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Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2025 15:08:22 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] "Abstain" voting option for RFCs
To: Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>,
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From: tim@bastelstu.be (=?UTF-8?Q?Tim_D=C3=BCsterhus?=)

Hi

On 7/28/25 16:15, Larry Garfield wrote:
>>> How about this, as a following paragraph:
>>>
>>> As an STV example, a secondary vote using STV and having 5 "Foo", 4 "Bar", 8 "Baz", and 9 "Abstain" first-choice votes has no majority, so will go to a second round.  "Bar" will be eliminated and those votes redistributed to second-choice options.  If for example the second round result is 6 "Foo", 9 "Baz", and 11 "Abstain", then Baz will have won as it has a clear majority of non-Abstain votes cast.
>>
>> That is quite verbose and requires two assumptions to be made, making it
>> hard to follow when not already knowing how STV works. I think it will
>> confuse more than it helps.
> 
> It's 3 sentences, and less than 4 lines wrapped.  I'd hardly call that verbose.
> 

Compared to the rest of the policies I'd still call it verbose. The 
bigger issue to me is that it doesn't really explain much when you are 
not already familiar with STV. Wikipedia is in a much better position to 
explain this than the policy document. I also expect STV votes to be 
fairly rare, most RFCs do not even come with secondary votes in the 
first place, because details are decided in the discussion.

Best regards
Tim Düsterhus