Citizen's Initiative - The Polling Act of 4000 BC

[dutchfire]

I like it

One thing:

giving a summary of the reason for the poll

sounds pretty useless to me in most cases, say you have a poll about whether to settle a city or not, then the reason for the poll obviously is to determine whether the citizenry wants to settle a city or not.

 

[ori]

Citizen's Initiative - Polling Act [draft 3, amended July 9th 2007]

first of all

Why is a polling act needed?
Polls form the core of the Demogames' decision-making process. To ensure fair polling requirements for polls must be adapted by the Officials, Designated Players and Citizens. Said requirements give the Yasutan Supreme Court a powerful tool to evaluate polls and declare them valid or invalid.

I would even consolidate the Poll Invalidation Act into this...

Poll requirements
Poll requirements are poll properties that enable Officials, Designated Players and Citizens to identify an invalid poll. If one or more of the following poll requirements are omitted the poll is invalid.

• The initial post must be stated in a clear and neutral manner, giving a summary of the reason for the poll
• The poll question and poll options must be stated in a clear and neutral manner
• Polls must explain how the results will be interpreted in the initial post. If the initial post does not explain this, the single option with the most votes is deemed the winner. The interpretation may not change after 2 hours from the posting of the poll
• Polls 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 game or the Demogame meta-game are initiatives, and thus binding
• Polls may be public or private at the poster's discretion, unless mandated otherwise by our Constitution

I would even go so far as to say: The OP may not be edited 2 hours after the posting of the poll - for one simple reason: in case of doubt this can be clearly seen from the "last edited" date, whether only a Typo was edited or the actual interpretation cannot...

Invalid polls, whether votes have been cast in them or not, cannot be used in any decision making process, or used as justification for any action based on that poll. The validity of polls will be reviewed by the Yasutan Supreme Court, as our Constitution proscribes.

Actually it is the Poll Invalidation Act not the Constitution

Poll guidelines
To further help the understanding of polls the following guidelines are suggested to the poll maker. Not following the guidelines does not cause a poll to be invalid.

• Poll options that are not immediately obvious should be explained in the initial post
• Polls should contain a link to all relevant discussions in the initial post
• 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

Plurality votes and Abstain
The issue on plurality votes has been succesfully tried in the Binding Plurality Poll Act. If Abstain votes should count towards the poll result has been succesfully tried in The Status of Abstain.

How about just stating the results? If not otherwise stated Plurality wins and Abstain is not counted...

---------------
Changes in draft 3:
Rewrote the entire Act and added a section on plurality votes and abstain.
---------------


Be my guest .

Poll requirements are poll properties that enable Officials, Designated Players and Citizens to identify an invalid poll. If one or more of the following poll requirements are omitted the poll may be found to be invalid.

I don't like that. This can be understood as if only polls that do not meet the poll requirements can be ruled invalid. And I can easily produce an unfair poll that does meet all of the listed requirements but that would definitely be regarded invalid...
All of the above requirements are of a technical nature, and easily verifiable. But I feel there are also polls that are invalid because of content. E.g. the poll question

"When should we disband the available full health Keshik?"
a) at the start of the turnset
b) at the end of the turnset

We had quite a lot of discussion about the fate of the Keshik in question and I feel we should now decide on when to disband it.

poll open 2 days, private, single choice

easily meets all of the requirements but I somehow feel it would be challenged in court

 

[ori]

I like it

One thing:


sounds pretty useless to me in most cases, say you have a poll about whether to settle a city or not, then the reason for the poll obviously is to determine whether the citizenry wants to settle a city or not.

Actually it is pretty useful - since the motivation may be "we have had lengthy discussions about this - now lets decide already" or "we just started to build a settler and I think this is a good location - vote on it"
Both are valid, but for the one voting it might make a difference whether other input was sought or not...

 

[Hyronymus]

Citizen's Initiative - Polling Act [draft 4, amended July 9th 2007]


Why is a polling act needed?
Polls form the core of the Demogames' decision-making process. To ensure fair polling requirements for polls must be adapted by the Officials, Designated Players and Citizens. Said requirements and the Poll Invalidation Act give the Yasutan Supreme Court a box of powertools to evaluate polls and declare them valid or invalid.


Poll requirements
Poll requirements are poll properties that enable Officials, Designated Players and Citizens to identify an invalid poll. If one or more of the following poll requirements are omitted the poll is invalid.

• The initial post must be stated in a clear and neutral manner, giving, when applicable, a summary of the related discussion related to the poll
• The poll question and poll options must be stated in a clear and neutral manner
• Polls must explain how the results will be interpreted in the initial post. If the initial post does not explain this, the single option with the most votes is deemed the winner. The interpretation may not change after 2 hours from the posting of the poll
• Polls 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 game or the Demogame meta-game are initiatives, and thus binding
• Polls may be public or private at the poster's discretion, unless mandated otherwise by our Constitution

Invalid polls, whether votes have been cast in them or not, cannot be used in any decision making process, or used as justification for any action based on that poll. The validity of polls will be reviewed by the Yasutan Supreme Court, as the Poll Invalidation Act proscribes.


Poll guidelines
To further help the understanding of polls the following guidelines are suggested to the poll maker. Not following the guidelines does not cause a poll to be invalid.

• Poll options that are not immediately obvious should be explained in the initial post
• Polls should contain a link to all relevant discussions in the initial post
• 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

Plurality votes and Abstain
Any single choice poll which does not state an interpretation criteria, and is not by rule subject to a specific criteria (see our Constitution) shall be decided by designating the option receiving the most votes as binding.

Abstain votes do not count towards the poll result.

---------------
Changes in draft 4:
- mentioned the Poll Invalidation Act as another tool at the Yasutan Supremen Court's disposal when investigating a poll
- changed the first Poll requirement to stress that summaries are only needed when a related discussion has been ongoing
- redirected the poll invalidation text to to the Poll Invalidation Act instead of the Constitution
- summarised the result of the Binding Plurality Poll Act and the The Status of Abstain.
---------------

 

[DaveShack]

If one or more of the following poll requirements are omitted the poll is invalid.

No, I still disagree very strongly with this. I know several people who would use "is invalid" in this clause to say that it forces the judiciary to mark polls invalid. It would be used by those people against polls they don't like or started by people they don't like, and it would be used against polls which are good, needed, and nearly perfect.

 

[ori]

How about:

omiting one or more of the following poll requirements may be reason to invalidate a poll

 

[Provolution]

I think ignoring valid options presented in the topic discussion thread, invalidates the poll. This way, we avoid tilted polls only arguing one side of the table.

Another way to make polls neutral, would be to have a separate preprepared section to be added in the poll thread as presentation for an option. This way, the original poller could not omit an option, or rephrase the option to the detriment of the other option. This would also force the person presenting an option to be very short and succinct. An example of a prepared quote could be.

"Attack spearman in forest with Maceman in four turns, if odds are 65 % or better"

Then the original poller would have to include this option if that option would contrast his own option in the same poll. This would put an end to the repolling practices we see now. The reason we see repolls are for two reasons.

1. The original poller tilts the poll by omitting key evidence and other options
2. only the last poll is valid, so we can in principle repoll as many as we want.

To avoid repolling, both sides in a case should be treated fairly in the very same poll, which simply goes right on the option itself (to be worded by the proponent) or the wording "selling" the option (to be prepared in a "quote").
If two players mean more or less the same thing, the original poller should respect these views and either pick the most clear message of the two, or compound these two into a clear and good option. Good polling is not about technical methods, but about respecting both sides in the poll itself.

 

[dutchfire]

1. The original poller tilts the poll by omitting key evidence and other options

If we start using Mock polls again, this wouldn't be that much of a problem.

 

[Hyronymus]

How about:

omiting one or more of the following poll requirements may be reason to invalidate a poll

If DaveShack (and everyone else) can live with this we can always implement mock polls if no marked progress in the quality of polls results from this polling act.

 

[Provolution]

Please define a "mock poll", I am curious on what it means, in this universe.

 

[grant2004]

I agree with the "may be a reason to invalidate a poll" I would hate to see the judiciary forced into a decision by a small inconsequential error, or a nit-picked interpretation of one of the requirements.

 

[dutchfire]

@Mock Poll: It's posting the exact OP, interpretation, poll options etc. of a poll in the relevant discussion thread about a day before posting the actual poll. That way, people can spot problems in the poll earlier, preventing all sorts of problems.

 

[Provolution]

I see the point, a sort of "Trial Poll" in order to weed out weaknesses, a draft so to speak. I think we should make that compulsory.

 

[DaveShack]

Here's an example mock poll.

 

[dutchfire]

I see the point, a sort of "Trial Poll" in order to weed out weaknesses, a draft so to speak. I think we should make that compulsory.

This proposal has it as a guideline:

"Polls should be preceded by discussion, with a proposed poll posted in that discussion"

I think that's fine as there are standard procedure polls that don't need a mock poll.

 

[grant2004]

agreed mock polls are nice, but might be overkill for basic issues like founding a city where there are already a number of successful polls which can be copied.

 

[Provolution]

It might be an overkill, but since I happen to believe in "overkill", better safe than sorry. Putting out fires in aftermath is not that fun.

 

[DaveShack]

I'm against delaying game sessions over issues which should be straightforward. The idea of a mock poll is to allow comment on the poll options. Waiting for those comments makes the poll start later, which pushes the play session later.

 

[Provolution]

There should be deadlines both for mock polls (1 day before the real poll is made) and the real poll (within 3-4 days before the turnchat).

 

[DaveShack]

I'm also opposed to deadlines, if you mean fixed time frames. Deadlines invite legal challenges, for instance someone can post a mock poll at 10pm and then their next computer time is 9pm the next night -- do we slap them around for posting the poll 1 hour early due to RL? No, we should not. Do we make the game wait an extra day for their 10pm slot the next night? No, we should not.

A play session every 4 days is optimum, IMO. That leaves 2 days for discussions and 2 days for polls. Any longer between play sessions and the natives get restless and start posting more polls or arguing about things which don't (or shouldn't) have any bearing on the game.