Citizen's Initiative - The Polling Act of 4000 BC

Four now!!!!

Well, I counted five last time.

Citizen's Initiative - The Polling Act of 1655 AD

Introduction
As polling is at the core of our decision-making process, guidelines and requirements for polls must exist. Poll requirements are poll properties that enable Officials, Designated Players and Citizens to identify an invalid poll. If one or more poll requirements are omitted the poll may be found to be invalid by the Judiciary at any time, as the result of an official complaint or by the Judiciary's own instignation (see Citizen's Initiative - Poll Invalidation Act of 1680 BC). Nonetheless, Officials, Designated Players and Citizens are free to approch the Judiciary with requests to investigate a poll on other grounds too.


Guidelines and Requirements

Guidelines

• Poll options that are not immediately obvious should be explained in the initial post.
• Polls should run for at least 2 days to allow every Citizen and Official to vote.
• When making complicated decisions, polls should start at the general level (Do A or B), then get detailed (Do A in manner X or Do A in manner Y). Conditional polls are valid (If we decide to do A, do it in manner X or Y), and may be posted at the same time as the initial poll.
• Polls should be preceded by discussion, with a proposed poll posted in that discussion.

Requirements

• The initial post must be stated in a clear and neutral manner, giving, when applicable, a summary of the related discussion(s).
• The poll question and poll options must be stated in a clear and neutral manner. All poll options must be exhaustive (all relevant poll options are available) and mutually exclusive (every poll option covers a unique choice).
• Polls must explain in the initial post how the poll result will be interpreted. A lack of such explanation means the single option with the most votes wins. The explanation of the interpretation may not change after 1 hour from the posting of the poll. If a poll requires a different interpretation after all a new poll must be made.
• Polls will cover one and only one question.
• Polls must be open for a minimum of 2 days.
• Polls that cover an actionable item in the Civ 4 demogame II or the DG meta-game are initiatives, and thus binding.
• Polls may not cover a subject already being polled. The outcome of the other poll dealing with the subject must be awaited before repolling the subject.

Jurispudence
The status of the Abstain option has been determined by the Citizens of Yasutan in an earlier stage (see The Status of Abstain). Abstain votes should not be counted towards the winning vote. Plurality polls have been found binding in a similar way, see Binding Plurality Poll Act. Plurality Polls are binding. Polls can be private or public, unless mandated otherwise by our Constitution (see The Constitution, Article D sub 2. Naturally, only closed polls are binding.

In the proposed initiative the 2 day requirement is listed under both guidelines and requirements, it should probably be listed under requirements only.

Other than that I think this is a very good guideline for polling, it would have my vote.

I would still like to link this with official discussions, nominated poll option proposals by citizens in official poll option thread and so on.

that assumes the existence of 'official' discussions and poll option threads, while those may exist if the DG reorganization goes through those would probably be best added by amendment when and if that reorganization happens. That way this initiative can take effect quickly and begin to fix problems right away.

Maybe 'links to relevant discussions' should be added under guidelines for now.

I think we need "official discussions" where we can post relevant arguments to a relevant pollable problem. I also read an old proposal from Falcon02 asking for a system where we poll proposed options from such a proposed thread, why was he ignored and sidetracked? His solution, like this would help a lot to solve the problem. Again, we can have a simple, effective and transparent ruleset without extreme flexibility, extreme chaos and extreme relativism.

Provolution said:

I think we need "official discussions" where we can post relevant arguments to a relevant pollable problem. I also read an old proposal from Falcon02 asking for a system where we poll proposed options from such a proposed thread, why was he ignored and sidetracked? His solution, like this would help a lot to solve the problem. Again, we can have a simple, effective and transparent ruleset without extreme flexibility, extreme chaos and extreme relativism.

Click to expand...

Can you point me to his post, Provo? I didn't sidetrack any proposal on purpose, 120 posts of contributions is simply difficult to take in.

Here you go.

Basically, the idea is what I have been proposing, except that I am more specific. Falcon02 once suggested to propose pollable options in an official tech proposal thread, and only options suggested there within a deadline would be polled. The proposed solution would be the length of a turnchat, that would say, the volume of techs that would fit into that particular turnchat, before the session ended. This allows for fair and transparent rules.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=217551

I am yet more explicit. I want these discussions to be open for a defined period, so people know how fast they need to submit tech poll options. If someone pops up with an idea 4 hours later, sorry for them, it will not be polled. This and similar initiatives secure a good flow, rewards regular players who know to post early enough and avoids interruption. If course, the chaotic, relativistic and self-centered crowd do not see this need for predictability, and would claim it is not needed.

I think you mean something less rigid to be honest. What you propose looks more like giving people a fixed period of time to conjure options for a poll. I don't believe you really want the discussion to die off after a fixed period namely.

yes, exactly, that is what I meant. The discussion can of course take place in the poll, but there will be only pollable options from the poll proposal tech thread.

I like to support your proposal then. If people come up with a new poll option they can always start a new poll that includes the new option once the old poll covering the same subject closed or if the old poll covering the same subject is locked by moderator action.

Good call, and that would also make the person coming up with the idea late to look a bit daft and troublesome, and people can begin to ask questions why this was done late.

Or the person wanting to add a new option has very limited time but is more brilliant than the rest of the populace who didn't notice it. Instead of making assumptions about why options are added late and assuming it's always a bad thing to have late breaking developments, we should be open.

DaveShack said:

Or the person wanting to add a new option has very limited time but is more brilliant than the rest of the populace who didn't notice it. Instead of making assumptions about why options are added late and assuming it's always a bad thing to have late breaking developments, we should be open.

Click to expand...

I don't like the qualification used by Provolution either but we have to realise that we cannot play this game if we wait forever. We have to get on with issues and be a little more strict.

Problem is, the present system gives no real flow. And I think that with longer periods between turnchats, even the most brilliant and busy would be capable of posting their ideas in time, if they are that brilliant.

It is very important that we got a double time-stamp on the official discussions handling poll options. The OP should then summarize all presented options, and the nominee in parentheses.

For example a tech poll:

Railroads (Hyronymous)
Chemistry (Grant2004)
Nationalism (robboo)

Click to expand...

no, no, no!

I'm running the current session on 5 days gap, and there has been next to no discussion and absolutely no polling on what will happen in-game. We do not need even more time to discuss nothing and poll nothing.

Putting the sponsors name on poll options makes it similar to a user-specific poll. As we say in the Southwest, no way Jose.

Both of our real problems with polling this game have been triggered by an official who ignored citizen requests. Take away the problem of officials ignoring citizens, and we don't have polling issues. All of this is wasted effort trying to fix a problem which doesn't really exist.

You seem to have a fixed view with me as a person DS, but it is much bigger than that. You can project your frustration in my general direction, but the constitution has for long outlived its usefulness.
Citizen requests should not only be "listened to", but unfiltered be part of the actual decision process as part of a sponsored poll, as it was part of a parliamentary or congressional system. Yes, I want back the feeling we are running a state, not a glorified succession game or a judicial game

I read up on some of the threads, and you guys had serious problems with the constitution and game rules long before the German Longbowman and the Engineering Poll. Please do not divert attention from the real problem.

I can produce links to all these problems in a separate thread if you want to.

Your current session is proof to nothing, it is only a temporary state or a state of fatigue. Some supporters just want to play the game, and be done with it, and those that disagree on how things should be run or have strong ideas about it, simply do not want the argument.
At this point of the game, strong views on how to do things differently are more or less considered a crime.

If we had a culture of active and detailed planning, with more intel, reporting, screenshots and so on, the game would be much better. The problem is that efforts to make the game more detailed and engaging are simply discouraged. Not only by the posters, but also by the inherent structure itself.