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Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 02:11 PM
Okay, several of us have been working on this protocol in the Congregational Wiki. This is what we have come up with.
Contributors: Lisa0315 (http://foru.ms/u118032), XianJedi (http://foru.ms/u112680), Hentenza (http://foru.ms/u183084), ~*Lady Trekki*~ (http://foru.ms/u176971), GreenMunchkin (http://foru.ms/u175920), Tangeloper (http://foru.ms/u197489), Letalis

We are now going to test this out. So, this thread is designed to be a working model of Step #1.

Proposed Poll Question: Should this protocol be added to our Stickied Rules?
Answers to this poll would be: "Yes" or "No, Go back to wiki to make changes."

This discussion will end on Monday at 3:09pm EST. At that point, it will go to poll.

The discussion should contain suggestions to change the wording of both the protocol and the poll question.


Why: The reason we need a protocol is because we have experienced a level of chaos and confusion in CCC regarding open/closed membership among other issues. There have been rule changes while polls were still open for example. The purpose of a new rule protocol is to provide a step by step process by which a new rule is established. It will insure that no step is skipped. Members will have something to reference to insure the integrity of the rule-making process.


Conservative Christian Congregation Rule Changes

CCC Member suggests a new rule and begins a thread to discuss it with other members. This suggestion post will include a proposed poll question and options which will also be discussed by the membership to make it more clear what the membership will be voting for. Discussion should continue for no less than three days and no more than 1 week.
Once discussion in the thread has ended, a poll with the pre-determined question and options will be set up. The poll must be public. All polls must remain open for ten days.
At the end of the poll, it will be examined by a moderator to ensure the integrity of the poll. The moderator will compare the poll voters to the current membership list and exclude any votes made by non-members. The moderator will publish the list of names that were removed, and the choices that were affected. The mod will publish the forumula used to arrive at the final poll results as well.
51/67/75 rule: Rules with a majority of 51% to 66% cannot be changed for a period of three months. Rules with a majority of 67% to 74% cannot be changed for a period of six months. Rules with a majority of 75% and above cannot be changed for a period of one year.
Polls that have two options are preferable. For polls that contain more than two options, unless there is a clear winner (as defined in the 51/67/75 rule) the options with the fewest votes will be eliminated, leaving the two most popular options. A new poll with the two winning options will then be opened to determine the final winning option. In the event that a poll ends with ties that do not allow the elimination process to reach the two most popular options, the poll will be invalidated and a new poll started. (Polls that allow you to pick more than one option follow the same rules.)
Once the poll has been validated by a moderator, the mod will open the Stickied Rules Thread to add the rule, then reclose it. The mod will then announce the new rule in a new thread to make sure it does not get lost in the old poll thread.
For any particular issue, only one discussion thread and one poll thread will be open. Additional discussion/poll threads on the same issue will be closed. Once the results of a poll are final, no more polls on the issue are to be opened until the binding time has expiredForu.ms Site-Wide Rule Changes

If an Erwin mandate is issued, or another site-binding guideline, and members feel that current CC rules are not compliant, a member will open a discussion thread for an emergency change to the rules wiki. All previous steps must still be followed. This is the one exception to the time restraints as outlined above for existing rules.

Letalis
24th August 2007, 02:25 PM
Hi,

Just a note about this portion:

"If Foru.ms site-wide rules are changed, and members feel that current CCC rules are not compliant, a member should open a discussion for an emergency change to the Rules Wiki."

Forum-specific rules supersede the site-wide rules. If one of our forum rules contradicts the site-wide rules, our rules have precedence.

Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 02:35 PM
Hi,

Just a note about this portion:

"If Foru.ms site-wide rules are changed, and members feel that current CCC rules are not compliant, a member should open a discussion for an emergency change to the Rules Wiki."

Forum-specific rules supersede the site-wide rules. If one of our forum rules contradicts the site-wide rules, our rules have precedence.

What about the rule that says we cannot close our forum to anyone as far as fellowship goes?

Lisa

Letalis
24th August 2007, 02:42 PM
What about the rule that says we cannot close our forum to anyone as far as fellowship goes?

Lisa
That is also superseded by forum-specific rules. Forums can limit participants based on beliefs, if they so choose. This has been clarified several times by the policy director, but I can't seem to find the posts.

Erwin also clarified this a little while ago:

As members of a forum, you can customize forum-specific rules through the wiki found in that category's directory. For example, the members of the "purple church" forum can say that only Nicene-agreeing Christians who are regular attendees of a "purple church" can post in the "purple church" forum, except for [open] threads. This is allowed.

http://foru.ms/t5702921

I haven't seen a forum do this, though, and I doubt anyone will. :)

I do like that we have the freedom to run our forum how we want.

Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 02:45 PM
That is also superseded by forum-specific rules. Forums can limit participants based on beliefs, if they so choose. This has been clarified several times by the policy director, but I can't seem to find the posts.

Erwin also clarified this a little while ago:

As members of a forum, you can customize forum-specific rules through the wiki found in that category's directory. For example, the members of the "purple church" forum can say that only Nicene-agreeing Christians who are regular attendees of a "purple church" can post in the "purple church" forum, except for [open] threads. This is allowed.

http://foru.ms/t5702921

I haven't seen a forum do this, though, and I doubt anyone will. :)

I do like that we have the freedom to run our forum how we want.

Okay, do you think there would ever be a circumstance in which an emergency rule change would be needed? If so, what should the protocol be?

Lisa

Letalis
24th August 2007, 02:48 PM
Absolutely.

The only time we would really need to make an "emergency" rule change is if there was an Erwin mandate that contradicted our forum policies. Other than that, we're pretty much self-governing, self-determining.

Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 02:52 PM
Absolutely.

The only time we would really need to make an "emergency" rule change is if there was an Erwin mandate that contradicted our forum policies. Other than that, we're pretty much self-governing, self-determining.

Okay, what if I added something in about the rarity of such a circumstance and that it would only occur if Erwin revised the current self-governing vision.

I am going to go edit the first post. See if that would be more acceptable to you.

Lisa

Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 02:54 PM
Okay, try that out, Letalis.

Lisa

Letalis
24th August 2007, 03:03 PM
This makes more sense to me:

If an Erwin mandate is issued, or another site-binding guideline, and members feel that current CC rules are not compliant, a member should open a discussion for an emergency change to the rules wiki. All previous steps must still be followed. This is the one exception to the time restraints as outlined above for existing rules.

Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 03:09 PM
This makes more sense to me:

If an Erwin mandate is issued, or another site-binding guideline, and members feel that current CC rules are not compliant, a member should open a discussion for an emergency change to the rules wiki. All previous steps must still be followed. This is the one exception to the time restraints as outlined above for existing rules.

Changed! The only thing different is using "Should" instead of "Will or Must". "Should" gives wiggle room in places where we do not want loopholes.

Oh, and I need to add you as a Contributor now.

Lisa

~*Lady Trekki*~
24th August 2007, 03:20 PM
Changed! The only thing different is using "Should" instead of "Will or Must". "Should" gives wiggle room in places where we do not want loopholes.

Oh, and I need to add you as a Contributor now.

Lisa
That means you have to go into the wiki and do something...add a comma or somethin. ;)

Lisa0315
24th August 2007, 03:30 PM
Yeah, Letalis. You need to go change something in the wiki to get real contributor status. It is important so that if anyone says, "Only a few agreed to this!", then, we can point to all the people who were involved in it, and the many pleas to get others involved.

Lisa