End to Voting on Applicants?

[sahearniitth]

I make no secret that I keep an eye on vote threads and can usually figure out who has been voting which way. We have recentlly been having a trend of people voting no without giving a valid reason just to cockblock either a mainlot or an addition from a different shell. In poppins application, the votes stood at 9-7 this afternoon which makes it look questionable. However there are like 6 positive comments (including my own) and NO negative comments including the option of PMing. People who have voted no include 4 votes from the Yume/Phalanx/Knight/Nagoshi group as well as misc votes from other members. This not only goes against the spirit of what is explicitlly stated as the requirement for voting no, it is counter prodictive to the well being of the shell.

It was suggested that we end voting on applications to me. If we go this route, applications will still be posted for members to comment on but there will not be a numerical quantification associated with it. Decisions will be made by evaluvating the comments posted (or submitted to a SH via PM) and weighing it against what the member could bring to the shell, which is more or less what we have had to resort to doing recentlly.

Thoughts?

[Caskaa]

Would you have let Videl in the LS based on your feelings about it, when the membership pretty clearly said no?

Leave voting in the hands of the members. I'll go post something in that thread.

[Sumira]

I was criticized for taking too much power away from the members of the shell in our early days. Most of those people that had that problem are long gone, but that isn't to say there aren't current members that feel they should have some say in the direction of the shell.

That is the biggest reason I looked for every opportunity to allow members to get their input in. Voting on new members isn't particularly important, but I'm not sure that there are strong enough reasons to take it away.

I guess the way I always saw it was, "no" votes just simply disappeared in my mind when there were no comments to support the no votes. I don't know everyone and I needed the comments to get a general feeling for the applicant.

Looking at comments alone for Poppinfresh would make me accept the player. So I guess if your idea is to simply remove the "poll" part and leave it open for comments only, that would work fine.

[Aceris]

I"m not sure what the difference is to be honest. If there are just no votes for the sake of voting no then by all means just cite that since there are no explanations for no votes and there are comments for good votes the applicant is accepted based on that. I never felt we gave rat's ass about the voting anyway. Less we've changed the way we operate I've hardly ever seen us reject or accept applicants based on votes alone.

[Circan]

Voting has always been a way for members to give input, not a way for the linkshell's decisions to be made. If less weight is given to voting and more weight is given to comments, then we'll get more comments and the problem is fixed. The only additional concern that might come up with the membership is suspected favoritism. If the membership was 50/50 yes/no on Poppin's application and we still let them into the linkshell, but didn't do it for someone else, there's a high chance the leadership would be accused of letting in member's from their own HNM LS for equipment, rather than improvement of the linkshell. This would probably cause some bad vibes, but if we are clear in why we are doing a chance like this, then it should be fine.

Oh, and yes, I'm still alive. >.>;