Discussion on Potential NES and IOT Forum Merger

[Lefty Scaevola]

Yep, better to have it discussed here rather than just in IoT.

 

[North King]

Don't see why anyone would think this has to be done in the next month. The conversation has come up, by my count, 3 times over the past two years, once before in SF at least. It's not going away. Heck, we can put a big ol' countdown at the start of a thread, sticky it in both forums, and have the conversation on November/December 1st if you want.

 

[J.K. Stockholme]

There has been minimal demand for it in the NES forum however, and the last public poll on the issue returned a decisive no vote, IOTers voting in the poll notwithstanding.

Could you link us the last public poll, I'd like to inspect it for the sake of knowing the precedence on this issue.

 

[ori]

Here it is - prior to closure its a no, though resounding looks different to me. To be sure I seriously doubt that any poll taken that is essentially a tie would move site administration towards a merge. Unless it becomes clear that a very strong majority of users in both forums favor such a move I do not believe its going to happen.

 

[Luckymoose]

Here it is - prior to closure its a no, though resounding looks different to me. To be sure I seriously doubt that any poll taken that is essentially a tie would move site administration towards a merge. Unless it becomes clear that a very strong majority of users in both forums favor such a move I do not believe its going to happen.

That poll was not a good sample of the community. A lot of people who voted "YES" were people trolling the NESing community, and who had been inactive for a while, or IOTers. If you look at the "NO" votes, most of those were active NESers.

 

[ori]

Discounting the opposition as trolls or lumping those from one side together with trolls isn't actually furthering your argument. Best would frankly be to point out that even on a very imperfect way of presenting such a poll question it turned out to be essentially tied and have a rather clear majority from regulars of one affected forum firmly on the nay side - no need to disparage the opposition and still makes a very good case against merger.

 

[Ailedhoo]

It was a vote of 38 vs 35. The results may differ in the next vote due to the exodus but we may need to wait as stated for things to be cool so we can determine the number of peoples remaining in CFC. Some of the no voters were part of the exodus, though some yes voters had also made account in the Frontier. The notion will hence be wondering among whom will be the dual citizens and who are remaining in exile. The cool down may be best to grand those of the exodus time to reflect, while allowing also time to organise possibilities for if the merge does take place or not; the former will need preparation while the latter could invite some kind of... alternative communicative policies.

That poll was not a good sample of the community. A lot of people who voted "YES" were people trolling the NESing community, and who had been inactive for a while, or IOTers. If you look at the "NO" votes, most of those were active NESers.

You cannot dis everyone who disagrees with you as a troll. Crezth for instance be not a troll.

 

[J.K. Stockholme]

Jeez, the poll was open for only a week, there was no campaign time, the poll was located in a separate location far from both IOT and NES (and the place for the vote was the same as the place for public debate), there was no method of voter registration, there was no attempt to create a secret ballot, and the opening post was partisan.

That poll was systematically undemocratic.

Also I vaguely remember now being informed of it after it had already closed ... so I think it was poorly advertised on top of it all. Maybe I hadn't viewed the forum during that week, but I'm inclined to also add "barely advertised" to the list of sins.

So I'd recommend we not try to divine meaning from the results of that poll.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Unless it becomes clear that a very strong majority of users in both forums favor such a move I do not believe its going to happen.

To clarify for me, it would take a strong majority in EACH of the two sub-communities before I would favor change.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

I didn't participate in it either, I just remember being told about it after. Looking at the list though, I'd say it's pretty groundless to call the yes voters trolls in that case, as a good number of them are definitely people I consider to be NESers. Also, I don't think that a forum poll is a way to go next time. It should just be a strict count of posted votes.

 

[spryllino]

I count, for the sake of information, only 6 yes-voting NESers who are not either (a) IOTers first, not that they aren't important too, or (b) Kraznaya, who's inactive and almost certainly trolling - namely Angst, BJ, Circuit, Crezth, Oruc, and Terrance.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

IOTers first? You do know how insane that sounds?

The people I'd count as NESers, regardless of other forum activity: Angst, Birdjaguar, Circuit, Crezth, Dachs, JoanK, Kraznaya, NedimNapoleon, SamSniped, Secret Scribe, SonicTH, spaceman98, Terrance888, trader/warrior, Tyo.

Apologies to any I missed, but all those listed I have seen participate in an NES at any given point. By my standards, an NESer is anyone who has participated in an NES ever. It's not something you lose citizenship for if you don't do it anymore. Similarly, just because someone isn't active on the forum doesn't mean they won't be in the future, and their voice is still valid in that sort of debate. After all, if that wasn't the case, then listening to anyone who's strictly at frontier would be pointless, because they are clearly absent trolls, just seeking to sabotage the current flow of public opinion.

 

[Luckymoose]

Dachs, Kraz, and Crezth were voting to troll. How do I know? I was there when they told us that originally. Unless you think that the NESing community doesn't talk among itself outside the forum?

 

[J.K. Stockholme]

Guys, regardless of the reasons any particular person voted for whichever side they voted for, the poll was flagrantly illegitimate for perfectly good reasons that don't have anything to do with petty squabbles over who is a NESer or whatever.

Let's stop analyzing something so meaningless.

 

[SouthernKing]

Jeez, the poll was open for only a week, there was no campaign time, the poll was located in a separate location far from both IOT and NES (and the place for the vote was the same as the place for public debate), there was no method of voter registration, there was no attempt to create a secret ballot, and the opening post was partisan.

That poll was systematically undemocratic.

Also I vaguely remember now being informed of it after it had already closed ... so I think it was poorly advertised on top of it all. Maybe I hadn't viewed the forum during that week, but I'm inclined to also add "barely advertised" to the list of sins.

So I'd recommend we not try to divine meaning from the results of that poll.

Quoted for truth. That entire thread was a giant mess, really, and we shouldn't be using it as an example.

 

[spryllino]

IOTers first? You do know how insane that sounds?

They joined the IOT forum; and then they joined the NES forum; and so they are IOTers first, chronologically speaking, and as people who have come from the one into the other, they might well be expected to favour a merge. My point is that, of all the NESers who are not also IOTers, only a pretty miniscule proportion was in favour of a merger. I didn't say anything about NESers who are no longer active, did I?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Jeez, the poll was open for only a week, there was no campaign time, the poll was located in a separate location far from both IOT and NES (and the place for the vote was the same as the place for public debate), there was no method of voter registration, there was no attempt to create a secret ballot, and the opening post was partisan.

Are you suggesting that there should be a restricted list of people allowed to vote in a poll? I was under the impression that anyone registered at CFC is already a "registered voter" for the purpose of polls here.

Please note that I'm asking because I'm curious, not because I have any stake in whether or not these two subforums are merged. It just struck me what an odd thing an official voter's registration would be here. I realize you don't want bloc voting from people who just want to mess things up, but my suggestion is to discuss that with the moderators and see if some solution can be found.

 

[J.K. Stockholme]

If I'm not mistaken the CFC poll function is impossible to restrict, but any democratically legitimate referendum should limit the potential voter base from everyone at CFC (and the internet at large) to at least people from the NES and IOT communities. Therefore a NES-IOT merge referendum should not be a CFC poll, but just a regular thread, in which users would post a "yes" or "no" in the thread itself.

A good way of restricting the vote to prevent spam would be to require every voter supply a link to any post they have made in either an IOT or a NES within the past 5 years, but before some arbitrary date before this debate on a merge. If we were to use the above mentioned polling system (where posts including a "yes" or "no" were used instead of the CFC poll function) voters could provide said link in the same post that they vote with. So there wouldn't need to be an official list of voters, it'd just be a matter of showing ID basically.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If I'm not mistaken the CFC poll function is impossible to restrict, but any democratically legitimate referendum should limit the potential voter base from everyone at CFC (and the internet at large) to at least people from the NES and IOT communities. Therefore a NES-IOT merge referendum should not be a CFC poll, but just a regular thread, in which users would post a "yes" or "no" in the thread itself.

A good way of restricting the vote to prevent spam would be to require every voter supply a link to any post they have made in either an IOT or a NES within the past 5 years, but before some arbitrary date before this debate on a merge. If we were to use the above mentioned polling system (where posts including a "yes" or "no" were used instead of the CFC poll function) voters could provide said link in the same post that they vote with. So there wouldn't need to be an official list of voters, it'd just be a matter of showing ID basically.

It could be done, but would take a lot more work than I suspect the admins would be willing to put in for it. Voting in polls is an an activity that can be granted or restricted for whole usergroups, and in certain specific forums. They'd have to put all NES/IOT people in their own usergroup apart from the other usergroups, and either create a new temporary forum just for voting, or remove voting privileges for all the other usergroups in the forum where the poll is posted. For a site this large, that's definitely too much to ask.

There is a way to have a secret ballot in combination with the "ID requirement" you suggest, but it wouldn't involve a poll. The votes would be via PM. You'd need a neutral committee of impartial vote-counters to check the credentials of each voter, tally the votes, check to make sure all agree, and report the results. It takes time and requires a degree of trust, but is quite doable.

 

[Double A]

Why not do a poll and the needlessly complicated and incredibly paranoid ID check?