Motion Failed: Recommend new post thresholds and titles
 

Recently, we have seen discussion of this idea here:

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

And now there is a TalkBoard vote on a specific proposal, on which your comments are welcome:

"TalkBoard recommend that the current post threshold titles of 'FlyerTalk Evangelist' at 10,000 posts and 'FlyerTalk Posting Legend' at 40,000 posts be replaced with the following thresholds and titles:

500: Active Member
1,000: Contributing Member
2,500: Involved Member
5,000: Dedicated Member
10,000: Committed Member
25,000: Distinguished Member
40,000: Legendary Member"

The vote will close on June 22, 2014, at 5:44 pm or after all TalkBoard members have voted, whichever comes first.

Per the TalkBoard Guidelines:

A motion shall pass if at least two-thirds of the yes or no votes cast by TalkBoard members are ‘yes’ and a majority of the total TalkBoard membership votes 'yes.'

Bruce

Believe it or not, even though it was I who suggested the motion, I voted no. I said I wanted to keep things as is and I still believe that. However, I think we have arrived at a solution where if this motion does pass, I can accept the new titles and posts and I hope everyone else can too

I was okay with leaving things as they are however this is the best set of titles I've seen proposed so far and if there is change this would be the update I would favor. No odd colour title schemes or cheeky titles just straightforward acknowledgement of a member's level of FT participation.

I'm voting no on titles. We already know everyone's post count. No more elitism needed.

That is why I proposed this motion. I still don't want a change, but if the change passes, it's one I can accept. Hedging my bets.

Are you on TalkBoard?

Point of parliamentary order!

The maker of a motion, though he can vote against it, cannot speak against his own motion.

cite: http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror-07.htm




Naaw, I'm just joshin' (although that IS part of RROO, which we are supposed to follow). I knew all along that the reason you were anxious to get this issue to a vote was so you could vote against it. ;) :D

I believe that the current title of Evangelist is confusing.

It's hard to find a set of titles that are not confusing, and that everyone will agree with. But I think the ones selected here are excellent. They increase in "importance", yet do not convey any additional official association with FT.

^^^
That's great, but the way I read it, that's not the topic up for a vote :p (I agree with you BTW)

Vote yes! Please!

That is not the question answered by this motion. This motion is, "Are the proposed titles better than the existing titles?"--something which I believe the answer to is a resounding "yes."

The idea of dropping titles entirely has nothing to do with this motion. Even if you abhor titles, you should support this motion, as the current titles are pretty bad and this at least makes them look cleaner and more befitting a major website of our stature.

It seems to me that an opponent of change who forces a vote on anything less than the best proposal is not playing fair. I hope you took the time in the private forum to determine that this was the most popular version of title change and that you believed that those in favor of a change were not going to call for a vote on anything. Then and only then would it be proper IMHO for an opponent of action to call for a vote to demonstrate support for the status quo. Otherwise we have a situation in which 4 of the 9 members of TalkBoard can win a contentious issue (which thankfully this is not) by manipulating the process to force votes on unpopular versions of a change.

To be clear, I regard this particular issue as relatively unimportant. I also regard this version of the proposal as quite good, possibly the most popular form of the proposal. Therefore this particular proposal does not look like a serious abuse of process to me. I mostly wanted to make the point that the current proposal does set a precedent for future abuse of the 2/3 vote threshold.

If I'm off base here, please correct me. I don't mind admitting that I'm wrong.

I'm not CMK10's lawyer, but that is exactly what he did. I voted yes, by the way.

Bruce

Who's forcing? Someone had to second this remember. And if I was not playing fair I would have imagined that the motion would not have been seconded. There was a long discussion before I rewrote the motion and I was asked if the proposal, which was actually written by several TalkBoard members was to my liking. Furthermore, of the 300+ posts in the thread that spans back years, I felt the JDiver post was the best solution by far.

Also, I have an unofficial adviser, he's an ex-TalkBoard member himself and one of the smartest, most level headed people on this website. I asked if making the motion and choosing to vote no on it was appropriate. He indicated it was.

As a final note, I would hope you'd have given me the benefit of the doubt and I do resent your implication that I'm trying to manipulate or abuse any processes. This didn't occur in a vacuum, several members of TalkBoard including our President and Vice President discussed what I was suggesting for 17 hours before we brought this to a vote.

Either the above^^^ or nothing.....

I feel obliged to point out that "Committed Member" could mean a couple of different things. (Also, I can think of several members with far fewer than 10,000 posts who probably ought to be committed.:p)

As a future "committed member," I noticed the same thing!

Bruce