A very pertinent question, reiner and one that's been lost in the squabbles of yesterday evening. I've just done a check of the current membership and of 355 members, 202 have either not posted at all, have duplicate accounts (presumably through having forgotten a password) or have not logged onto the forum since the end of August. Should these 'members' have a vote? I realise that many wouldn't be aware of the election of a new moderator if they don't log on, unless candidates/ Michael contact them. Any thoughts?

IGI, both Reiner and I have admitted to having a defunct login which we can't remember the password to.  I think the system set up makes it difficult for one person to post under aliases as the ISP number is logged so it's pretty easy to check.

Ian, as to whether to 202 registered members who have never posted are still lurkers or have never come back - who knows?  Personally I feel if they have never contributed then they have no say in what happens.  As for Mort, well I certainly would second her as a model of good sense and sobriety.  I'll text her, see how she feels about it.

I cannot see that it would be either fair or reasonable to exclude anyone who has registered their membership here from the poll. Firstly there would be no precedent for doing so. There might, for example, well be lurkers who weren't comfortable with the way discussion was going at previous times (I wasn't either, and left for 3 months). But secondly, doing so would open a can of much more revolting worms than even those currently at freedom... how would one establish what "sufficient involvement to deserve a vote" would be?  How would it be determined?  By date of last visit?  Or by number of postings?    If by number of postings, we could get into a "Rotten Boroughs" situation where top-posting members got more votes than occasional posters!    Perhaps I have a blinkered view on this, but I cannot see how any credible criteria could be constructed, and therefore "universal suffrage" seems to be the only practicable option, not even considering the basic principles of representation it embraces.

I don't see any way around duplicate or even bogus memberships, other than to trust to people's honesty. I agree with you that probably a large proportion might be "lost password" cases,  or members who felt they wanted to rejoin under a new nick for personal or professional reasons, and there's nothing "dubious" about such cases.

What DOES concern me is that this poll (which is being widely discussed on at least one other messageboard) has the capacity to draw in new members who have arrived solely to vote, with no intention of further participation.  In fact, they could even stand in the poll and be seconded by each other.  Some may be returning former members who see the poll as a chance to enhance their forum experience, and wish to vote - and I hope there are many such. However, it would clearly be possible to use the poll as an opportunity to create discord and discredit the voting procedure, its results, and the board generally.  I even feel this is currently going on.  Similarly anyone could register one or member "extra" memberships today or tomorrow, and gain some "extra" votes in the poll - and I cannot see how this could easily be stopped

I am unaware of the "moderator" powers on these boards, but since I seem to remember a question in the sign-up procedure asking if one wished to receive Moderator Announcements,  presumably the poll could (and should) be announced by email to all who agreed to accept Moderator Announcements?   Not only would this be, IMO, a proper procedure...  it might encourage lapsed members to rejoin the community here if they so wished?  

I can see problems  that could arise, fairly swiftly, with that approach Inky. It could convey the impression that all board members are equal, but some are more equal than others, also giving rise to accusations of secrecy. I think that could be a slippery slope. This board has generally been a very open, inclusive and tolerant forum. That has been the strength. Just a thought.

I don't know if we should necessarily make things too complicated here - there aren't that many of us after all. Of course duplicate accounts which exist because of a forgotten password aren't going to be used to vote anyway; in other instances Michael and John have been pretty careful about stopping duplicate accounts being set up, by keeping a wary eye on the IP addresses. What we're voting on here isn't some high public office but simply a chance to have a voice in keeping a forum which is important to us running in a way we like.

Perhaps in future we could agree on a rule whereby if an account hasn't been active for a while it should lapse. But probably not when there's voting going on.

What of the people who removed their accounts before who might not have put them back on? (I don't know who would be in this category actually; Opi maybe, and C_D?).  I'm sure you can do that manually anyway; just wanted to check.


Yeah.  Michael's idea rather gets around several of those issues though.  And maybe his more relaxed criterion as to who gets to vote I prefer also.

As increpatio mentioned - it might be good to give people like opilec and Chafing Dish a chance to vote. They were certainly valued posters (to me at least) until the moderation issue prompted them to leave...

This is an online community and not a national election - I think there ought to be scope for discretion of this kind, yes.  I am personally in favour of the entire membership database being able to vote, and agree with Syd here...  we should be encouraging inclusivity and a broadening of the active membership.