast to make motions, when I personally feel that after a discussion we need a motion in order to get to a closure point. Otherwise we endlessly talk about issues and they just end up being left hanging.

We'll see what happens .....

Jenbel

Can we not go down the whole mods/non-mods debate again? There's a very clear issue being discussed in this thread, a number of questions around it which have yet to be answered (like, for those who are saying the rules shouldn't be changed, what is their good reason for not changing the rules except for 'we don't want to change anything'?) so plenty to focus on without charging at windmills