Closing polls: Citizens Discussion

[eyrei]

I would like to give the judiciary control over whether a poll stays open or is closed. Because the mods are not elected officials, we should not be making the call on this. Maybe make it so that if the Chief Justice or both the Public Defender and Judge Advocate post that a poll should be closed. Or maybe that two of the three must agree that it should be closed. Anyway, please discuss.

 

[chiefpaco]

For one example, I requested that the polls approving my appointment of Chief Justice be closed. This was because I declined the appointment. I felt the polls should be closed and requested this.

Is that a demand? Of course not. Need I be approved? Perhaps. Especially since I did not open the threads. Do thread openers always have a right to close their threads?

Of course the mods should be able to close polls that break the forum rules. However, this is a game related topic, and perhaps the gamers should decide.

Perhaps allowing the Judiciary to close threads is best. Or at least the requester must have the approval of the Judiciary. However, this process may be quite slow. That is my main concern.

Would this rule be applied to the sticky guidelines too?

 

[donsig]

Why do we want or need anyone to step in and close polls?

 

[Octavian X]

Perhaps the poll is completely irrelivant to the game, or is set up in such a way that it is invalid (ex. no abstain option).

 

[disorganizer]

there is exactly no need to close polls if the poll is not replaced by a new one (for example when options were wrong).

it is not appropriate to close invalid polls, as they will only be informational. im pretty mad on the closure of some polls at the moment (turn -1) because they were only informational.

 

[BCLG100]

any polls which are not useful would have needed to be written down in the needed stuff thread

 

[disorganizer]

octavian: even a formal invalid poll will be able to provide informational arguments.
if not superseeded by an official poll, i strictly oppose closing of polls, especially if the starter is not asked about it and has no chance to justify the poll.

 

[Eklektikos]

Perhaps for the case of invalid polls it would be better for the Judiciary to be able to request that the 1st post be edited by a mod to make the invalidity of the poll clear, as opposed to closing it. Then it can be used for "informational" purposes without the risk of someone passing it off as a decisive and binding decision of the citizenry.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Eklektikos
Perhaps for the case of invalid polls it would be better for the Judiciary to be able to request that the 1st post be edited by a mod to make the invalidity of the poll clear, as opposed to closing it. Then it can be used for "informational" purposes without the risk of someone passing it off as a decisive and binding decision of the citizenry.

While this would be fine if the mistake was immediately recognized and a mod or the poll starter was available to make the corrections, it would cause problems if many people had already voted.

How about this:

The judiciary decides ASAP if a poll is valid or not. They post in that poll's thread what needs to be corrected, and then open a corrected and valid poll, and request that a mod close the original. If the problem is that there was not prior discussion, the judiciary would open a discussion instead.

 

[Octavian X]

This problem would be corrected much easier if all polls were clearly labelled 'Informational' and 'Official.'
It would be understood that informational polls were there to help leaders with decisions, or get a general idea of what citizens think. It would be understood that polls labelled 'official' were polls properly discussed, etc, or were appointment approval polls.

 

[Cyc]

I see your point Octavian X, but some people feel polling is a proper way to discuss things. They feel people are too lazy to discuss or incapable of discussion on an issue. This is good for them in another respect also. Because they feel this way about people, they can post a quick poll and then point to it as proof of their pont. Polling should not be used in leiu of discussion, it should be the result of discussion.

 

[disorganizer]

@Cyc: and some seem not to post their opinions n discussions and then whine at the poll-thread.

a informational poll IS a way of discussion. If no concensus can be generated by a discussion (2 say yes, 2 say no, and this repeats over muchos pagos) then a informational poll to determine the thoughts of ALL citizens (not only the ones as vocal as cyc, me, shaitan, donsig, ...) IS APPROPRIATE.

imho, a informational poll can also be appropriate as discussion, as the deniers could always decline the poll there ;-)

*my opinion from here on, just to quiete all the "i proclaim citizen will" whiners*

if we get the poll-creation to the extreme formularism we tend to at the moment, we will spoil off many people, who will tend to not discuss or open their opinion to the public any more. the poll generation will be a matter for only few people.

the game worked well at the beginning of the 1st game, where we were TOTALLY free to poll what we liked and how we liked.
we had many game-related polls then.
at the moment, it is over-restricted and over-fomalized, and what we see is we only have few game-related polls here.
this also adds to the fact that leaders in the later game seemed to not want to start discussion on game matters or polls, which show in the low poll-rate on departmental issues.

 

[Almightyjosh]

One of the main problems with the polls at the moment, and this is especially true of SOME people... there is no discussion and they think a valid way of introducing an idea is to poll it!! This is not the idea of polling and what it leads to is polls where people discuss the poll mechanics not he issue!! How are you supposed to know what options to offer if you do it cold?

Very simple, do it the right way!! Got an idea??
Step 1: Discuss it
Step 2: Base a poll on the disscussion
Step 3: implement it

Could not be simpler. The problem is disorganiser jumps to step 2 and Donsig jumps to step 3, that why there is so much angst around at the moment.

We have polling standards for a REASON people, and they are REALY not that hard to follow.

 

[disorganizer]

i discussed all poll i posted. read updated post1 for it.

and yes, posting a informational (all of mine were informational, as i nowhere stated them as binding) poll for a first feeling on an idea can be a way to discuss involving not only the 5 vocal citizens in this game but also the 20 others. as i stated for example in my polls (well, you talk of the last 5 as of my polls in general, which i cant accept as this is a generalization not being true) a discussion will be based on that polls afterwards. those polls are only to find out wheter discussion in detail would be worth it (some people always tend to say "nobody wants that" when you talk to them, and the purpose of an info-poll will sort that out).

i agree to you on OFFICIAL polls though.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I agree with the concept that discussions prior to polls are a better way to accomplish what you are looking for here.

I am not in favor AT ALL of the Judiciary being given the authority to ask a thread to be closed.

My ruling on the myriad of disorganizer polls was that they would not be binding, I was not in necessarily favor of closing the threads themselves.

I think that thread closing should always be in the hands of the Mods only. That way they can use their discretion for situtations such as chiefpaco's. We should never legislate thread control.

Call this Bill's principle of seperation of Mods and State.

Now dis seems to say that his polls were never intended to be binding, though the wording and initial arguments in the Judiciary thread indicated otherwise. Given that the polls were not binding, and our ruling was that they were invalid and thus not enforceable, isn't this agreement? ;-)

Bill
Judge Advocate

 

[disorganizer]

Right bill. I would propose the following for further invalidation of polls:

1) if a judge finds a poll where is not state informational or binding, the judge requests a mod to post "under judical review" in the first post
2) the judge then looks if the poll would comply to the rules for binding polls. the poll would then be declared binding and the mod posts "declared binding by judical review" in the 1st post.
3) if the judge finds the poll not complying to binding rules, the mod shall post "delared informational by judical review" in the 1st post
4) if a poll was declared binding by the poster or was posted by a leader or his representant, and does not comply to binding rules, the mod stated "poll declared invalid and as such only binding by judical review" in the 1st post. the part of that post stating it is binding is deleted by the mod.

in any case, the judges must post a comment in the poll-thread why the poll type was changed. with their arguments for it and how to resolv this.

a poll shall only be closed if
a) requested by the poll-starter
b) another poll replaces the closed poll immediately and there was a judical reason for closing the first poll (like a poll was declared informational by judges and immediately after a binding poll was posted)

 

[disorganizer]

@eyrei:
EDIT=DELETE

found it out myself... i was just too stupid to read.

 

[eyrei]

The reason I want to close polls that do not meet certain standards is that they cause confusion when a binding poll is posted. Also, polls whose options are contingent on a certain result from another poll that is still active should not be posted. These could cause people to assume that the other poll is already closed and a decision has been made.

It is not that I want to close polls because it is fun. Rather, I want to it to be clear which polls should be heeded and which should be mostly ignored. People are not likely to think a poll with that lovely little padlock on it is a valid and binding poll...

 

[Cyc]

Excellent point eyrei. Although poll-writing can be an art, it should not be one used as the art of slight of hand or used to cause confusion. The padlock you speak of, whether permenant or temporary is a sure sign to all to disregard that poll until further notice.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I agree with your point regarding cascading of open polls that all tie to each other, and it is well founded.

I just think that should be a Mod decision.