Moderation!

Can I please ask people not to mention actual percentages in the thread, sinse any voting needs to be the free decision of whoever votes based upon the issue at hand and the reasons given, --- -which is indeed why the forum itself won't let you see how many people have voted for each position until you've voted yourself.

I've moderated Alex' above post to remove the number, but if people will remember in future that would help, ---- sinse after all a poll, especially one on such a contentious issue needs to be as fair as possible.

Good points indeed, I'm always rather confused why people are so wary about creating more topics and prefer to reuse old ones even if it has been years! sinse they last got a post in them, witness my puppet nightmares thread in the main forum, it was far easier for me to post a new topic than go and hunt out bladestorm's original from last year.

As far as edits go, sinse people are just editing the last post anyway, and even then only when nobody has replied and you've got something legitimate to say, most of the time it shouldn't make a difference if the edit is relatively close to the original post time.

I do however take violinists' point about addressing different subjects in different consecutive posts, or using multiple posts one after another to create a log like effect where your discussing something progressively such as each level of a game your playing through, ---- however myself I'm inclined to think that these good factors of double posting are overshadowed by the bad ones and possible abuses of the feature, hence the need for a rule, ---- however we'll see how the vote goes.

Wow!  Ignominious defeat?  Last I remember we were dealing with a simplistic rule, not a corrupt and shameful government system. 

Nevertheless, I find that a rather impressive choice of words and fairly persuasive writing.  Were I of a different mind, you would probably have me convinced that my neutrality was wrong on this subject.

I am honored to have found and ended up on a forum with such great writers, even if I feel that people have at times taken their beliefs to outrageous extremes.  I can truthfully say that I have never experienced a dull moment out here and look forward to the days to come.

Indeed, that is an exceptionally written post, ---- I've just given it a thumbs up, despite the fact that I do not agree with it .

As I said I don't dispute your points regarding stream of consciousness writing and blog style posts, I just am of the opinion that the past abuses of the system outway the good that it can do, and the grim and tangled chaos of a world where forum members do war upon another without rhyme, reason or mercy for those who get in the way of the salvos of many short posts is one we do not wish to see, for this reason, I will ask people to side with the right and order of the universe, ---- or indeed the forum! :d.

And yes, I freely admit I'm getting carried away there .

Back to the matters at hand though, to be honest on a personal level I really dislike threaded mode on the forums I've seen it. It just seems to create a hole bunch of what is to me useless information before and behind each post, and many, many more links and things to go through when reading topics, ---- not to mention when writing them. Because of this I barely if ever pay attention to the threads, sinse there is just too much information about how each post relates to others to actually make me want to bother taking the time to read it, sinse obviously I'm just interested in what the perso themselves have said.

Then again, as an ardent rambler, I've always been in favour of sprawling, multi topic replies, and even were the forum threaded my own thoughts are probably not half so organized as to make the system work for me :d.

This is of course all personal opinion though, from an administration standpoint I'll of course go with the majority decision as I have said.

Precisely.  While I appreciate the way the mind works, my idea of reading a forum is not tied to that concept.  When I do wish to read things based on stream of consciousness and the like, I just pull out a coppy of Finnegans Wake  and get to it.  Open that masterpiece to any page and I think you'll find your mind looks a lot like that to anyone who isn't yourself.

Well violinist it is true you couldn't do a constant jernal style posting under the rule, ----- but as Arq said to my mind that is what a blog is for not a forum, indeed I might considder writing a blog myself just for that reason.

the rule however is not intended to be a perfect solution, and I do recognize that it throws out some good it the bad, it's just that in the past the abuses I've seen of the system i believe outway what good could come ofpeople like yourself using it as intended.

It's a little like an antivirus system blocking cookies, hardware install, autorun and the like from your machine. When used properly such things are fine, but when abused by a virus they can cause problems.

I myself have gone on a case by case basis with such things, allowing some but not others. And as I said, in the case of multiple posts based on what I have seen in the pas think the bad outways the goo in this particular case.

No problem alex. usually it would be fine, but obviouly we want this vote to be as fair as posible, an if people vote one side or other because it's got more or less votes in the numbers then it would not be.

Moderation!

post text removed as per previously mentioned bias in the vote.

the vote I believe will end at midnight tonigt, and we'll implement the result.

Forum admins, install this PunBB extension, and this problem becomes irelevant.

@Robla, as I said to alexander above, having vote totals mentioned in the actual poll is not really on. Afterall when someone votes we want their decision to be based only on the arguements for or against, not on anything else, ---- -for instance voting because one position got more votes and they don't believe the other has chance of winning.

this is how all ballots across the world work, including elections here in Britain.
@james, thanks for the extention, I'll have a look.

To everyone else, the final result is 15 in favour of the rule, but 17 against.

It has been a very close run vote with almost equal numbers, but by two votes the majority has decided double posting should be allowed. So, now everyone can doulbe post as needed. I'll edit the rule out of the faq later today, and we'll see what happens.