bhatnasx

Based on this - abstaining from voting no longer have impact on not having motions passed?

Dovster

It will in some cases.

Let's assume that a vote gets 5 in favor, 3 against, and 1 abstention. Before, it needed two thirds of all TalkBoard members to pass, which meant 6 yes votes. Now it needs 2/3rds of those actually voting, in this case 8 members. Here it would get 62.5% so it will still fail. The person who abstained had the same practical effect as if he had voted no.

But let's say that 5 vote in favor, 2 against, and 2 abstain. Now we have 7 voting, and the five represent 71.4 percent so the motion will pass.

Spiff

If someone abstains, their vote no longer counts in the denominator when the calculation of the two-thirds majority is made.

If all vote, the denominator is 9, therefore 6 yes votes are required to have at least a 66.7% majority and a passing vote.

If 8 vote, the denominator is 8 and therefore 6 yes votes are required to have at least a 66.7% majority. 5 yes votes is not enough at 62.5%.

If 7 vote, the denominator is 7 and therefore 5 yes votes are required to have at least a 66.7% majority, etc.

FewMiles

IMHO, there is a little more meaning to an abstention now. A TB rep can vote "abstain" if he/she truly feels ambivalent about a particular motion, or has gotten very mixed reviews from the general members he/she represents.

I still think it's better to vote a definite YES or NO, however.

FewMiles..

Dovster

Not always. There are some good reasons to abstain:

**If personal involvement could cause a conflict of interests.

**If you agree with part of a motion but disagree with another part.

**If you really have no opinion on a particular motion at all.

bhatnasx

Thank you all for the clarification!

FewMiles

I only agree with you on the first point.

On the second, I would say that one should have to assess the positives and the negatives of the motion under consideration and vote accordingly. For example, is the part of the motion you disagree with "bad" enough that you cannot accept the motion as-is? If so, then you vote no.

On the third, I'd say you haven't given the motion enough thought if you can't form an "overall yes" or an "overall no" opinion. Either that, or the motion is something so trivial, TB shouldn't be discussing it at all.

FewMiles..

Football Fan

I think this was a good decision because abstentions no longer count as an automatic "no", so it should become harder to block new initiatives.

Dovster

FewMiles, there is currently a vote in progress on TalkBoard recommending that "Reputation" and "Thread Ratings" not be reinstated.

Okay, I don't care about "Thread Ratings". While I would prefer getting rid of the abusers to getting rid of the feature that was abused, I consider thread ratings to be very unimportant.

I do think that "Reputation", without the feature that made it anonymous, could be a good addition and would be inclined to vote in favor of returning it.

Moreover, I felt that neither of these issues was an urgent one and nothing the current TalkBoard decides will be binding on future TalkBoards -- and there will be a different TalkBoard make up in another month which could well overturn this vote.

For those reasons, I abstained. I basically handed over my say in this matter to members who felt more strongly about these two issues than I do.

abelscc

Thank you for explaining. I agree there are some time good reasons. Years ago, I was new to a board of directors of a state assoc. There seemed to be a heated discussion at every meeting about how the meeting was to operate. It was the first year they decided to use Carver (which had been voted in the year before) and some of the long time board members wanted to go back to go back to Roberts Rules. They didn't give it a chance to work and decided to vote again at the end of the year. There were three of us on the board that didn't know Carver and felt we didn't have enough information to make a decision. We were all shocked when they told us our abstention counted as no and the vote passed to go back to Roberts. Abstention should be allowed and not counted either way. The funny thing was that the two who fought Carver the whole year and got it changed back then left the board.

ozstamps

So what was the end result of this vote?

ozstamps

You are kidding right?

If these disruptive features get voted back ON, what reasonable grounds would a few new TB members have for calling on a re-vote?

Dovster

I don't think that "Reputation" -- once the anonymous feature was removed -- was disruptive. In fact, status hounds that we are, we became very careful not to upset people with our posts in order not to lose points.

For a short while, F/T was a much calmer place.

Dovster

The poll is still open and does not close until Oct 20.

Spiff

Kindly stay on topic, folks.

There is already an existing thread in which you can discuss ratings of threads.

Thank you.