[vote] Update OpenWrt rules

[Imre Kaloz]

On Tue, 2025-10-28 at 15:53 +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:

<snip>

> Well, for a start *whatever* the 'neutral vote' is defined to be by the
> rules, that really ought to be the intent of the voter who, under those
> rules, decides to cast precisely that 'neutral vote'. That's kind of
> tautological.
> 
> But what do you believe *should* be the intent of a 'neutral vote'?
> What is the option that the voter is most *likely* to need?
> 
> Isn't is precisely that "I am present, and active, and have observed
> this motion. I should be counted towards quorum, but do not wish to
> affect the arithmetic of the yes/no votes"?
> 
> And isn't that precisely what the neutral vote is *doing*, in the
> proposed rules?

You conveniently ignore human psychology. Abstaining from the vote
is another way of neutrality, especially if the question does not really
matter to you and you don't want to just virtue-signal your presence.

Neutral votes that have been cast in the past included a reasoning,
and they were not about "half-support" - they were mostly raising
concerns without the preventing the majority from proceeding if they
choose so.

The proposal wants to use neutral votes in favor of proposals and penalize
abstaining people.

<snip>

>>> How would you *want* this explicit "I'm here but don't care" neutral
>>> vote to be handled, if not how it's being proposed?
>> 
>> If you are asking what would be a fair solution, I would say that neutrals
>> should stay 0 and add them to the quorum. Given the inactivity clause is
>> supposed to fix most of your concerns, for a vote to pass, make the
>> requirement 2/3 of the active votes "yes" _or_ 50%+ of all people who have
>> voting rights.
>
> Hm, I'm not sure I understand. How is a 'neutral vote' different to a
> 'no vote' in that case?
> 
> Let's take an example....
> 
> There are 6 yes and 3 no votes, out of 20 active voters. So it's just
> about a 'yes' by the votes cast but just short of the 50% quorum
> required.
> 
> I don't care, but I cast a neutral vote, just to show that I *have*
> been paying attention and that this isn't happening without my consent.
> I want to be considered when counting the *quorum* against the 50%
> threshold but basically don't want to be counted in the yes vs. no part
> at all. Isn't that the option I should have?

The proposal wants to limit other options, it might be nice to worry about
those as well ;)

> What if we were to rephrase the 'neutral vote' explicitly in those
> terms as counting towards the quorum threshold but not being included
> in the yes/no tally at all? Would you be happy with that?

It's not about my happiness. Given I don't see recurring issues with votes
passing yet, I have a hard time understanding why these are being pushed
and other then the issues I've raised, what changes would they trigger really.


Imre