Markie

Since then I have been elected in my own right to TB. To somehow suggest that I am here only because someone resigned is disingenuous in my view.

bhatnasx

Apologies that it came across as such - I only meant that when BerlinFlyer realized he could not commit to participating he stepped down & you took his place (and you have been a TB member who can definitely be considered as actively participating).

Jenbel

Hmmm. Perhaps if you had read that particular thread you would have seen this statement by Randy:

and realised that the title of the thread was not at my instigation? He split out those posts from another thread and created the thread title himself.

Nothing to do with what I deemed. Very disappointed you should characterise it as such, when it's stated in that actual thread that it wasn't.

bhatnasx

Either way - because of the title change, it still may not have been on people's radars...other points remain valid...

kokonutz

I will NOT be baited into...oh yes I will.

SkiAdcock

* Agree.

* Agree.

* Agree.

Cheers.

bhatnasx

Well, the black helicopters are no longer - the missing have returned!

nsx

Can some of the TB members here who favor the status quo address the point in my OP? Namely: If you favor having two ways to have your vote counted as a No, why wouldn't you agree to having two ways to have your vote counted as a Yes, if that's what it takes to get 2/3 of the TalkBoard to agree?

bhatnasx

I don't believe that changing FlyerTalk should be easily implemented. I'd feel more comfortable with Yes/No and no Abstain than having 2 ways of having a vote count as yes.

SkiAdcock

I think 2 ways of counting a yes doesn't work, just as I think 2 ways of counting a no doesn't work. I'm for dropping abstain quite frankly.

Cheers.

jackal

Ah, so glad I stumbled across this while I'm in the process of catching up on FlyerTalk!

Unexpected IRROPS on a mid-January mileage run basically took me away from FlyerTalk for two weeks, and then it's taken me another two weeks to catch back up at work to the point that I have time to catch up on FlyerTalk. Alas, here I am.

Although I do not favor the status quo, I'd like to use your proposal as a jumping-off point.

"Abstain" does not mean I am "on the fence," and nor should it be used that way. It is not a mark of indecision. And while I appreciate the idea you've come forth with and that you're using it to illustrate the absurdity of the current interpretation, the proposal you have made seems to frame abstentions as marks of indecision.

However, abstain means "I am unable to make a conscientious vote on this issue," whether that is because you have a conflict of interest or because you have been away from the discussion arena and cannot in good conscience make an educated vote on the issue.

In a non-real-time environment like FlyerTalk, this serves two purposes: to speed the closing of the vote so it is not forced to remain open for two weeks and to mark that you are not removing yourself from the vote out of neglect but are rather willfully standing back.

And if one is recusing himself or herself in this manner, then one's vote should not be held against the matter under consideration.

That is how "abstain" should be used and, therefore, how the rules should be written to support it.

It seems odd to me that no one else here seems to find it odd that virtually every other organization using some form of Robert's Rules of Order interprets the rule as I have laid it out, while we do not. I do not mind bucking convention if there is a good reason, but I have yet to see an argument to convince me we are deserving of a radically different interpretation than the vast majority of thousands upon thousands of organizations have used for the previous hundred-plus years.

Let's pause for a bit and take a look at that.

To clear up any ambiguity, Robert's (Fourth Edition) says this (emphasis mine):

There is also an interesting and very detailed treatment of the issue on this CSU Fresno professor's page on parliamentary procedure that I strongly recommend reading: http://www.csufresno.edu/comm/ppqa5.htm

For me, it comes down to this: in all cases, I favor clarity. The rules as written are not clear. I have my preferred interpretation, but I would be ultimately satisfied with something that is clear and cannot be interpreted varying ways by different TalkBoard presidents. I could clearly understand rules written in any of the following ways (bolding not intended to be in the final proposal):

This would be equivalent to current practice. Under standard Robert's interpretations, this would mean that two thirds of members "in the room" during the vote would need to support the motion. While an abstention is not a "vote," per se, it in effect marks the person as being present during the debate and thus counting them in the two-thirds figure.

Under the standard definition used by Robert's, this would not count any members voting anything other than "yes" or "no." A member marking "abstain" would not be counting, because an abstention is not considered a vote.

This is, however, the closest actual verbiage to what is currently written (though I have simplified the verbiage by removing redundant words). The current discrepancy before us is because we have verbiage written as in sample #2 but it is being interpreted as in sample #1. There is a clear disconnect there.

For the heck of it, I've thrown this one in here for illustration purposes (I don't think anyone would actually support this). This would be the ultimate strict challenge: two thirds of TalkBoard members, whether voting, abstaining, or even suspended from the forum, must support the measure in order for it to pass. In other words, there must be at least six "yes" votes for a motion to pass regardless.

The above words ("voting" [also sometimes seen as "present and voting"], "present," or "of members") are standard terms used in Robert's and come with very specific meanings. When our interpretations are contrary to these standard conventions, I see a problem and a potential for confusion--which we have seen over the last few months.

So, after looking at this, to me it seems to come down to a two-step process. First, we really need to decide which interpretation we fall under. Do we want to be an organization that requires two thirds of people voting to vote yes? Or do we want to be one of the very, very few organizations that require two thirds of people present to vote yes?

Once that is determined, we can then decide how to handle the technical method of abstentions. If we opt for the former (far more common in the world of parliamentary procedure), then we can decide whether to allow a ballot to be marked "abstain," but it will have no bearing on the outcome of the vote. Going back to my reasons illustrated above, I am in favor of having an "abstain" option, since it reduces the potential abuse of the multiple missed votes clause.

If we opt for the latter interpretation, then due to the non-real-time nature of our voting, we would require the option to abstain. This would (for clarity's sake) require addition of verbiage that specifies that voters will be given the choice to mark their ballots as "abstain," since that will be the determining factor between identifying them as "present" (counted in the vote) versus "absent" (not counted in the vote).

Either way, the simplest way to do this is to revise the verbiage of the first point in the voting section (bolding not intended to be in final proposal):

Now, my preference would be to support option #2 in the first phase (since it seems the most reasonable and is by far the majority convention in parliamentary procedure) and option #2 in the second phase (for reasons I've outlined above). At this point, though, I may be amenable to just about any interpretation, so long as it is clear and unambiguous.