Hi folks,
I've just let a few folks join earlier this afternoon. I had accidentally
had the settings too restrictive, but hopefully, it's a bit easier to
subscribe now, and my personal button mashing isn't a hurdle to
subscription. I'm really happy with how the membership of this mailing
list is shaping up, since I know most of you (at least, I know your online
presence), and I'm reasonably sure that most of y'all have both programming
chops and voting science chops, which is the exact set of folks that I was
hoping to see. Please: invite your friends!
Also, I'm hoping y'all can all give some advice on moderation policy here.
Over at the election-methods list, there were a couple of folks that became
very unpopular over the past few months. I won't go into details, but at
least one of them left in a huff because I sent them a private email that
they found disagreeable (or rather, they want to unsubscribe, but also seem
to want white-glove service on a self-service mailing list). Then the
other problematic member complained on-list about my private email. It's a
little emotionally taxing on me to have to send behavioral emails to
members (letting them know just how unpopular they are), and thus, I like
mathematical rules for this type of thing.
I like the idea of having "no confidence" votes on the membership of the
mailing list. I sent (what I thought were) pretty clear instructions for
voting to the election-methods mailing list on our first trial "no
confidence" vote, which resulted in a chaotic mess of feedback. It was no
problem; I got the gist, and learned about some of the more subtle
interactions on the list (and I received apologies from people who owed me
no apology).
I've included my initial email to the EM-list regarding my idea for "no
confidence" votes. Despite my complaining about the lack of structure from
the feedback, I found the results helpful. To preemptively answer a
question you might have: no, I'm not publishing the ballot data. :-) 'Tis
a mess on SO MANY levels.
My question: assuming this list doesn't lurk in obscurity forever, on the
undesirable but probably inevitable occasion that we have a problematic
member of the list (or two, or three, or five people who don't play nice
with one another), what should we do about it?
Rob
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Rob Lanphier <roblan(a)gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 11:57 PM
Subject: Should we allow "voting off" this mailing list?
To: <election-methods(a)lists.electorama.com>
Hi folks,
I've received a couple of complaints about the tenor of this mailing list.
My cursory look through the archives suggests that the problems are with a
couple of people.
I'm trying to sort it out with the people about whom the complaints are
about, but something occurred to me. There's been lots of "votes" on this
mailing list, which I've never been a big fan of, because the group of
people who are active on this list are self-selected. However, there's one
thing y'all are the exact right people to vote on, which is "who should be
on this mailing list?". It may be good to have times where y'all get to
vote a person or two off of the mailing list "Survivor"-style, though I
want to make sure that this list is a safe place for smart people with
unconventional communication styles to express unpopular opinions every now
and then.
I'm announcing today is the first day of voting in this election. Please
send me a private ballot (to me only, not to the list) in the following
example format:
1. A - This person ("A") is my favorite person posting on the list.
(Please only vote for one or two "favorites", though I won't mind if you
gush about three or four people in this first round of voting)
2. CCCCC - These people ("C", "C", "C", "C", and "C") are usually pretty
reasonable, and though I disagree with them sometimes (or perhaps almost
every message they send), their messages are generally thoughtful and
well-expressed. It would make me sad if they decided to unsubscribe to
this mailing list, and are driven off the list by the more
obnoxious/prolific posters. I'm sometimes thinking of these people
specifically when I write emails to the list, because I want to reach these
people.
3. FFF - These people ("F", "F", and "F") are almost always sending
unacceptable messages to this list, and they do it A LOT. It's not just
annoying, it's toxic. I've been tempted to unsubscribe mainly because of
THEIR messages (and some of you may say "I have done it a time or two in
the past").
I really want concise email ballots, though I'm allowing for a little prose
to explain why you put someone at the "A" tier or why you're relegating
anyone to the "FFF" tier. Try to have at least one person in the "A" tier
for every person you put in the "FFF" tier. The "CCCCC" tier should really
just be a list.
This is an experiment. I'm going to be traveling soon, so I'm hoping to
have the first set of ballots by end-of-day Monday (and note: my end-of-day
is probably later than your end-of-day, especially if you're not in the
United States). I don't mind if you email me personally and say "I'd like
a little more time to think about this". I probably won't try figuring out
how to aggregate everyone's feedback about other list members until August,
but those of you who vote early will have my gratitude. If you want to
propose other ballot formats than what I suggest above, that's okay, but I
think I'm going to insist on using my three-tier "A", "CCCCC", and "FFF"
tiers, and using those names. I'm going to be hand aggregating ballots, so
the more novel you are with your ballots, the less likely I'm going to be
to consider your ballot.
I'm not likely to act soon on the first set of ballots unless there are a
lot of ballots that put the same person(s) in the "FFF" category. I'm not
planning on holding these votes at any particular interval, but maybe we
should devise a set of rules for calling a "vote of no confidence" in the
current membership of the mailing list. It may be that only people who
post 5 or more times per month are eligible to be voted off the island, so
to speak. I haven't decided, but your comments are welcome!
Rob
p.s. I've started work setting up an alternative mailing list to discuss
voting software. I'm more likely to read all of the messages to this
alternative mailing list, so I'm less likely to be patient with people that
ruin the reading experience for the lurkers on the list.
