The Town of Odyssey

In our platform, we promised to hold a series of referendums to split some forums. The first referendum I would like to hold is splitting referendums and petitions off the Steps. There are different ways we could run this hypothetical sub-forum. Here is my idea:The reason for these restrictions would be so everyone could tell what each petition stood for, and to make it clear which side won. The reason for not allowing more than two choices in the poll is to keep from splitting the vote. We would handle multiple similar suggestions by having a different thread for each.

However, maybe we would want to restrict to it just admins' referendums and for just binding referendums where the admins would be required (unless Catspaw objects) to do what won in the poll.

I would also like ideas for what to name the new sub-forum, because I don't have any good ones.

This isn't the referendum itself, but an informal discussion about exactly what referendum we will have.
I want to have simple yes/no official poll to keep from splitting the vote, and make it clear what the board wants. This is why I am having a informal discussion, instead of having a complex multiple choice referendum.

So what do you guys think? Do you like the first idea, or do you prefer the second one? Is a week too long to keep the poll open for, or not long enough?

There have been exactly 20 threads posted in The Steps this year. I really don't see the need to further complicate matters when, as far as I see it there is no need to separate content. It also seems an overreaction to potential before we have a chance to judge what effect this new type of content would have on thread creation.

Finally something to debate in here.

Splitting, especially in a forum as slow as the Steps, is really unnecessary. I haven't seen a user-made petition in here since the signature size limit increase. I mean, what would we even have petitions about? I think we all love the site as it is, why change things? And if we do have petitions, we can just post them in the main Steps...

The value of splitting petitions off from the rest of steps of activity is petitions are very different from the rest of steps. Some threads like "Log of site issues" and contest results are very different petitions. I for one am far more interested in petitions than the other kinds of threads. If the petitions were in separated, then people on the front page would be alerted when a petition existed that they might be interested in voting on, because the forum's icon would be highlighted.

Also, because of our platform, there will be at least three referendums in term. There will be one for each potential split.

I'm on the fence about this myself. Because.. is it really necessary? I mean, it will make for better organization.. but that's about it. Though I like organization and creating easier access to things, this would mean we'd be adding a subforum that wouldn't be used all that regularly. However, having the subforum could actually generate more member created petitions (whether silly/unnecessary or not).

I didn’t even realize the Steps was one of the forums targeted by your proposed splits.
I’m against it. It is simply unnecessary. The Steps in general is rarely used, compared to other forums (granted some of that is due to people being unsure what exactly belongs in there and using FM instead, but even so there aren’t as many Step type threads made as other subjects), splitting it further would create clearer organization, but have no effect on navigation at the moment.
I’m also unclear on what exactly you want to split it into. A place for petitions or requests for the administration, okay, but that’s pretty much what the Steps is already for? There aren’t that many threads of that type made, I doubt it’s worth separating them from the other general site subject threads in the rest of the Steps.

All I ever hear about is that there are too many forums and that some need to be combined, so I don't see why any, especially the Steps, should be split and make things even more crowded.

Because of lack of support for this proposal, I am not currently planning to hold a referendum on it. If someone does want this, post saying so, and maybe we will.

Heh, yeah, I don't have an opinion, but I promised Woody I would say no, so NO!!!!!