In my opinion, the process could be sped up without losing much (if anything at all). I think the voting stages could be safely reduced in duration (you get around 80-90% of the results rather quickly with the rest trickling in). This was especially apparent in the movement vote which clearly showed a huge preference for the ETA movement. The vote could have safely been closed much earlier. Discussion/Design phases should take as long as is needed for the majority of those discussing to be happy to go to a vote.
If a consensus is found early there is little reason to drag it on.
I think judgement needs to be taken throughout the process and each phase should end at a dynamically chosen, appropriate time. I think this could result in a more compact schedule.
Initially I proposed a shorter vote duration but was then asked to make it longer, which is why it's currently at a week. I feel that assumption is a dangerous thing. Sure it may seem obvious that a particular item is going to win, but to close a vote early on that basis doesn't seem right to me. Life is full of improbability and it certainly wouldn't be the most bizarre thing that ever happened if a group of people suddenly joined the project and voted differently than everyone else in the final days of the vote.
Also, I think it's important to stick with a consistent length of time for the voting. Dynamically altering its length based on voting volume isn't fair to those voters who do decide to trickle in at the end. In the end how much time would arbitrarily truncating voting save? A few days here and there?
I agree that the length of discussion periods should reflect the level of participation in the subject, which is what I've been trying to do up until now.
I'm just managing, not dictating this process. So if others feel we should speed things up, we can certainly do that. Keep in mind that the next design elements aren't as straightforward as they might seem; we'll be reliant on drawings to be prepared and this in itself can cause a bottleneck in the process.
It's clear to me that the Artillery theme has won, but (and sorry if this has been answered before) what will happen with the lettering W-SS that's on the original?
It won't be included. When we design the dial there might be some other text put in its place, but the general consensus was that we were intrigued by the design elements of the watch and its Beobachtungsuhr (observer) connection. The service branch that these watches were originally commissioned for has no relevance here.
