[Sammie]

Following discussion in the August Book Club thread, there were some general thoughts about the administration of the Book Club thread that were felt to need a wider hearing. So...this is it!

The first few posts are those that set the ball rolling.

(Apologies for hijacking your thread, Sammie!)
Hobbit

Originally posted by Lani
I think we should do a second round of voting between the two books with the highest count just because it seems that it would be nice if at least 50% picked one book. It was a bit late for this time when you brough this up, Lani - but perhaps it's somethig we could discuss with view to future votes? Do we really think it would make much difference to the final result? I have no idea.

[Erfael]

Originally posted by Sammie
It was a bit late for this time when you brough this up, Lani - but perhaps it's somethig we could discuss with view to future votes? Do we really think it would make much difference to the final result? I have no idea.

Sammie, I think adding in another vote would only make the final book decision come in later. I think that it would be great if the decisions could be done by around the 10th-15th of the previous months so those of us without a good local bookstore can get it online, wait for it to be delivered, and then have a chance of getting through it by the 1st of the month.

I would also like to see both of the polls, SF and Fantasy, finish in close temporal proximity so that both books could be ordered in one fell swoop. Sometimes as it is now the fantasy is finished well over a week before the Sci-fi poll.

Perhaps some further codification of book club selection procedure is in order so as to allow people ample time to obtain and read the books.

I'm not against the second round of voting, so long as it doesn't push the end of the procedure any closer to the beginning of the month. (I would be happy to do some work to help in all of this if it is needed) Erf.

[Nimea]

Amen, Erfael!

We have been discussing this some month ago, but somehow it did not work out right. We should make it a RULE this time.

My suggestions:

I would say two weeks for nomination, two weeks for voting. We could do one week each as well, but we have to be ready at at least the 15th . . . even so that time can be too short for ordering and reading if one has to import the book (like me sometimes ;) ). But I could live with it.

There needs to be a timetable!

How about this month? We could try one week nomination and one week voting . . .

If after half the time it is clear that two books are to close, make a poll for those two.

How about it? :confused:


And make Erfael responsible for the procedures. ;)

:)

[Erfael]

Originally posted by Nimea
I would say two weeks for nomination, two weeks for voting. We could do one week each as well, but we have to be ready at at least the 15th . . .

If we do two weeks and two weeks, then we have to start nominating six weeks in advance, which seems a little extreme. That could get us into some confusion for people who are wanting to to join for the first time. "So we have the book we're supposed to be buying, the book we're reading, and the book we're fighting over about buying and reading?":eek:
I don't have any inherent problem with this other than the intimidation factor for new people.


The other thing concerns me is that right now is that things are pretty loose and people may like it like that. How would people deal with it being a little more regimented? Would it make people more or less likely to participate?


If after half the time it is clear that two books are to close, make a poll for those two.

This seems a little unfair. If there is a date set as the end of the poll, which all the polls seem to have, people should have that time. I'll sometimes wait until I see how a poll shapes up a little before voting. Perhaps my first choice will get very few votes, I'll wait until it's basically down to two and pick which I prefer from there. There are probably others like me who don't vote until near the end of the period. I think whatever length is set in a poll initially should be stuck to, so people don't come back to vote and find that someone made the executive decision to close it down.

What do people think? Two one-week periods(nominate and vote) with a very short run-off in case of a tie--this starts on the 1st, nominate through the 7th, vote through the 14th? Or do two 5-day periods sound better, with an optional 5-day run-off if the top two were very close sound better? In that case, what is very close?

And make Erfael responsible for the procedures.

:eek:


;)


Originally posted by Sammie
Do we really think it would make much difference to the final result?

I think it can make a difference. It's possible that we get something like this month's voting:

Book A: 2
Book B: 3
Book C: 10
Book D: 3
Book E: 8

where book E barely gets edged out by book c, but in light of books A, B, and D not getting chosen, all (or a majority) of those people could potentially much rather read E than C, making a second vote come out:

Book C: 12
Book E: 14

At least in this case, as Lani mentioned, at least half of the people actually voted for the winning book, not just 38% as in last month's selection(only an example). The way we do it now can leave a fair number of members feeling like their votes on books A, B, and D went to waste if they have no interest in book C.

I guess in short, I think a run-off between the top two books would be a good thing, so long as it was timely.



Mods, would it be possible to break this discussion off of the August voting thread and slap it into the Book Club root so maybe more people happen across it with some sort of official name so we can get some opinions on some of this? If it can be somehow dual posted so people in SFBC can see it, too, that would be great. Erf.

[Nimea]

Good idea, place this part of the thread were it belongs.

Erfael, I already wrote that I would be fine with one week for each thing, but we did the six week routine before and it worked - as far as I remember. And what would be so confusing? We are all able to read, so a thread which is called "September nominations" should be rather clear.
And why is a short rule for nominating and voting so problematic? If you say 'start nominating 1st and stop voting 14th' it isn't loose anymore either. And people are still free to do (almost) whatever they want within the book club.
Like it is now, someone starts a nomination thread whenever one realizes that the time gets short . . . for me that is much too loose (for reasons I stated more than once).

By the way, there seem to be always people who come to the voting or nomination too late (that is just an observation, no offense meant) - so we really need to see what people say about one week for each thing or not. Or testing it . . . like this month? ;)

[Erfael]

Nimea, I'm just trying to throw out as many ideas as come to me on this one. I think you and I could go back and forth until we're blue in the fingers and nothing will change, so I'm just trying to drag others into this conversation with us so we can start getting a mass concensus or debate going.

I'm all for trying out 1week/1week this month or even 5days/5days/optional5days, but we'd need at least one mod on board to play enforcer. Any takers? Erf.

[Rob B]

Since I've been running things, I suppose my voice should be heard...

On one hand, I think the idea of having a separate vote for the top two books, if close, is a pretty good idea. But, as it is, we've been doing the voting such that we don't get a clear winner until the middle of the month. Not only that, we have had to do run-off votes lately, anyway.

I have been setting the polls to run a little over a week, so that a weekend is incorporated into the voting time.

We should start the nominations for September now.

Perhaps in the middle of this month, we can start an extended voting period for October to see how things go.

[Lucky Joe]

I like the idea of having a week of nominations, a week of voting and then being left with a couple of weeks to order and read or whatever. I don't think having a few things on the go would be too confusing, as Nimea said we can all read, so having a thread titled September nominations would be fairly self explanitory.:)

[Sammie]

Most of you guys seem to be pretty much advocating the system we already use.

I think a run-off between close books is sensible - but will depend when the poll has finished. Like it or not, this will change from month to month, as we all have commitments elsewhere and sometimes are a little 'late' getting things off the ground. So i think it's best to play each time a little by ear, rather than have a hard and fast 'rule'.

Things definitely run smoother when the nominating starts early - Imo the nominating should start as soon as the 'previous' month's title has been finalised. This should generally end up as half way through the month - which gives a full 6 weeks from beginning nomination to starting discussion. This is, i think, roughly the basic plan at the moment - although, like i said, it doesn't always work out that way :D

But guys - once august's book has been chosen, don't feel you have to wait for a mod to open september's nominations - as long as the two don't overlap, feel free to get it going asap!

Sammie.

[Iskaral Pust]

I was wondering if it would be helpful for whoever opens the poll to make the names of each title a link to that book's amazon reviews and story pverview. I realise this would result in more work for the mods, but it would be useful for some people who haven't heard of that book.