[Vote] Frequency of VP Congress Sessions (4 or 6 times a year? You decide!)

[Recursive]

Following the update to the VP Congress schedule, several people have suggested that VP Congress sessions should happen 4 times per year instead of 6 times per year. I've decided to leave this decision up to the community.

In true VP Congress fashion, you can vote for either option, or for both options (which is a "don't care" or "happy with either" vote). All votes will be public. This poll will be open for two weeks, and you can change your vote as many times as you want until it closes.

Quarterly (4 times per year):
January: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting
February: Implementation
March: Playtesting
April: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting
May: Implementation
June: Playtesting
July: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting
August: Implementation
September: Playtesting
October: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting
November: Implementation
December: Playtesting

This option allows for more time to playtest changes in between making proposals. It also allows for more time to "breathe", in general, and for more time to fix bugs. There will likely be more proposals per session.

Bimonthly (6 times per year):
January: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting & Playtesting
February: Implementation
March: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting & Playtesting
April: Implementation
May: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting & Playtesting
June: Implementation
July: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting & Playtesting
August: Implementation
September: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting & Playtesting
October: Implementation
November: Proposal/Counterproposal/Sponsorship/Voting & Playtesting
December: Implementation

This option allows for changes to be made more frequently, and if any changes are disliked after implementation, they will remain in Vox Populi for a shorter time. There will likely be less proposals per session.

 

[youngsteve]

I think the important thing is being able to implement the passed proposals to see how they work in game, until making more proposals. For that reason I think having sessions four times a year should work best.

 

[Recursive]

Keep in mind that a lower frequency will probably mean a higher proposal count, and vice versa. I've added this to the OP.

 

[looorg]

I confess that I have zoned out completely on this aspect of the mod. It's still just to many suggestions to consider, read, comment etc. So for me I would say it's not the frequency of voting, it's the curation of the options. As it is, or was, currently there was a lot of suggestions on a monthly basis. If this keeps and you just prolong the period either people will zone out or the list of suggestions, as noted, might just become almost endless which once again leads to zone out. It's just to much information, or to many suggestions and options. If the list could be curated down to say a handful (or two) of suggestions or so per voting session, with clear for and against and such then I think you would have a lot more luck in getting people to pay attention to it.

 

[CppMaster]

I confess that I have zoned out completely on this aspect of the mod. It's still just to many suggestions to consider, read, comment etc. So for me I would say it's not the frequency of voting, it's the curation of the options. As it is, or was, currently there was a lot of suggestions on a monthly basis. If this keeps and you just prolong the period either people will zone out or the list of suggestions, as noted, might just become almost endless which once again leads to zone out. It's just to much information, or to many suggestions and options. If the list could be curated down to say a handful (or two) of suggestions or so per voting session, with clear for and against and such then I think you would have a lot more luck in getting people to pay attention to it.

I disagree. If there was only 2 suggestions per voting then there is much less chance that either of these will interest me.

I'm usually interested in about 20% of suggestions and most of them can be jugded if they are interesting by their title. It's completely fine to ignore majority of suggestions and focus only on the ones that are actually interesting to you. You will burn out if you try to keep track on all of them.

 

[Recursive]

I confess that I have zoned out completely on this aspect of the mod. It's still just to many suggestions to consider, read, comment etc. So for me I would say it's not the frequency of voting, it's the curation of the options. As it is, or was, currently there was a lot of suggestions on a monthly basis. If this keeps and you just prolong the period either people will zone out or the list of suggestions, as noted, might just become almost endless which once again leads to zone out. It's just to much information, or to many suggestions and options. If the list could be curated down to say a handful (or two) of suggestions or so per voting session, with clear for and against and such then I think you would have a lot more luck in getting people to pay attention to it.

Hard to define "top suggestions", and there'd be little point in having a system with only 2 proposals.

 

[looorg]

Hard to define "top suggestions", and there'd be little point in having a system with only 2 proposals.

I disagree. If there was only 2 suggestions per voting then there is much less chance that either of these will interest me.

I dont recall saying it should only be 2, a handful or two. Not 2. So say 5-10. That could be a manageable amount for discussion. But definitively less then the 50-60 that was around for the first few votes.

 

[CppMaster]

I dont recall saying it should only be 2, a handful or two. Not 2.

If the list could be curated down to say a handful (or two) of suggestions or so per voting session

Huh? What's the difference between "two" and "2"? It's the same to me, but different format.

 

[Recursive]

I dont recall saying it should only be 2, a handful or two. Not 2. So say 5-10. That could be a manageable amount for discussion. But definitively less then the 50-60 that was around for the first few votes.

Still highly subjective and difficult to define "top proposals". Who gets to make a proposal and who doesn't?

We could perhaps have a "pre-vote" to determine what people would be most interested in debating, but I don't like this solution as it limits democratic input, and even the later proposals in session #2 got 40+ votes.

Huh? What's the difference between "two" and "2"? It's the same to me, but different format.

As in, one or two handfuls. I misinterpreted the statement.

 

[azum4roll]

Seems it'll go quarterly based on the vote count. If that's the case, hopefully we'll have more time to fix bugs and have a stable version for at least a month in the 3-month period which is completely bug-free (at least the game-breaking ones)?

 

[CppMaster]

As in, one or two handfuls. I misinterpreted the statement.

Oh, ok. So he just meant "up to 10". (Assuming that "handful" is 5)

 

[looorg]

Oh, ok. So he just meant "up to 10". (Assuming that "handful" is 5)

It was clearly a bad choice of words on my part. It can technically mean anything, whatever fits in your hand(s) (if we count two hands). So it could be one large item or hundreds or thousands of tiny once. That said what I did mean to say was that I think a curated selection of say 10 (or so give or take a few if really needed) might be a better source of discussion. I think it would be a large engagement improvement compared to the last few votes that was 50+ (if I'm not counting it wrong) each. So someone in charge of it goes thru all the votes and selects a few of them that are the most interesting or "the best" or whatever other criteria one might have such as if it's feasible to do and if someone is offering to do it then even better. Then that much shorter list of suggestions is what is discussed and voted on instead of ALL the suggestions. So with that in mind I kind of thought it was a good choice of words as the number could be somewhat different depending on the amount of good solid suggestions. But unfortunately open to slightly to much interpretation.

 

[CppMaster]

It was clearly a bad choice of words on my part. It can technically mean anything, whatever fits in your hand(s) (if we count two hands). So it could be one large item or hundreds or thousands of tiny once. That said what I did mean to say was that I think a curated selection of say 10 (or so give or take a few if really needed) might be a better source of discussion. I think it would be a large engagement improvement compared to the last few votes that was 50+ (if I'm not counting it wrong) each. So someone in charge of it goes thru all the votes and selects a few of them that are the most interesting or "the best" or whatever other criteria one might have such as if it's feasible to do and if someone is offering to do it then even better. Then that much shorter list of suggestions is what is discussed and voted on instead of ALL the suggestions. So with that in mind I kind of thought it was a good choice of words as the number could be somewhat different depending on the amount of good solid suggestions. But unfortunately open to slightly to much interpretation.

How about if those proposals were sorted by popularity (count of likes or posts)? Then, if you like, you could just discuss top 10 and vote on them while ignoring the rest. Someone else, if they prefer, could discuss all of the proposals.

 

[Legen]

Popularity won't mean much without a sponsor, though.

For curation, it could help having proposers write a tag defining the scope of their proposals. Not every proposal is going to be about balance, some are about UI, flavor/theme, AI, or new features. That could make the list more digestible.

For instance:

[Balance] (4-01) Proposal: belief X adjustment
[Balance] (4-02) Proposal: barbarians should ....
[UI] (4-03) Proposal: integrate modmod Y to VP
[AI] (4-04) Proposal: add option for friendlier AIs
[Flavor] (4-05) Proposal: change promotion X name's to Y
[Other] (4-06) Proposal: add new events

 

[Phosphoraptor]

Can Proposal Phase also be expanded to include Playtesting Phase so we can come up with proposals as we play new versions?

 

[Recursive]

Can Proposal Phase also be expanded to include Playtesting Phase so we can come up with proposals as we play new versions?

It's looking like we'll be going with a quarterly frequency, so there'll be a whole month for that.

 

[Stalker0]

my biggest fear with the wider cadence is it will increase the risk to vote for something thats "just good enough".

aka people will vote yes for something not because they really want it, but because its got something they like and they don't want to wait another quarter to try it, and so a lot more "bad stuff" slips through.

I think we should also be more vigilant about breaking up proposals into their core pieces. No more combining 2 or 3 elements into the same proposal. Unless its a dependency, it shoudl be broken up imo. We will have more time to debate and do that work with the slower cadence, so we should take the time to do that.

 

[Recursive]

I think we should also be more vigilant about breaking up proposals into their core pieces. No more combining 2 or 3 elements into the same proposal. Unless its a dependency, it shoudl be broken up imo. We will have more time to debate and do that work with the slower cadence, so we should take the time to do that.

Do you have any specific suggestions for how to do this in terms of rules for proposal creation?

 

[N.Core]

Popularity won't mean much without a sponsor, though.

For curation, it could help having proposers write a tag defining the scope of their proposals. Not every proposal is going to be about balance, some are about UI, flavor/theme, AI, or new features. That could make the list more digestible.

For instance:

[Balance] (4-01) Proposal: belief X adjustment
[Balance] (4-02) Proposal: barbarians should ....
[UI] (4-03) Proposal: integrate modmod Y to VP
[AI] (4-04) Proposal: add option for friendlier AIs
[Flavor] (4-05) Proposal: change promotion X name's to Y
[Other] (4-06) Proposal: add new events

I already suggested this long ago on Discord, I dunno why this idea isn't picked up yet.

 

[Stalker0]

Do you have any specific suggestions for how to do this in terms of rules for proposal creation?

The rule would be something like:

A Proposal should only focus on the minimum elements of the mod necessary and should not modify multiple elements unless multiple elements are necessary to make the proposal function. Proposals with more than one element that are not dependent on each other should be split into separate proposals.