I have some questions of an historical nature about polls. For a long time we’ve usually suggested/required that an “abstain” option be made part of every poll. How did this come about? And what’s the function? If I don’t want to vote in a poll – if I want to abstain – I just don’t vote. If I don’t want to vote for a specific reason – perhaps I think the poll is unfair – then I don’t have to vote but I have the option to post why I’m not voting.
I'm not sure how it came about or what it's intended function was. I do see a function for it now. If we are to make decisions where the majority rules then
abstain becomes a good tool to diffuse bad (unfair) polls. If we have a two option question then we'll have a majority decision unless there's a tie. Trouble is, what if the quesiton is
do we attack the French in 5 turns or 10 turns when in reality the majority don't want to attack at all? By not voting we risk having a majority decision to attack. By requiring an abstain option, those who don't want to attack at all (or who want to attack at a different time) can vote abstain. Now if we include abstain votes in deciding a majority (not plurality) then we have a nice easy means of dealing with the sort of poll described.
The method we tried last game to deal with this sort of situation was the Censor expiriment. We had one official who was responsible for looking at all polls and validating or invalidating them. Not only was that alot of work, it was abused for political reasons. I do not think we should give one perosn the power to over turn polls.
The only other way I can think of would require a minimum number of votes for a poll to be a decision and we've have no luck in the past agreeing on what level of support a poll should require to be binding.
Also, why aren’t all votes public? I do understand why we might not want to make public our votes that directly concern an individual (election & impeachment votes). But why aren’t all other votes public? Even though sometimes we’ve devised some pretty fancy constitutions that help us play at a representative democracy, really the constitutions have always made clear that we’re a direct democracy (Will of the People). We’re all citizen-legislators; why should we hide our beliefs from each other? I’m not making a criticism here; I’m asking for a rationale because I just don’t understand.
Historically, when the democracy games started there was no such a thing as a public poll. The forum just didn't havce them. Then when public polls came along they were seen as a way to hold people accountable. It was suspected that some people were posting in the forums and taking one stand on an issue but then voting the opposite way in the polls.
I've been that major proponent of allowing private polls. Both public and private polls have their pros and cons. Secret ballors allow people to vote without peer pressure on sensitive issues, while public votes do offer accountability. I feel it should be left to the individual posting the poll to decide which type of poll is more appropriate in a given situation.
Last, ice24k’s poll on Vanilla vs. Warlords generated some criticism because it wasn’t a “legal” poll. I’ve read the explanation that in the past some officials have posted “unofficial opinion polls” then tried to use those to justify actions that - had they polled them - would have been disallowed. Hence, I gather, a movement that polls are sacred and must be for official purposes only (am I correct on this?). What I think I’m reading is informational polls (especially from officials) are therefore illegal. What I think I’m reading is that every poll must be official, and the results must be adhered to. This makes sense in cases where it’s relevant.
You seem to have the gist of it. The term
official is one we argued over last game. To me, it means something done by an official. To others it meant
binding as in the results of the poll had to be followed by the turn player.
I believe I understand the behavior this policy is trying to prevent, and I agree with the aim. However, citizens many want to ask their fellow citizens their thoughts on issues of the day, and without meaning anything other than just wanting to know. That’s how I read ice24k’s poll. I do understand that generally such interaction may better be placed in a discussion thread ... Someone suggested that such polls belong in the citizen’s forum, but we have this nifty poll forum so why is it a sin to use that forum for, well, a poll?
The suggestion to put informational polls into the citizens forum is a good one. I've been calling for all polls ot be official / binding (and to keep informational / opinion things to discussion threads) simply because I'm afraid we'd end up with a mess (and lots to argue about) if we try to write rules / legislation for polls. Ther are many ways to slice and dice the issue. Your example of designing a flag is great. It is something that we should be allowed to poll freely and any citizen designing a flag should be allowed to disregard any poll vote when making a proposed flag. Adopting a flag as official I'd say would require some sort of official / binding poll but the standards for such a poll need not be the same as that for
![[civ4]](/images/smilies/civ4.gif "Civ4 [civ4]")
game play decision polls.
What we need is an objective way to know when the majority has made a
game play decision in a fair manner. (I think I had one more criteria but can't think of it now.) We need to find an easy way of separating the kind of polls you're talking about from game play decision polls.
But I trust all of our mods (TF does)
