Conlang learners/Voting

0. Let's all try to post as many reviews and comments on nominated conlangs as we can before the end of the voting; preferably before voting begins.

1. We'll use instant-runoff voting. A ballot should consist of a list of one or more of the conlangs from the Learners shortlist, listed in order of your most to least preferred conlang to learn. You can list as many of the conlangs on the shortlist you want. If there are any you have no interest at all in learning, you should leave them off your ballot.

2. Voters should email their ballots offlist to Philip Newton, Amanda Babcock Furrow and Matthew Turnbull not sooner than September 1 (midnight GMT) and not later than September 8 (midnight GMT).

list of email addresses obfuscated against spambots will go here Real Soon Now

3. The vote-counters will independently count the ballots sometime between September 8 and September 15. They'll email each other privately with the detailed results of their count to check each other's work.

4. Once the volunteers are satisfied they've counted the votes accurately, they'll announce the results to the conlang_learners mailing list (and perhaps in other places; see below).

5. If we already have permission to use the chosen conlang, we'll dive in and start using it. If not, we'll try again to contact the conlang's creator, and if we don't get permission, we'll go to the runner-up from the voting and use it if we already have permission, ask permission if we don't, and iterate if necessary.

6. The vote counters could announce to the list that they've finished counting the votes, and will announce the result live on a certain IRC channel at a certain date and time. In that event, they should privately contact the creator of the chosen conlang, get their permission if we don't already have it, and make sure the date and time for the IRC meet suits the conlang creator as well as all the vote counters, before making an announcement.

7. The vote counters might, depending on the patterns they see in the voting, recommend a split into two groups studying different languages, or not. If they don't recommend a split but a significant minority of list members are unhappy with the conlang chosen by the vote, said minority should probably get together to organize another vote, by whatever method and criteria for eligibility they choose, a little later on.

8. It would be nice to announce the vote count results on 17 September, the feast day of St. Hildegard of Bingen, assuming the vote counters are finished verifying and counting the ballots, and the availability of the chosen conlang, by then.

9. The vote counters ought to post detailed results of the IRV vote-counting process, probably on FrathWiki. See for instance these detailed voting break-downs for the Hugo Award, which uses essentially the same kind of instsant-runoff voting we'll use.