Forum change requests that need council approval

rob

Since the council meeting hasn't seemed to happen, I suggest we try to neatly package up issues for them beforehand, so the meeting can be quick and have unsurprising decisions made.

Here are the main things we need council to look at, as far as I can tell. (from https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/227/way-too-many-categories )

Please comment below if there is any further opinions or details on the below, or additional things that we (i.e. all regular forum users) want to be discussed/decided by the council.

New simplified categories proposed, appropriate for the current traffic level of the forum.

These were suggested:

Single Winner
Proportional Representation
Other Reform Discussion
News / Advocacy / Projects
Meta / Forum Business

Better entry point at votingtheory.org. (that hopefully goes to recent conversations so first time visitors don't get the impression the forum is dead or close to it).

cfrank

@rob as a “council member” this is good with me, I think a general miscellaneous/discussion/philosophy section could be good to include as well. I think delegations are totally reasonable considering that the council as a whole seems to be having difficulties meeting in a timely manner. In general however, and not to imply this as being suggested by you presently, I’m personally against anything to the effect of disbanding the council, because I think it’s important to have some construct of formal authority to be able to preserve the quality of this forum. I think it would be best to enable the council to consent to delegations less formally.

rob

@cfrank Right I wasn't suggesting disbanding the council. I do think it should be a requirement of council membership to participate in the forum, though. For instance, I've never heard of this Micah person who posted once and hasn't come back, but is apparently on the council. (I tried emailing some time ago, never heard back) Weird.

Regarding categories, here I put theory and philosophy in there, as well as a change of wording for multi-winner per a comment in the original thread:

Single Winner Methods
Multi-winner (PR etc)
Theory and Philosophy
Other Reform Discussion
News / Advocacy / Projects
Meta / Forum Business

Marylander

@rob I support these changes.

Toby Pereira

I still think that's too many categories actually as I think I said in the other thread. I certainly don't see the need to split single and multi-winner, because some stuff cuts across both categories. Essentially I'd have one forum for voting methods and then two or three for other stuff - e.g. forum matters, off-topic or whatver.

rob

@toby-pereira I mostly agree, but don't feel strongly either way about splitting single and multi winner.

Honestly, for me it isn't an issue if we just have the landing page be "recent discussions." That's where I go automatically, but for new users it is where they should go to see the activity.