Anyone in a poll can propose an alternative/amendment

So, like a sub-vote with a shorter time-line than the original proposal?

It's possible to start another proposal in the same thread at the same time. I'm not sure if that's a good experience though. I would encourage people to work together and put a single proposal forward to the group if possible.

We are thinking about adding the ability to version your proposal. So proposals start at version 1 and if you make changes to the meaning of the proposal you increment the version. Votes against the previous version will still show up, but it's easy to see what version they were for. The voters will be notified and be able to change their vote if they wish.

@mattnoyes - Are you talking about a feature where a person who isn't the original proposal author adds another proposal to go with or against the exisiting proposal? Are they tied together somehow? I would like to hear more about how it works.

I think the versioning idea is pretty great - would allow for that iterative approach which is lacking at the minute.

What I am imagining is a way for anyone involved in the decision-making to be able to offer an amendment or a proposal to postpone or refer. This came up because a member made a proposal on social.coop, some good concerns were raised, I would like to propose postponing the vote until after a related upcoming event.

Thanks Matt, are you able to explain how this might work in practice?

If I start a proposal about something, then someone else starts an amendment, what is the voting experience like, and how do we know what the outcome of the situation is?

So, I make a proposal -- let's have an online chat on June 3rd, and charge people $10 to participate. People start voting, and commenting. Person X reads the proposal and comments people have made, and wants to propose that the vote be postponed until the Financial working group has a discussion on the implications of charging for an event. It would be great if people could vote on whether to postpone or not, if not, then the original proposal stands.OR, person X proposes an amendment, let's do the event but make it free of charge. It would make sense to vote on that before voting on the whole thing. I picture using the comment field and then some kind of nested proposal, or sub-proposal, with a shorter time than the original proposal, as Matt Cropp suggested.

I'll keep thinking about this.. but my initial reaction is that creating another proposal or amendment isn't going to help the group reach a clear outcome.

I would not want that ^ happening in my group. I would want person X to vote "disagree" and state they can't support it until the FWG has had a discussion on the implications of charging. This may trigger others to change their vote to disagree if they also think that should happen.

In the second case of counter proposal... What's going to happen if the amendment passes? The person who posted the amendment isn't the person running the event. So some people vote for free and some people vote on the original proposal. I don't see clarity in the outcome and I think Loomio's job is to help people reach clear outcomes.

In each case I currently think it makes more sense for the person who dislikes aspects of the proposal to use the disagree button and ask for something different, and for the proposal author to consider if that's what they want to do and iterate the proposal as they learn about the implications of it.

Having said that.. I think the current multiple proposals at once feature could be used to do these things you talk about already.

Would love to hear from other facilitators to learn if they want this feature.

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration of this -- I think the basic model you are using is a bit more occupy-like than Roberts Rules (a good thing!). The assumption is that the proposal comes from and belongs to the person who initiated it and presumably will do the work, right? I also understand the emphasis on focus - not wanting to have a proposal turn into an unmanageable string of proposals...

Maybe another way to approach the issue I am raising would be to differentiate the "disagree" option, to include something like "please revise" or "I will help revise" -- just brainstorming here? Disagree and Abstain are perhaps to broad, pushing people into a thumbs up/thumbs down? Or else "Disagree" could be replaced (or supplemented) with "I have a concern" and "I have a serious concern" each with a required comment (so the person states their concern). That might make it easier to keep track of and address the concerns?

I think you're onto something with the concern, serious concern buttons. That's really similar to consent based decision making as I understand it.

Thanks for raising this, it's been useful.

My model is Fist to Five -- the voting by fingers approach used by Food Not Bombs: five fingers = I support this and will work on it
four fingers = I support this
three fingers = If others want to do this, okay
two fingers = I have a concern
one finger = I have an urgent concern
fist = if this goes forward I will have to leave the group

There are a lot of great comments in this thread. I have to say that there is something about the current model that seems a bit awkward or unnatural. The idea of versioning proposals, and the idea of supporting a "fist of five" style of proposal would both be very helpful I think.

I'd like to add that it would be great if we could enhance the experience of expressing concerns or providing additional data and context for the decision sponsor to consider. The current process seems somehow awkward.

With a 250-character limit in the proposal to describe your concern or to add context, you can't say much at all. If you want to say more you need to jump out of the decision context and into the discussion thread context - and that's if there even is a discussion thread to go to. If you do that, it's unclear how your post is related to the proposal and to your specific vote.

Similarly, if the decision-sponsor wants to reply to a comment in a proposal, that reply has to take place in the discussion thread and it isn't directly visible in the proposal itself.

In terms of ideas to resolve this - maybe keeping the vote comments short so they continue to act as a summary - but providing easy ways to add more vote-related details (context, replies) as linked decision posts would work.

Thanks Leila. Yes, the vote statement is intentionally short, so they act as a summary.

I guess my dream now is to have fist to five options: Yes and I will organize, Yes, Okay, Concern, Serious Concern, Block (not sure about block in this context).

Have you tried using a poll to implement this? I'm confident it would work pretty well, and if not, it would be cool to hear specifics about what parts are not satisfactory.

Just tried it - seems like the solution! (Can see versions in comments. Would also be cute to have fist to five icons, but not necessary. )

Seems like people want:
- Flexibility with what responses are available. eg: Change from agree, abstain, disagree, block to "fist of five" and more.
- Flexibility to iterate the proposal as understanding develops.
- Ability to leave comments referencing proposals and votes within the discussion thread.

FYI - the "edited the poll" event item should have been nested under the poll created event, like the votes, and then chronologically ordered within them, but it wasn't because of a bug. I've just fixed the bug and will deploy the fix shortly.

Our example is good because it shows there is support for revised foo but nobody willing to do the work, so not a viable proposal even though it has enough votes to pass...