I get the general gist. I mean, you have a first sign-up where the actual participants are being chosen, and you sort them in groups, and then you have to narrow them down, end result last man/woman/persyn standing. But, uh, the details... bzuh.

Community mod asks for input in comments. If you feel you can do that on painkillers...? (*hugs*)

I start wondering if it's just an issue for ESL speakers or in general...

Yeah... maybe I should add an eta and see if non-ESLers weigh in.

Edited to add: the community mod showed up below.

There will be multiple Cabals going on at once, as people play every week that aren't in Cabals win polls and get selected.

Oh, I think I misunderstood that point. I kept thinking the groups would stay fixed after the initial choice of members and just get smaller and smaller, but new members can come in? Is that to prevent thinning out of Cabals, e.g. if too many people get sick or can't make it in time or something? (Giving reasons for a rule can be helpful for my understanding, too.)

but while that happens other groups start right from the beginning?

... huh? Why? Is it a perpetual cycle so you practically don't have breaks between choosing Idols?

Also, couldn't edit my previous comment, sorry - I just saw your new post to the comm. I have no problems getting the general, basic outline you provided there. That I understand perfectly well. It's the details, with the multiple groups and the voting processes therein with different types of votes and the changing member rosters...

My mistake, replied to the wrong comment. *facepalms*

First: thanks for asking for input, I think that's awesome!

Two, I'll just ramble, and you can ask if anything's not clear, and don't see this as a "change your rules to Z or your community sucks", 'kay?

So: We're still wondering -- where "we" is Yvi, dancing_serpent and I, all people who have English as a second language -- if it's a language barrier / colloquial vocabulary thing or a general thing. For me, personally, the descriptions started to blur after a bit. Like I said above, I get the general concept, but the split into Cabals major and minor, plus rules tied to number of members, and who gets to vote on what, became confusing. Especially the Bye vote. What is a Bye vote, and what does it do? Is it for voting someone out instead of in? On the other hand, it says you can "win" it, which makes it sound like a good thing. Is there knowledge from previous instalments that I'm missing? I think I need someone to do a chart for me where it's all structured clearly with points A to B to C and "if X then [arrow pointing to next step]".

Aah! Thanks for clearing that up. So the person who has the Bye vote can give themselves a break, or give it to others. Nice.

A flowchart would be awesome, because visual structured information = win for my way of processing information. (Probably the reason I like making lists and tables.)

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions!

Uh, I dunno. Yes? Maybe? Will people laugh at me?

Okay, then link away!

Ha, so it wasn't just me / just the Germans *g*

Good point. Many of the rules, or rather, the terms used therein, aren't really explained. So it would seem they're directed at people who are already familiar with them instead of newcomers. As the comm more or less made the jump from an established LJ presence to here, that would make sense.