ONT Re: Gathering Questions
Jon Awbrey's analysis is correct:
JA: An explicit abstention does not count for or against the issue,
but it does count toward the overall validity of the vote, much
in the same way that the sample size N counts toward the validity
of an experiment or survey, and anyone who later argues for the
validity of the vote will use it in just this way, to say that
a total of N persons participated in the vote (or survey or
experiment). If N is very small, critics will have good
reason to dismiss the significance of the vote (etc.),
no matter what the outcome.
Contrary to what Frank said, an abstention is *not* equivalent
to a no vote -- because, as Jon pointed out, it counts equally
strongly against both the yes position and the no position.
In the case of the SUMO vote, the high number of abstentions means
that many SUO participants believed that it was premature either
to accept or to reject SUMO as a candidate document.
Bottom line: An abstention is a vote for postponing a decision
until more information becomes available. It is a valuable option,
and we should respect it.
John Sowa