Voting Results Summary

This is the summary prepared by JMB for the mailing list. It is worthwhile to have it posted here for the record.

My apologies for not sending the results of the ballot out earlier. Life is rather hectic at the moment for JMB.

First I would like to thank all forty people who responded to the voting ballot, either to my inbox or in the mailing list. While I am disappointed that I did not hear from all 66 whom I emailed personally, I don't think we have ever had such a good response to a vote previously. I am hoping that some people had the emails from "nobody important" eaten by the spam filter and are truly not so lethargic. I hear Yahoo has a very (over)efficient spam filter.

In those forty responses, three chose not to renew their membership in Blogpower for personal reasons, mostly being too busy either to continue blogging or to commit the time to Blogpower. Their votes were not counted. Those three are Matt Sinclair of Sinclair's Musings, Chris of the Russian Wolfhound and Juan Garcia of the Poliblogs. I am sure that we wish them well with their future endeavours, both in and out of blogging and I am also sure that they will remain in many of the BP members blogrolls in any event. Would everyone who has a manual blogroll please update them to reflect these changes.

However I'm sure you are all anxiously awaiting the final results of the thirty seven who cast their votes and I just want to say that we really appreciate any comments that were included since it gives us more of a feeling of what the membership are thinking above and beyond a simple yes or no.


Are you in favour of limiting the number of members in Blogpower? Yes 19 No 18


If yes what would you think is an appropriate number -- ten voted for 50, five for 60, two for 70,
one for 150 and one abstention on the number

Do you wish to continue as a member of Blogpower (including showing the banner and blogroll)?

37 out of the 40 replies recommitted as mentioned above


Do you confirm Colin Campbell as an administrator of BP ? Yes 37 No 0



Should a reapplication for membership by a former member require a new vote? Yes 25 No 12


Are you in favour of a black ball system for admissions and expulsions to BP: Yes 13 No 20 (2 abstentions
namely, 3 nays equals no admission, 3 ayes equals expulsion*? One split vote with yes to part(a)and no to part (b), so not counted)

Are you in favour of all discussion moving back to the comment section Yes 17 No 18 (2 abstentions)
on the Blogpower blog and the mailing list being closed for good.


The vote on the limit was a very close one. You can see by this that there really are two camps on this issue in Blogpower with the yes camp thinking we are past our comfortable limit. But although the majority is slim, that's the result of the vote and we will not be accepting new applications for membership for the moment.

Congratulations to Colin Campbell on his unanimous confirmation as administrator. We look forward to his input and help with the various administrative tasks.

Reapplication for membership will require a new vote for admission.

In retrospect I should have broken the blackball question into two parts but I did not want to be accused of trying to sway the voting so went with the exact wording of the motion. Some of the yes voters said that 3 was too small a number for expulsion and suggested other numbers, such as five, ten and even ten percent of the membership was mentioned.

The list vote was also very close but the status quo won out and I hope that those who voted for its closure will come to appreciate that it is a far more effective means of communicating with members of a group than using the comment section of a blog, which was why it was implemented in the first place. I think it is important to use the list responsibly and to make sure that the messages or daily digest come to an email address that is convenient for each member. If you need help then please ask any one of us how to go about changing your preferences.

A word about reconfirmation of membership. This means displaying the banner which is linked to DTB blog and since the blogroll is quite long you may consider using either of the two scrolling blogrolls which take up a much smaller amount of space. Both can be modified to size and the moving scrolling one of Thunderdragon also works with Wordpress fortunately. Again contact us for any help you might need with this issue.

Thank you for your patience and thank you to all who participated.

JMB