How should we invalidate forum polls?

[Methos]

I remove all my comments from poll discussions.

EDIT: Comments removed.

Now this is just stupid and angering to me. How are we supposed to get all the opinions on the subject if you remove your posts? I typically wait for the last minute to vote and will reread the discussion before voting. Do not remove your posts for whatever reason.

 

[DaveShack]

Since you are bringing that into this, DaveShack, I leave this entirely in your supposedly capable hands. Even with other, misleading and unfair polls used in the past without comment.

You have plenty of opportunity to ensure it doesn't come up. Whether you choose to use that opportunity or not is completely up to you.

I guess it's easier to run from the potential problem than it is to fix it. Disappointing.

 

[ravensfire]

I guess it's easier to run from the potential problem than it is to fix it. Disappointing.

Disappointment is seeing you pull out the stick on this. That's fine with me - but I'm certainly not going to work towards a solution with that. We've had many, many bad polls in the past, and not ONE was invalidated by a moderator.

And yet here, that threat was made. Very well - I see no reason for me to participate further in the discussion over poll validations when the mods have said they will handle it for us.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

Now this is just stupid and angering to me. How are we supposed to get all the opinions on the subject if you remove your posts? I typically wait for the last minute to vote and will reread the discussion before voting. Do not remove your posts for whatever reason.

Sorry, but my opinion and thoughts are no longer relevant in this discussion, only those of our moderators. You should ask them for your opinion on the matter.

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

And yet here, that threat was made. Very well - I see no reason for me to participate further in the discussion over poll validations when the mods have said they will handle it for us.

if it's not handled by you all...

Sorry, but my opinion and thoughts are no longer relevant in this discussion, only those of our moderators. You should ask them for your opinion on the matter.

This isn't PDMA because there hasn't been any action taken. There won't be any action taken, if there aren't any places where it is needed.

 

[donsig]

Any poll with false or misleading information in the OP or the poll options is invalid. Leaving off a significant option would qualify as misleading. This takes care of the polls of the following type, unless we've already decided to definitely go to war with someone, because "Don't declare war at all" is not included as an option.

Who shall we declare war against?
* France
* Germany

The standard I posted (no misleading or false information) is a forum rule. Surely you don't plan to object to that?

I will have to take unilateral action if necessary. As I said before, I sincerely hope it's never necessary. Plenty of opportunity will be given for a citizen-initiated rule, as long as nobody goes nuts with trying to make a test case of it.

A test case? Who would make a test case? You're not throwing jabs again are you DaveShack?

Seriously, are you saying that the poll example in that first quote from you is against forum rules because it's misleading and therefore you could step in as a moderator and invalidate the poll? Remember, I started this question with seriously.

 

[Hyronymus]

Can someone answer these 2 questions for me?

What is against citizens (forum members) pointing a moderator to an unfair poll?​

What is against citizens (forum members) pointing an internal DemoGame mechanism to an unfair poll which then makes a moderator aware of the unfair poll (in case noone but the moderator notices an unfair poll, the moderator is free to take action unilaterally, of course)?​

 

[fed1943]

Basically I agree with Methos:

There must be someone to see and declare the invalidity of a poll;

This "someone" must be the Judiciary;

Any poll is deemed valid until declared it is not;

Since the moment one Justice posts the validity question, the poll is in a hold;

Unanimous decision required from Judges? But if the three Justices do not

vote the same way (it can happen) then just two outputs remain possible:

Or the poll is valid Or the poll is invalid, and that must be very clear;

(Do we really want the unanimity rule?).

Last, may be better Justice not to poll as Citizen...

Best regards,

 

[DaveShack]

A test case? Who would make a test case? You're not throwing jabs again are you DaveShack?

No, I'd never do that.

Seriously, are you saying that the poll example in that first quote from you is against forum rules because it's misleading and therefore you could step in as a moderator and invalidate the poll? Remember, I started this question with seriously.

I believe it is possible that some instance of such a poll could be against forum rules, like ones which blatantly disregard the situation and attempt to force the citizens into a path by denying the alternative. It's a judgement call, just like the difference between scholorly discource and trolling is a judgement call. Which, BTW, we're being pretty liberal about. (This is not a comment specifically about your posting, but about the DG in general)

Other instances might be simple mistakes, like "duh, I forgot that option."

There are other preferable ways to handle it, like the simple and obvious "ask the initiator to post a new poll" and "the DG citizens rise up against the injustice and invalidate it".

The claim was made that "there are no standards". Actually, there were some very well-written ones, one of which was the same "false and misleading" rule worded a different way. To paraphrase that which can no longer be quoted

• The poll must contain all relevant options
• The question, poll options, and initial post must be stated clearly, fairly, and as neutrally as possible.

 

[Octavian X]

I apologize, DaveShack (and to my fellow citizens for this partially off-topic rant), but I must respectfully disagree. A moderator stepping in when things get out of hand, I can handle. Correcting mistakes made when one posts a poll? That's acceptable too. But stepping into a process that we are trying to handle within the law steps over a line, in my opinion, would be the first step down a slippery slope.

It's this kind of idea - that a moderator can interfere in business that would otherwise be handled by procedures enshrined in law - that led to a law in the Civ3DG1 and DG2 that banned moderators from holding elective office. If I remember correctly, we repealed that provision when Shaitan, then one of our most active citizens, was appointed a mod - and since then, our citizen-moderators have been able to keep moderator functions and demogame administrative functions separate.

Yes, there are cases where a posted poll goes against forum rules - for instance, when the poll is blatantly libelous. But where does one draw the line defining what is actionable in forum rules when a poll is "knowingly false"?

For the record, I'm working on the assumption that this is the rule being cited

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, racist, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this forum.

 

[Hyronymus]

Can you guys actually try and answer my questions too? Until someone has addressed them I won't vote and I refuse to go for the easy solution and vote none of the above/abstain.

 

[DaveShack]

Can someone answer these 2 questions for me?

What is against citizens (forum members) pointing a moderator to an unfair poll?​

What is against citizens (forum members) pointing an internal DemoGame mechanism to an unfair poll which then makes a moderator aware of the unfair poll (in case noone but the moderator notices an unfair poll, the moderator is free to take action unilaterally, of course)?​

I'm not sure how to interpret these questions. Are you trying to ask people why they don't want to just use the post reporting mechanism, or are you asking if reporting the post would be a viable method of handling it?

Again for the record, my preference is an individual citizen or group of citizens who have the power to quickly mark a bad poll as invalid.

 

[DaveShack]

I apologize, DaveShack (and to my fellow citizens for this partially off-topic rant), but I must respectfully disagree. A moderator stepping in when things get out of hand, I can handle. Correcting mistakes made when one posts a poll? That's acceptable too. But stepping into a process that we are trying to handle within the law steps over a line, in my opinion, would be the first step down a slippery slope.

It's this kind of idea - that a moderator can interfere in business that would otherwise be handled by procedures enshrined in law - that led to a law in the Civ3DG1 and DG2 that banned moderators from holding elective office. If I remember correctly, we repealed that provision when Shaitan, then one of our most active citizens, was appointed a mod - and since then, our citizen-moderators have been able to keep moderator functions and demogame administrative functions separate.

Yes, there are cases where a posted poll goes against forum rules - for instance, when the poll is blatantly libelous. But where does one draw the line defining what is actionable in forum rules when a poll is "knowingly false"?

The protection that is needed is against polls which are intentionally crafted to be unfair, to deprive the citizens of their right to play the game as they collectively want to. Under a doctrine of "all polls are binding" without any standards or mechanism to ensure fairness, it could be trivially easy to use well-timed polls with limited options (in particular leaving off the dissenting option) to force the game in any direction one wants to go.

The citizens should make rules to keep this from happening. If not, and an emergency developed where the only way to salvage the game is to step in, then step in we must.

I don't want there to ever be a need to invoke that protection.

I don't even think it is likely that someone would resort to sabotage, but laws should not govern the normal case, they should put limits on the abnormal case.

I argued against mods deciding which game version to use back on Civ3 when it was a choice between vanilla and conquests. This game I went to a lot of trouble to entice the people to choose vanilla so we wouldn't have to "suggest" it officially. Look carefully at how the starting date was derived and you'll see that I advocated a date but never mandated it.

 

[Hyronymus]

I'm not sure how to interpret these questions. Are you trying to ask people why they don't want to just use the post reporting mechanism, or are you asking if reporting the post would be a viable method of handling it?

Both, it are 2 independent questions but I fail to see how the issues being raised answer any of the problems. Maybe my understanding of English isn't that good afterall or are the issues raised too side-tracked.

 

[DaveShack]

OK, that's a fair observation.

The question of whether moderators should intervene is completely a side issue, at least in my opinion. The options in this poll are:

1. Designate one or more citizens who have the responsibility for marking polls invalid.
2. Include something within the poll itself, such as an option which says "this poll is bad". If more than some percent (5% maybe) or number (3 people) vote for that option, then the poll is bad and gets marked invalid.
3. Don't even have the option of a poll being invalid. If someone thinks a poll is bad, just post another poll.

This is my opinion, as a citizen, on these options.

I very strongly support #1. I also want to make sure that the people designated for stopping bad polls take this action as quickly as possible when they find the poll to be bad. More on that later.

I think that option #2 has a serious problem. In the normal case of a good poll, a small number of people, like 5% or 3 people, could decide they don't want the poll to have any effect. Their side (for example the NO side) is losing in the poll, but they can force their side to "win" by voting "bad poll", because "no" means keep things as they are.

I also think that option #3 has a problem. If the bad poll closes an hour before the play session, then there is no opportunity for someone to post a replacement poll which will finish before the game is played. The DP would have no choice but to follow the 1st, bad poll's outcome.

Other people support option #2 because they think the officials elected in #1 could be corrupted, and either ignore bad polls or mark good ones invalid. This is very much an important opinion because in the last game we had an official (Censor) for invalidating polls, and some of the people elected to that position did mark polls invalid. The reasons used by the Censors were later shown to be unfair.

My counter to the argument against a validating authority is that we can always just add a rule to balance the validator's power.

If all polls were public, so it is possible to prosecute people who incorrectly vote "bad poll", then option #2 would become more workable, but it still suffers from the problem that if people don't recognize it as bad until it is too late, there is no way to keep the polls result from happening.

Hope this description helps.

 

[donsig]

I argued against mods deciding which game version to use back on Civ3 when it was a choice between vanilla and conquests. This game I went to a lot of trouble to entice the people to choose vanilla so we wouldn't have to "suggest" it officially. Look carefully at how the starting date was derived and you'll see that I advocated a date but never mandated it.

So, you admit you've gone over to the Dark Side. Maybe you don't realize it but that moderator badge of yours carries alot of weight with some of our citizens. You claim (and maybe even believe) that you're acting as just an ordinary run-of-the-mill citizen, but because of that badge your suggestions and enticements carry quite a bit of weight. I really think the internal invalidation is losing votes because of your repeated preference for the other option. I can understand your preference for one option over the other. But why are you treating this as if there is only one way to tackle the problem of problem polls? You are going out of your way to campaign against an internal mechanism. It seems more and more like you are angling for our approval for you as a mod to step in when you think it is necessary to declare a poll invalid.

And your arguments for doing so are very weak. You keep pointing to the obvious cases where we need a poll invalidated quickly. Just what is it about the rest of us that makes you think we won't jump all over an obviously bad poll? I mean if a poll is REALLY obviously bad then enough of us will see that and any invalidation mechanism we have in place will work because it is obviously a bad poll.

It's the not-so-obviously bad polls (especially concerning issues where no clear majority stance has been taken) that we need to worry about. These are the polls where the DG community needs freedom from mod intervention to work things out.

I think that option #2 has a serious problem. In the normal case of a good poll, a small number of people, like 5% or 3 people, could decide they don't want the poll to have any effect. Their side (for example the NO side) is losing in the poll, but they can force their side to "win" by voting "bad poll", because "no" means keep things as they are.

DaveShack you are distorting things here. Watch out or I might have to report you to a mod for being unfair. Three people or 5% of the voters can only due what you describe if there are a small number of voters or we are very split on an issue.

Also, invalidating a no poll is not the same as keep things as they are. Invalidating a poll means no decison has been made by this particular poll. This is a big difference, especially if we are going to have the guts to let our elected officials make decisons when we don't (or can't).

Other people support option #2 because they think the officials elected in #1 could be corrupted, and either ignore bad polls or mark good ones invalid. This is very much an important opinion because in the last game we had an official (Censor) for invalidating polls, and some of the people elected to that position did mark polls invalid. The reasons used by the Censors were later shown to be unfair.

My counter to the argument against a validating authority is that we can always just add a rule to balance the validator's power.

If all polls were public, so it is possible to prosecute people who incorrectly vote "bad poll", then option #2 would become more workable, but it still suffers from the problem that if people don't recognize it as bad until it is too late, there is no way to keep the polls result from happening.

DaveShack, why in Heaven's name would you want to make a rule to prosecute a citizen for how they voted in a poll? Maybe you shouild step away from that moderator badge for awhile and come back into the light.

This is not a poll about whether we should invalidate polls via an interal mechanism OR (read exclusive or) an outisde authority mechanism. This is not a poll about which is better. To me it is obvious that both systems have their strengths and both have their weaknesses - which is why I think both systems should be available to us.

 

[730195]

I feel we may have had some straw men set up and nicely knocked over.

I think that option #2 has a serious problem. In the normal case of a good poll, a small number of people, like 5% or 3 people, could decide they don't want the poll to have any effect. Their side (for example the NO side) is losing in the poll, but they can force their side to "win" by voting "bad poll", because "no" means keep things as they are.

I don't see a compelling reason for a minority of voters to be able to declare a poll "bad". If the majority of the voters picked one of the offered items, then I think that validates the poll. I don't imagine there has ever been an election where at least one voter didn't wish there had been someone or something else on the ballot.

If all polls were public, so it is possible to prosecute people who incorrectly vote "bad poll", then option #2 would become more workable, but it still suffers from the problem that if people don't recognize it as bad until it is too late, there is no way to keep the polls result from happening.

Two thoughts:

-- "bad poll" may be a rather subjective decision. Some people may be quite happy with one (or more) of the choices while others feel completely excluded. I'm not comfortable with punishing someone who prefers more choices on his ballot.
-- I think the voter needs to take some responsibility for deciding when to vote and whether to object to the lack of options. If the voter rushes his vote and later decides he would have voted for a different option if it had been offered, is that anyone's problem but the voter's?

I also think that option #3 has a problem. If the bad poll closes an hour before the play session, then there is no opportunity for someone to post a replacement poll which will finish before the game is played. The DP would have no choice but to follow the 1st, bad poll's outcome.

One possibility is to allow the replacement poll to end at the same time as the original poll regardless of when the replacement started. The options on the replacement poll would be one of a list of new options OR to allow the original poll to stand.

 

[DaveShack]

@donsig,

I think you're missing an assumption. How many people need to object to the options in a poll before the poll is considered unfair?

Previous arguments (by people other than me btw) have been that a small number of people should be able to say the poll is unfair. If our objective is equal rights for all, then potentially just one person complaining about a poll should be enough. The problem at hand is how we distinguish a legitimate grievance from skillful manipulation.

My assertion is that the rule will need to be that a small number of people can block a poll's action by voting for the hypothetical "unfair poll" option. If not, then it won't protect citizen rights.

Example: we're at war and losing. some people want the war to continue no matter what.

Poll question : make a peace treaty?
without a "unfair poll" option
Yes - 20
No - 3

with a "unfair poll" option
Yes - 20
No - 0
Unfair - 3

If the rule is 3 people have to object, then play will continue without making peace. The 3 people get an unfair ability to force the war to continue.

Same hypothetical rules, 3 people must vote unfair

Declare war with? no "unfair poll" option
greece - 8
germany - 2
not voting - 9 (don't want a war at all) this is the biggest single option

With an "unfair poll" option
greece - 8
germany - 2
unfair - 3 (3rd vote triggers poll invalidation, 24-48 hours before the poll ends)

There is a leap of faith involving this example of course. Will one of the 10 total people who voted for war switch sides if a No option is included? Maybe, or maybe not. But the 9 people who definitely don't want war at least get the opportunity to see if the people voting "yes" really mean it or if they voted that way just because there is no "no".

So, to block the unfair poll we need to set the number of people needed to invalidate the poll as a small number. But if we set it to a small number, then a tiny majority can defy a huge majority by simply voting "unfair" instead of "no" in the 1st example of a peace treaty.

The people who hypothetically vote "unfair" on a poll which is clearly fair, in order to keep the poll's action from happening, are doing something which I think should be illegal. How do we determine if it's a legitimately unfair poll or someone manipulating the system? By due process, meaning we have to select someone to make that determination.


Now, is this a reason to not allow the "invalid poll" option? It depends on how much risk you want to take that someone will manipulate it. It depends on how low the bar will be set for how many people must pick that option. It depends on whether the appropriate balances are in place against a runaway minority.

 

[Hyronymus]

My proposal:

Any person can ask the Judiciary to investigate the valadity of a poll. This investigation should be announced publicly with (or without) reveiling the name of the person that asked for the inquiry. It is then up to the Judiciary, and only the Judiciary¹, to declare the investigated poll invalid. The Judiciary's ruling has to be made public and the Judiciary must do its outmost best to rule swiftly.

I am aware of the sentiments of laying all our trust in the Judiciary. Some of us are terrified that the Judiciary will favour the powers that be. That's why the investigation has to be public. Citizens can then analyse the ruling for themselves and take (legal) action against the Judiciary if they feel it's warranted.

¹ Until the Judiciary ruled no moderator has the mandate to declare a poll invalid.

 

[fed1943]

I agree with Hyronymus.

May be not even necessary a citizen request; Judiciary must look at polls,and,

if one Justice suspects invalidity, to investigate.

Best regards,