Jenbel

Perhaps you both might have a different view if you were on the outside, looking in, and not on the inside looking out? I see scant evidence of TB members listening to the members on this issue - just several closed minds, already made up.

kokonutz

Agree. Sad but true. A great argument for term limits, imho.

I say simply eliminate the abstain. It is currently just a coward's no. Make people vote yes or no with no 'out' via abstain.

If a TB member can't make his or her mind up, skip the vote. If a TB member is traveling so much and/or can't make his or her mind up so much that he or she misses enough votes to be booted, then the community is better served by someone more available and decisive anyway.

Kiwi Flyer

Thanks to skiadcock's work collating TB vote results, only 2 of the 2010 TB failed to abstain/not vote during the year, and one of those 2 was only on TB for part of the year.

How is this considered rare?

Spiff

I don't see abstain being used frequently by a majority of the TalkBoard members and I do see a willingness from most TalkBoard members to explain the reason(s) for their votes. We can whack up the statistics as to what constitutes "rare", but I don't see it being abused.

gdeluca

So now its a point of not being used frequently by a majority of TalkBoard Members?

kokonutz

Lol, so, just checking to confirm: you support NO CHANGE. Is that correct? You see no problem, you hear no problem, NO CHANGES.

Spiff

One could argue that the only former TalkBoard member(s) who seemed to abuse the process were removed.

If there are solid examples of a TalkBoard member frequently abstaining/not voting who refused to explain the reason for voting as such and was not removed, please let me know.

I do not support change to the current voting procedure. I'm surprised you had to ask.

"Ooh, your powers of deduction are exceptional. I can't allow you to waste them here when there are so many crimes going unsolved at this very moment. Go, go, for the good of the city!" -Comic Book Guy

Jenbel

I'm sorry we seem to have moved the goal posts, from 'when is it acceptable to abstain and how should that be counted' to 'are there methods for removing non-performing TB members from TB'. Well we know, because we went through the hoops that there have been non-performing members of TB who have refused to explain their inability to vote or only to vote abstain. kokonutz will likely disagree with that.

And that's exactly why the provisions for removal of sitting TB members was improved, precisely because they had failed consistently in the past. So I can name previous TB members who failed to explain their lack of activity to the members and who stayed on TB.

But, that's not the argument here. It's about the use of abstain a) as a TB member and how it can be abused, firstly by TB members refusing to do their job and secondly as a cowards no.

Mwenenzi

and if you do that too many times, you are voted thrown off the island.

kokonutz

"Oh there's a big surprise! That's an incredible - I think I'm going to have a heart attack and die of not surprise!" - Iago the parrot

bhatnasx

You have two that don't support change & you have two that do support change.

How is this scant evidence of TB members listening to the members on this issue? Very few members have given an opinion on this issue in this particular thread.

Jenbel

Because the TB voted for no change on this issue, despite the membership who commented being virtually unanimously for change? The only folks who were speaking out against changing the rules were the TB members who voted against it, and ozstamps, who seemed to be confused about what was the system in place when he was on TB.

bhatnasx

That's not entirely true...Dovster commented that the matter was trivial!

Just curious if this was a big deal, why you & Kokonutz, the ones pushing the hardest for this change, didn't have this belief when you were on TB & helping write/vote for the guidelines. Just trying to understand what brought about the change of view point.

The reason why I'm against it, as I've stated before, is that it should take a lot to make changes to FlyerTalk. We've seen that in some pretty poorly worded motions in the past year or so...

Just my 2 cents...

Jenbel

I can't remember if this came up during the guidelines, and if it did, what I said or thought about it then. Unlike you, I don't have access to the records of what was said in the private forum during the debates.

But during the guideline discussions, there were a lot of different areas, some of which I considered to be very important, some of which took a backseat while we hammered out the compromises on some of those issues. That meant that it was not always possible to sit and think about issues like this - or if you did, you saw them as a combination of other factors being considered within the guidelines.

Looking at this issue in isolation, without everything else that was going on during the guidelines discussions, but also with the perspective of having been off TB for 2-3 years now (which does, despite the protestations of the long term members such as yourself, change your perspective quite a bit - you should step down for a year to see it for yourself!), then for me, it is a no-brainer. If I opposed it during the guidelines, then I was stupid and short sighted and caught up in other things. I'm frankly disappointed in the inability of those who oppose it, despite virtually unanimous approval from the membership, to look beyond their 'we must keep FT frozen in time and not do anything'. That narrow-minded focus of trying to prevent change is the single factor IMHO which will render TB completely superfluous over time. This issue is entirely symptomatic of how wrong TB is going. And while some of the sitting TB members may snipe at others for <gasp> actually trying to do things, I actually take heart that some TB members have listened to the criticism from the members (where we have been able to express it, and not been shut down or shut out ) and reacted to it.

bhatnasx

Wow! That's exactly how I feel about moderators. Having been off the moderator team for a few years now, does change perspective...I'd be happy to put term limits on if it's to change perspectives - but only if moderators would have "term limits" as well or forced sabbaticals every 2 years or so.

Can you give me an example of when you've (or other members) have been shut down or shut out of being able to express an opinion? If anything, this is probably one of the more open & opinionated forums. If you can provide specific examples, I'll be happy to bring them to the attention of our Community Director.