I like the idea as well, and started writing about this in the other thread, but then decided that we should better continue this discussion in a new thread - this one
I think we have two questions:
Do we want to have an “abstain” option, to indicate that “yes, I read and understand the poll, but no, I really don’t care (for whatever reason), so I’m abstaining from any of the actual selections”?
Does the “abstain” option counts to the quorum or not? Right now, it does not, because abstain means not taking part in the vote at all.
My personal take is that we should have an “abstain” option, and that it should count to the quorum. Even if then we could have extreme cases where one person (who happens to be the chairperson) votes for something, one person against, and five abstain: in that case the thing voted on would be accepted, because a) the quorum has been reached, and b) from the actual votes (2) there’s a tie, and thus the chairperson’s vote decides. I think this is OK, since the folks who abstained are basically saying “I don’t care, both options are OK for me”. (If someone doesn’t like both options equally, I think the correct answer would be to pick the “no change” option and make another proposal.)
I think there should be an abstain option because it helps a vote organizer / wrangler (so very often you @felixfontein) to know whether a vote actually needs people’s additional attention or not.
I disagree that it should count as quorum. I think the point of quorum is to ensure that a majority actually cares enough about a change to make a decision. If abstaining means they don’t care, I don’t think that’s the enthusiastic voice for change we’d like.
In short, I think the current meaning of abstinence should remain, and the poll option is just an explicit acknowledgement to indicate that member is not otherwise waiting to vote.
Yes. I think it would still be good if people leave a comment explaining why.
I don’t think it should count as quorum. If I’m equally fine with both options, I try to pick what I think benefits the majority. I might want to abstain if I felt like I couldn’t be impartial - in which case, I’d want more people to vote.
Yeah, I agree that it should count towards quorum. That’s how it works in the other communities I’m part of. I don’t think there’s much of a point of adding it if it’s practically the same as not voting.
The way I read it, second question uses the word ‘quorum’ mistakenly, and was asking whether or not it should count towards the vote. I don’t think it should count towards the vote. It should count as ‘number of people present’ (but I don’t think that was the intended question).
That might well be due to me not being a native English speaker My second question from the post at the top was about whether “abstain” should count to the number of persons; the second part was that right now “abstain” isn’t counted at all so we don’t know who abstained intentionally for a vote, and who wasn’t present for the vote (either chose to be not present, or didn’t notice, …).
It seems it’s been established that quorum is presence and counting towards the vote is something else. I don’t think that “abstain” option should count towards the vote, unless we have like, 50% (or choose your threshold) of the votes are abstentions - because that would indicate that the majority (or a significant fraction) of the voters are not satisfied with the available options. But I do think it should count towards the presence - that was one of the objectives of my comment.
As of the comment from @shertel that abstainers should leave a comment explaining why, that’s what I have been doing when the vote is about the ACP, but as I wrote then, I am starting to feel like a broken record, repeating my opinion on that topic every time it pops up. Mixed feelings on how to handle this.
While my original train of thought was about avoiding the repetition, it was also about signalling to the community (SC or otherwise) that I am paying attention to the decisions taking place in the forum and to the community. It is a signal that the topic was not silently ignored. Regardless of any rules, I believe I owe that much. Just my $0.02 there.
If there are 12 SC members, the SC currently makes decisions based on a minimum of 6 votes since Steering Committee mission and responsibilities — Ansible Community Documentation describes the quorum as also the minimum number of votes. If point 2 is agreed upon as-is without changing that definition, then 1 meaningful vote is all that’s needed if 5 people choose not to vote for or against change.
Unless getting at least 6 people on the SC to actually take a stand becomes a challenge, I think it’s better to keep that specific requirement (not the quorum, but the number of meaningful votes) the same, rather than allowing voters to potentially make decisions alone as long as there’s enough apathy.
The SC could change the definition, so quorum no longer both means both the number of participants and votes,. Then 2 would be less concerning to me.
I feel this distinction is only meaningful when votes happen instantaneously in a moment. Our votes are necessarily asynchronous and the concept of “presence” doesn’t have substantive meaning for us in my opinion.
Currently, unless someone comments, we don’t have a way to know whether a nonvoter has A) not seen the vote, B) seen the vote but has not fully read and understood it, C) is still contemplating and will vote at a later time, D) has consciously decided not to participate.
A comment is not easily countable, and an abstain option is a clear indicator of D) which is the only one of the above choices that does not require us to wait on that person up until the deadline, and to me that is what makes the option valuable and useful.
My opinion is that while a comment may be nice, it should not be required, especially if the voter feels they have no new points or feels their position is already understood. If someone wishes to abstain but does not feel comfortable commenting (for any reason) then an expectation of comment incentivizes abstinence by non-participation (waiting for timeout) rather than choosing the poll option which I think isn’t what we’d prefer.
And I’ll reiterate that I think abstaining by defualt (no response) should be equivalent to assertively abstaining (by poll option).
If we were to change the meaning of quorum, that should then be its own discussion and vote (in which I would argue we should keep its current definition).
I think “abstain” or something similar should count towards quorum. But accepting would still need a majority of the given votes. For example with 12 SC members:
4 pros and 2 abstains → quorum reached and accepted (66% pro of given votes)
2 pros and 4 abstains → quorum reached but not accepted (33% pro of given votes)
3 pros, 3 contras and 1 abstain → quorum reached but not accepted (43% pro of given votes)
quorum: minimum number of voters required to be PRESENT at vote for it to be valid or binding, always a subset of those eligible to vote. At any point anyone involved in the vote can request to verify quorum, this is not the same as the vote itself.
majority: number of votes required to pass a motion, always a subset of the quorum
Depending on the rules established (robert’s has many variations) ‘abstain’ and ‘present’ votes can be equivalent or different in value, but both count towards the quorum unlike ‘absence/not present’, in the end all 4 are an abstention, explicit or implied is the main difference.
Considering ‘online’ communities, it is a lot harder to establish quorum as you are not in the physical room to be counted, that is why ‘present’ or ‘abstain’ in a vote tend to be an indirect way of verifying quorum. But that is not really a requirement, you COULD just have a ‘quorum vote’ where everyone shows their presence. If you add ‘async’ voting/poll open for a time period, quorum becomes a LOT harder, this is where I think ‘present/abstain’ have a lot of value.
Or you can just ignore all of the above and always assume to have quorum and only count actual votes cast for the decision. Simpler but probably not really reflective of engagement.
