Repeal The 90% rule

[nameredacted]

Both the human mic and this rule of voting are slogging the GAs to a crawl; I can't even stay most of the nights because of the sheer amount of time the proposals and their rebuttals pose! ( Metra's a cruel mistress in that regard. )

 

Again, both of these structural elements tie into and aggregate one another. We're going to have to give both a fair measure of scrutiny in order to speed up the assemblies.

[JosephB]

I understand the concern about "when we get larger numbers" and not wanting to alienate a relatively large minority.  However in the meantime requiring 90% agreement on any matters of substance allow an extremely small minority to paralyze things.  Seems to me that anyone who wanted to work against the Occupy movement could quite easily exploit the process with just a few guys and insure nothing gets done.  If you want to be respected you can't allow the cause to be so easily monkey wrenched. 

[andwee]

1. Well, I like the 90% rule, but at the same time, I think that it'd be more effective for quick and responsive action to require a plurality vote to 'pre-win' followed by adding amendments to that 'pre-win' to make it either actionable or at the very least, more inclusive than a 70-80% vote. 90% is a little unnecessarily bureaucratic and is probably stagnating the movement. 

2. Maybe adding prioritization to the actionable items, i.e. if there is an action that receives a 75% majority and a an action that receives a 95% majority, the 95% action should be acted upon first.

3. I like the 90% requirement, but it's definitely an unresponsive way of going about it.

I'm totally open to new ideas, and I think there is definitely a gap between expectations among us. Plus I wasn't around when the 90% majority 'rule' was implemented, and I think it may be time to amend it, given the growth of the movement (<- :D).

 

Anyone agree? In whole with my 3 suggestions, 1,2 or 3 individually?  Let's fix this!

[mcsheffe]

I am for lowering the 9/10ths to 7/10ths.

To me, it is ineffective to have the minority rule the majority.

TO THIS I AGREE YOU GUYS CAN OVER COMPLICATE THINGS TO THE POINT WHERE NOTHING GETS DONE.NARROW YOUR FOCUS AND LETS MOVE ON THIS IS,NT BRAIN SURGERY

[blacklite911]

DA is currently taking steps to be able to work around the 90% rule for everything.

That being said, I still support he 90% rule and contrary to what you guys are saying, we actually get a lot of stuff passed under it. So that point about it not allowing us to move forward is a little weak. I think thats why this topic died in the first place. 90% is proven to work!

Lastly not everything has to go through a GA, thats the point.

[marty]

Things may have (and will continue) to pass with 90% votes. Other systematic movements have worked with leaders who are able to make executive decisions in crucial times. The occupy movement (rightfully) does not want individual leaders at this time. But, as more important decision come, faster action will be necessary. A smaller voting percentage would facilitate this - 75% would still ensure a majority vote.

[Chris]

I think the smartest thing to do here would be to find out what has worked at occupy wall street and what hasn't. We would be foolish not to use them as a resource.

So many other smaller cities and towns for that matter have movements with hundreds of people, yet Chicago seems to be sabotaged. Don't try to reinvent the wheel here, people have been trying to do what OWS did for a LOOONG time. Yet for some reasons OWS worked and continues to work.

If occupy wall street does this 90% voting structure, then go with it, otherwise I would look to those at OWS for advice. If we are 40 days into occupychicago and we are still trying to set up a voting system, when there was already a model in place at OWS, then we have wasted a lot of time, energy, and resources.

You need to make this simple. So people can walk up on day 1 and join right in, otherwise they won't be back for day 2. ESPECIALLY if all they witness is petty arguments. That is another reason the Human Microphone is so critical, if someone is off point or off topic, every just stops repeating what he/she is saying. I say run some GA's without a megaphone for a week, and force people to use the human mic, I bet you see better results.