RenDezvous Rules and Regulations

[LadyJessica]

I have to thank Escarlata for finding this for me.

Rules and Regulations for faires, planning, voting, and campaigning.

In learning from past experiences of choosing a RenDezvous location the Moderators have decided to lay some ground rules for those members old and new to our RF.com family.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about the rules please ask them here and the Mods will answer them as best we can.

If a rule needs changing then the mods will change it accordingly.

Faires

1.The U.S. will be split into 7 sections:

a.Northeast: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York
b.East: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia
c.Southeast: Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi
d.Midwest: Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa
e.Southwest: Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico
f.West: California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado
g.Northwest: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska

2.A faire cannot be considered again for ten years or until the section has been chosen twice.

3.A section cannot be considered for four years. (In other words in 2010 the Southwest section can be in the running but Texas Renaissance Festival cannot be in the running until 2016.)

4.On the slightest off chance that a faire should decide to close it's gates after it has been chosen the faire in 2nd place will get the RenDezvous.


Planning Committee

1.On May 1st, LadyJessica will post what faires are open for volunteers to come forward to say that they would like to plan a RenDezvous.

2.Everyone will have one month in which to announce that they'd like to plan a RenDezvous.

3.In order to be in the running for the RenDezvous the faire must have at least two people to plan the gathering.


Voting

1.On June 1st, LadyJessica will post which faires are in the running for the RenDezvous.

2.A members' vote will only count if they were a member before June 1st of that year and have at least 25 posts.

3.Everyone will have one month in which to place his or her vote.

4.Each member has one vote and one vote only.

5.For that vote to count the member must make the vote themselves. You cannot ask someone to make it for you.

6.Please keep the voting thread to votes only.

7. Votes must be made in the thread. You can not Renmail your vote.


Campaigning

1.After we know which faires are in the running we ask that each person planning the gathering to write up a paragraph or two about why we should choose their faire and to give us general information about the faire; i.e. times, dates, prices, camping, etc.  You can do a write up as a group.

2.These paragraphs will be sent to LadyJessica who will post the paragraph along with who wrote it under one thread, which will remain locked.

3.If you have any general questions about what someone has said please Renmail that person and ask them.

4.There will be no why-my-faire-is-better-than-your-faire politics. If the Mods start to see these posts they will be deleted.

5.If you want to have more people vote for your faire you may post reminders within said faire's section in the forum.

[Lady_Glorianna]

I believe there was a request for the moderators to consider to modify/add a rule to say that once a vote was cast it could not be changed.

[LadyDracolich]

Just curious about the number of posts prior to voting?  Considering we're starting over on a new forum and everyone's post numbers are starting over too?  Just curious.

[Lady_Glorianna]

For this year only, Lady Jessica reduced the post count requirement to 10.

[LadyJessica]

I believe there was a request for the moderators to consider to modify/add a rule to say that once a vote was cast it could not be changed.

BTW read rule number 4 under the voting portion...

[Lairde Guardn]

I also seem to remember that we did have a second vote for the faire to host redevoux, once the two top candidates were selected from the initial vote from all the faire candidates a second vote was run between the top two.....I know that happened in at least two of the rendevoux selections.....was that just thrown out?

[Aaroncois]

I'm curious whether the post-count requirement is being enforced. I made a point of getting to 25 before I voted, but there appear to be a few deviations from that.

[SterlingFan]

I'm curious whether the post-count requirement is being enforced. I made a point of getting to 25 before I voted, but there appear to be a few deviations from that.

I'm wondering that myself  .  Several who have voted have under the required post count.  That could lower Sterling's votes (along with the others) but the rules need to be followed. 

[Cobaltblu]

I'm curious whether the post-count requirement is being enforced. I made a point of getting to 25 before I voted, but there appear to be a few deviations from that.

I'm wondering that myself  .  Several who have voted have under the required post count.  That could lower Sterling's votes (along with the others) but the rules need to be followed. 

Since the rules post above states 25 posts minimum I will go on the assumption that any votes cast by people with less than that will be deducted from the final vote counts so we'll have to see what the final numbers are after the poll ends.

Since the official rules post states 25 votes and voting has begun that's the fair thing to do since otherwise some people with less than 25 votes might have read the rules and not bothered to try to vote.

Regards,

CB

[Lairde Guardn]

Obviously, the 25 post rule needs to be looked at a little more closely......I did a little research and every member under 25 posts with the exception of 1 has been a member of the forum for at least 6 months with many being members for a year or more, they just do not post that often.   

Also Capt Sin...who is the proposed Host for LARF if they should win the Rendevous, would be unable to vote since he does not have the required 25 posts.   

I agree with restricting people that just sign up so that they can vote, but having a hard fast rule for people that have been members over a year, or since the crash and reopening of the forum and telling them they must post more or give up their right to vote....well....that is just wrong..........what would be next......if you don't have 100 or say 500......then only certain people could vote again.......

The rule should read: If you registered with the forum once voting has begun....you can not vote.

[Cobaltblu]

The rule should read: If you registered with the forum once voting has begun....you can not vote.

That seems perfectly reasonable however it would be nice to have the rules post updated to eliminate any confusion (either now or in the future) for people who want to vote.

Regards,

CB

[*Teach*]

I don't like the posting rule either. I know that my Lovely lady has been a member of this forum for 3+ years and hasn't posted that much since the great crash. Many members prefer to read and not post. Are we being fair to those that don't like to post?
I Like the idea of a time limit on who is allowed to vote. Perhaps 6 months membership first?

Also, with the poll... is there a way to tell who votes but doesn't report that they have voted? Seriously speaking if there is no way to tell then how do we know that people don't make accounts and then vote that same day?
Should we go back to the olden ways and have all votes be send to one person for counting?

*or we could require every vote be cast along with a shot of rum...*

[Molden]

*or we could require every vote be cast along with a shot of rum...*

That could get inerrestin' Mate!

I voted! *shot*

I VOTED!!! *shot*

I vtoed! *shot*

I...thynk I voted... *shot*

I...*urp* purty sure I *shot* voted *shot*

Rooms spinnin'... must've vtoed...*shot*

oh bloody 'ell *shot*

*shot*

*CRASH!* ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ........

[LadyJessica]

I'm going to answer the posts as best I can:

I also seem to remember that we did have a second vote for the faire to host redevoux, once the two top candidates were selected from the initial vote from all the faire candidates a second vote was run between the top two.....I know that happened in at least two of the rendevoux selections.....was that just thrown out?

The last two selection time only had two or three faires.  We did not have a run off between the top two.

I'm curious whether the post-count requirement is being enforced. I made a point of getting to 25 before I voted, but there appear to be a few deviations from that.

And

I'm wondering that myself  .  Several who have voted have under the required post count.  That could lower Sterling's votes (along with the others) but the rules need to be followed. 

At this moment in time we are enforcing it the best way we know how.  We are thinking of revamping the rules at this time.

I don't like the posting rule either. I know that my Lovely lady has been a member of this forum for 3+ years and hasn't posted that much since the great crash. Many members prefer to read and not post. Are we being fair to those that don't like to post?
I Like the idea of a time limit on who is allowed to vote. Perhaps 6 months membership first?

Also, with the poll... is there a way to tell who votes but doesn't report that they have voted? Seriously speaking if there is no way to tell then how do we know that people don't make accounts and then vote that same day?
Should we go back to the olden ways and have all votes be send to one person for counting?

*or we could require every vote be cast along with a shot of rum...*

There is no way to tell who voted that's why I asked that everyone make a post.  And we are thinking of going back to the old ways of having everyone post their vote.


Please be patient with us.

The Mods of RenDezvous

[Lairde Guardn]

If memory serves me correctly, the run offs happened during the 1st and 2nd Rendevous.  Although I might be a bit hazy as to the reasoning behind it at the time, but it may have been because of the numbers of faires or that no faire garnered a 50% or more vote for the event.  But there were run-offs in the past.   I do seem to remember the arguement went on about no faire having the 50% or more but I don't think that happened the last two years.

With that said, there was also suppose to be a discussion and (I thought) a vote on the rules for future rendevous at one time.  I am guessing the discussion and vote got caught up in the change when the old board crashed and expected it to come around again, and it just was overlooked.  Then as we prepared for this year a set of rules just appeared, which I believe was one version that was to be discussed and was never in stone, and if you can tell from my post, I personally do not think the current rules are fair and a larger problem having them dictated to me and changed at will, but at least they are a set of rules. 

Having been active in every Rendevous vote since the first, and very active in many of the rules discussions in the past, I would have enjoyed the debate and the voting of the "official rules"...and trying to keep them faire for everyone.

I know that at one time some of the proposed rules were

"that once an area of the country had a rendevous, that area would not be eligible until all other areas had one or failed to propose a faire in another area, then an area that already had one could apply"   That would make the 2010 Rendevous having to have a faire out of the Northeast, Northwest or West, and since there were two faires eligible with hosts for those regions, a region that already had the faire would not have been eligible.

"There was also a proposed rule that a state could not have one again for a period of time"  But this one just vanished  (this rule was put in so that the dominating states would have to support another faire in their region outside of their home state if that region was put up again). 
I would like to know where the 4 year rule was pulled out of........

I would also like to know what happened to the rule that there would be at least 8 to 10 months between each rendevous.....and that if you did not fall in that time frame you were ineligible......

(This rule I know was enforced because it was enforced against my proposed faire, when all the work I had done for NCRF to host a rendevous was cast aside in the vote in 2008 when it did not fall in the "time frame" as we were to early in the year, also CRF could not run because it ran to late in the year and so the only faire from the region eligible to run that had volunteers was Tennessee.  Then NCRF or CRF could not run in 2009 although NCRF would have been in the right time frame, our region won in 2008.......).  Now it seems the time frame does not matter at all, but who made that decision and when and why it was made still eludes me. 

I know at the original discussions that it had already been determined that two states dominate the "active" membership of the boards......and with the rules as they are now, we will wind up going to the same two states every 4 years.  Which means all other areas of the country or the other 48 states will get to fight over the other two years in between.   

You already know my opinion on the 25 post rule, especially for members that have been on the boards since the crash.   Maybe we should make it so you need 100 votes or 500 and then only those really active members can vote or you can only vote if you have an R/F pin.  Oh wait, we can come up with a better voting law, lets see, we live in a country that has already worked out most of the bugs.  If your registered before the voting day....you should be allowed to vote.


{{Climbs down off the soap box and heads back to having FUN}}