Polls

[Sommerswerd]

Yes, I want to avoid polls as much as possible. I agree polls are not good and bad per se but there are bad polls and good polls. Believe me, bad polls can play havoc with a team.

If we stick to requesting only options we would actually vote for then we will have much better polls.

AND as you say... far LESS polls, which is a strategy that I do not necessarily agree with anymore. BTW, What is a "bad" poll in your opinion?

We've been successful this far because we've based our decisions on testing and discussion, not on polls. If we want to continue our success then we must use our time and energy to do more testing, not more polling.

Successful in what way? We are not currently leading in ANY category. If by succesful, you mean still alive, then I would say... all the teams are still alive. Surviving does not distinguish us as a "success." If you mean ahead in tech, I would say that we are NOT ahead, we are in the same position as Cavalieros. Also, our tech position is the result of the treaty... not testing. So I'm not sure I get why you say we are "successful" because of not polling.

I just put those 3 options up for consideration because it looked like a poll was going to happen and those options were the ones that people had been talking about.

Exactly, and that's what I think SHOULD go on a poll. Everyone cannot check every post all the time or post every idea on the forums.

if we are headed in the direction of a confrontational legalistic system then I will just keep my mouth shut about the good ideas of others in order to win my position at all costs.

We are already confrontational, and we already argue our positions vigorously so I say... go for it. However, I will try to follow 's example more going forward, and try to be more open to opposing points of view... No promises on how "successful" I will be.

 

[donsig]

AND as you say... far LESS polls, which is a strategy that I do not necessarily agree with anymore. BTW, What is a "bad" poll in your opinion?

Exactly, we'll have far less polls. A bad poll is one that leads us to a poor decision and, more importantly, gets us arguing amongst ourselves instead of concentrating on the game. A bad poll is one that is misleading, ill timed, worded wrong or even asks the wrong question. Unnecessary polls (like ones that end up with votes of 8-1-0) aren't bad, just unnecessary.

Successful in what way? .... So I'm not sure I get why you say we are "successful" because of not polling.

We have been successful in implementing our plans. We wanted a three way alliance and we got one. We wanted CoL first and we got it. We want to settle up the river valley towards the copper and we are. No, we haven't won yet but no one else has either. We are in a very good position.

Exactly, and that's what I think SHOULD go on a poll. Everyone cannot check every post all the time or post every idea on the forums.

We should not be polling every idea that's tossed out there. We want to be able to brainstorm during discussion and be able to weed out the not so good ideas without having to poll them. Just as we don't need to include every option in a poll, we don't need to poll all decisions. If we can forge a decent agreement through discussion then there is no point in polling the matter, is there?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Exactly, we'll have far less polls. Unnecessary polls (like ones that end up with votes of 8-1-0) aren't bad, just unnecessary.

If we can forge a decent agreement through discussion then there is no point in polling the matter, is there?

As I have said, I have come to feel that having periodic polls are better for the health and participation of the team.

We should always poll tech choices and city locations at least, to keep the forum active and vigorous. No polls for over a month really stiffles participation and IMO the health of the team. I have not seen so many threads turn "Hot (Red)" since I started playing as there have been recently... Have you?

Even if we can forge a decent agreement between the six members who post the most, we should still poll, because the upcoming poll will draw others into the issue, and possibly someone will come forward with info we did not consider. At worst, we will encourage more participation.

As I have said before, there is no way we are going to agree on this. I want more polls and you want less... But I am still interested to hear your response, so I will let you have the last word on this.

 

[Kaleb]

We are not currently leading in ANY category

Check out our GNP next turn... we're miles ahead in that category.

 

[donsig]

4. Ideas for the Date the poll should be posted

If the poll is due and I am unavailable to post it will decide to post (or not post the poll).

Sommers, if you're going to put up poll announcements then you really have to give us an idea of when the poll is to be posted so we know how much time we have to declare support for options. You risk causing dissension if someone misses getting a poll option added because a poll went up before they had a chance to ask for the option to be added. Posting a deadline for options would avoid this and we can always build in a mechanism for delaying the poll (and so getting more time to develop the poll).

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sommers, if you're going to put up poll announcements then you really have to give us an idea of when the poll is to be posted so we know how much time we have to declare support for options. You risk causing dissension if someone misses getting a poll option added because a poll went up before they had a chance to ask for the option to be added. Posting a deadline for options would avoid this and we can always build in a mechanism for delaying the poll (and so getting more time to develop the poll).

Good Point Donsig... Some thoughts:

1. The purpose of item 4, on the poll alert (which you quoted) is to invite team members to suggest possible dates for posting the poll. If you have a particular date in mind then you can always just say so. Otherwise I will assume that you are not particularly worried about the date the poll is posted. I will always try to post poll alerts plenty of time in advance.

2. If you want an option included on the poll, then you can always just say so. I think I have tried to include all the relevant options on the polls so far. Can you give a specific example of a time where YOU (or anyone else), missed getting an option on a poll that I posted? If the answer is no, then I would respectfully suggest that your concerns about "missing poll options" is sort of a straw issue, no? This concern seems especially ironic, since you were just objecting that a poll had TOO MANY options.

3. Deadlines are difficult to determine, because when a poll is needed will depend on how fast the turns are progressing. Item 7 of the poll alert invites (or other turnplayer like Cavscout) to post a ballpark date when the poll should be posted. did this for the tech poll BTW, and you were STILL unhappy with the options included (because you thought there were too many, not too few).

4. For a teammate who has stated that polls are "a distraction from the more important work of testing", you offer a great many suggestions for rules and procedures related to the stucturing of polls and poll alerts. You have already stated several times that you are AGAINST polling in general, so forgive me for assuming that most of your suggestions related to conducting polls, will be designed to make polling more cumbersome, time-consuming, complicated and generally more difficult... precisely BECAUSE you want us to poll LESS often. As I have said, I favor more polls, so I will generally be skeptical of suggestions that tend to restrict polling. Your last comment, "build in a mechanism for delaying the poll," is a good illustration of this IMO.

 

[donsig]

Sommerswerd, I have not had any of my options excluded yet but that does not mean that will not happen in the future. Since you are hell bent on having unnecessary polls and a formal polling process I am doing what I can to ensure my voice on this team is not diminished by your polls. I am very wary of the idea of a Poll Master who can throw up polls basically without warning, whenever he (or she) thinks they are necessary. I realize we must make timely decisions but we do not need to do so at the risk of cutting team members out. Polls are supposed to encourage participation, right Sommerswerd? So we need safeguards. One is a specific deadline in the poll announcement. Unless deadlines and other safeguards are used I will not only boycott future polls but I will mount a campaign to get others on the team to do the same. Cavscout warned you that you're heading towards a confrontational legalistic set-up. Is this the direction you really think our team should go in?

 

[Sommerswerd]

OK Donsig, I agree for the most part with your last post. Glad you have not had any of your desired options excluded.

How has your voice been diminished by polls? It seems like your desired course of action has been taken in every poll I have conducted so far? Is that right as well?

Other Safeguards? Such as? For the deadline thing, I don't know what else to say, except refer you to point 3 of my last post. I will have to rely on or Cavscout to suggest a deadline, since they are playing the turns.

Lastly, I would not get too excited about Cavscout's repeated "warnings" about "legalism." That is basically an inside joke related to my profession. Just an FYI.

 

[Sommerswerd]

@ Donsig, one other thing to think about... (I by no means think this will change your mind, just wanted to mention it), is that under the "no polls" system: When a new member joins and sees we are researching Masonry, they might think, "OK so I will suggest Metal Casting next." When they do they would be told (in polite language) how silly they are because "we already decided that." Then they would have to (frustratingly...is that a word?) scour the forums looking for evidence of this decision. They might even think a well crafted argument might change some minds. However...

Since there was a poll, any new member can simply click the poll and see that we overwhelmingly decided to beeline Monotheism. They don't have to frustrate themselves searching through the threads to figure out if the decision was really the team's decision or if the purported decision is just the posting player's opinion. Does this have any value?

 

[donsig]

How has your voice been diminished by polls? It seems like your desired course of action has been taken in every poll I have conducted so far? Is that right as well?

Yes this is right but as we hear on certain commercials, "Past performance is not indicative of future results." I'd rather not wait till I'm shut out on something dear to my heart before raising the alarm.

Other Safeguards? Such as? For the deadline thing, I don't know what else to say, except refer you to point 3 of my last post. I will have to rely on or Cavscout to suggest a deadline, since they are playing the turns.

Wait a minute, why should our decision making take a back seat to the speed with which we play turns? We're not playing simultaneous here. We have a 24 hour clock when it's our turn, don't we? If we're in the midst of a decision can't we hold up play a bit while we decide? Can our team ever ask for an extension? If you truly want increased participation then why aren't you looking for ways that give people the time they need to participate? As for other safeguards I have to see what you plan to do with these polls before I know what safeguards we need.

Lastly, I would not get too excited about Cavscout's repeated "warnings" about "legalism." That is basically an inside joke related to my profession. Just an FYI.

I'm not excited about cav scout's warnings. I've played in enough team games over the years to have had bad experiences with polls. Look at when I joined these forums. I'm not some noob running around yelling that the sky is falling. My fears are based on past experiences. Perhaps you should take heed of my advice and accumulated wisdom.

"no polls" system...

I am not advocating a no polls system. I am only saying we should reserve polls for making decisions when there is a true difference of opinion among us that cannot be solved by discussion.

Surely there are better ways of keeping team members informed of team decisions than by posting polls about everything. Remember, there are more decisions than what to tech next or where to build another city. If you truly want to encourage more involvement then you should put your energy towards a system of compiling the decisions we are faced with as well as the status of our progress towards making those decisions.

We have a team that has a very good decision making process in place. I'd be willing to bet that there are teams in this game that do not have test saves like we do. Your polling system threatens to change our decision making process and that is what I am against.

 

[Kaleb]

Sommers, can I suggest that when you put an 'upcoming poll thread' you start the thread name with the turn we are currently on i.e. T67. When we put up a poll proper the name of the thread should also be prefixed with a turn number. I would suggest we put the turn on which the decision will actually be made. For example, we know when city 5 must be decided by and will normally know when a decision will be made through testing.

 

[donsig]

Hmm, I'm just wondering if we needed to have this thread and the 'Upcoming Poll City 6' thread? Is there anyway we can try and amalgamate these types of threads in future?

Perhaps we should have a stickied 'scheduled poll' thread where Sommers can just announce what issues may be polled and when they will be begun. The thread is not to be used for discussion itself but when it is thought a poll will be needed it can be announced in this thread with a link to a discussion thread (this thread being an example of a 'discussion' thread).

If anyone thinks the point I have raised in this post is worth further discussion please quote this post and reply in the polls thread.

It would be much better if we could discuss the actual subject in the poll announcement thread. I think we have more stickies than we need already. Stickies should be reserved for threads with important information that we want to review alot but don't add many posts to. Threads that only need to be reviewed when there is an announcement (like a polls announcement thread) should be allowed to bubble up and down as they are used. We could probably unsticky a few threads.

 

[Kaleb]

It would be much better if we could discuss the actual subject in the poll announcement thread. I think we have more stickies than we need already. Stickies should be reserved for threads with important information that we want to review alot but don't add many posts to. Threads that only need to be reviewed when there is an announcement (like a polls announcement thread) should be allowed to bubble up and down as they are used. We could probably unsticky a few threads.

Ok if we use the poll announcement thread for discussion then we should probably kill any other existing discussion around the same topic, right?

Ie. as soon as we announced a poll on where city 6 should be we should stop using the city 6 thread, otherwise we end up with a rather fractured discussion...

 

[Sommerswerd]

I would suggest using the recommended thread for discussion. Every time I post a poll alert I put IN BOLD what the recommended thread for discussion is. I even put a link to the thread. I ask that folks just try to be more disciplined about NOT POSTING discussion in the poll alert thread. Posts in the poll alert should be limited to the few topics suggested in the poll alert... Mostly related to the structure / timing of the poll itself.

Arguments on the merits of a particular action "we should settle here because...etc." should be posted in the recommended thread... So discussion about "where City 6 should go" should be in the City 6 thread. If you want a particular choice listed on the poll, you could put it in the Upcoming poll thread.

It really does not matter whether you post your poll choices in the poll alert or in the recommended thread, because I will read both and make sure that your choice is represented in the poll. That is another reason I am against a rule that requires posting poll choices in a particular thread. We are not always disciplined about where we post... Even with HUGE BOLD HEADERS that tell us what to post in a certain thread

 

[donsig]

Ok if we use the poll announcement thread for discussion then we should probably kill any other existing discussion around the same topic, right?

Ie. as soon as we announced a poll on where city 6 should be we should stop using the city 6 thread, otherwise we end up with a rather fractured discussion...

Yes, I agree. It would be nice if an attempt was made in the poll announcement to summarize the discussion prior to the creation of the poll announcement thread. For the city 6 poll announcement (for example), the summary could have been like this:

It has already been decided that city six will be the source of our iron. There are currently two tiles in contention for the city six spot (tell which ones they are). Issues being debated now are the placement of future cities to the west.

The summary doesn't have to go into much detail just bring everyone up to speed quick on the discussion. I also would not worry about trying to get every point of view included. We can trust team members to speak up and politely point out any omissions in the posted summary. This will also help stimulate further discussion.

It really does not matter whether you post your poll choices in the poll alert or in the recommended thread, because I will read both and make sure that your choice is represented in the poll. That is another reason I am against a rule that requires posting poll choices in a particular thread. We are not always disciplined about where we post... Even with HUGE BOLD HEADERS that tell us what to post in a certain thread

I really wish you'd stop using HUGE BOLD HEADERS. If you're not going to use the poll announcement threads as the official place for poll business then what the hell is the point of having a separate thread?!? It is difficult enough trying to figure out what decisions need to be made in order to try to contribute to the process. Adding superfluous threads makes it even more difficult.

The poll alert idea is a good one. It tells us we are closing in on a decision. By letting the discussion move to the poll announcement thread we have a chance to catch our breath and summarize what we've learned about the upcoming decision and actually get the decision made.

Now if you'd also refine what you intend to poll you'd actually start achieving something good here. With all your focus on what to tech next and where to build a city we are losing focus on larger projects like wonders and our alliance. We should be talking more about whether we want to build the great library and what we want our alliance members to do. If you'll let discussion flow naturally to your poll announcements then you could funnel things from the mid and long term strategy threads into their own discussions as we near the actual decisions.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I really wish you'd stop using HUGE BOLD HEADERS. If you're not going to use the poll announcement threads as the official place for poll business then what the hell is the point of having a separate thread?!? It is difficult enough trying to figure out what decisions need to be made in order to try to contribute to the process. Adding superfluous threads makes it even more difficult.

The poll alert idea is a good one. It tells us we are closing in on a decision. By letting the discussion move to the poll announcement thread we have a chance to catch our breath and summarize what we've learned about the upcoming decision and actually get the decision made.

Now if you'd also refine what you intend to poll you'd actually start achieving something good here. With all your focus on what to tech next and where to build a city we are losing focus on larger projects like wonders and our alliance. We should be talking more about whether we want to build the great library and what we want our alliance members to do. If you'll let discussion flow naturally to your poll announcements then you could funnel things from the mid and long term strategy threads into their own discussions as we near the actual decisions.

Donsig makes many good points... Some I did not even consider... Thanks. The point of the Poll alert having a new thread, as opposed to a single post in the City 6 thread for example, is to ALERT everyone that a poll is coming. A Poll Alert thread gets your attention in a way that a single post does not. The Big bold headers get your attention, in a way that simple text does not. Im Sorry if you find it annoying, I really, really am.

Everything else you say I agree with , I dont particularly mind reading two threads to get the whole story, and I like for discussion to flow naturally... I just think we should try to have all the "merits" related talk in one place if we can... Poll related talk can be seperate...

 

[cav scout]

I agree with Donsig and think we should have full discussion in any "poll alert thread." The sequence can go like this:

1. Normal discussion occurs in the regular broad category threads. Consensus or consent is acheived for most issues. If a particular issue becomes a hot topic that people disagree on then a special thread is called for.
2. A special thread is created and all discussion on the contentious issue is directed to this thread in order to reach a decision.
3. A poll alert is put in the special thread if it looks like a poll is needed or someone calls for one.
4. A poll is put up and people vote. Issue is decided.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I agree with Donsig and think we should have full discussion in any "poll alert thread." The sequence can go like this:

1. Normal discussion occurs in the regular broad category threads. Consensus or consent is acheived for most issues. If a particular issue becomes a hot topic that people disagree on then a special thread is called for.
2. A special thread is created and all discussion on the contentious issue is directed to this thread in order to reach a decision.
3. A poll alert is put in the special thread if it looks like a poll is needed or someone calls for one.
4. A poll is put up and people vote. Issue is decided.

Thanks for the great ideas, but I think the current system is working fine the way it is. No one's desired options have been excluded from the polls. No poll has come out with a result that is contrary to majority opinion. The only way to adopt a new system IMO is to vote on it. If anyone wants a new system, they should propose a poll on it.

 

[cav scout]

Thanks for the great ideas, but I think the current system is working fine the way it is.

That what I thought a while back...

 

[Indiansmoke]

TBH we have lots of people on this team but only about 1/3 of us are active and follow the game turn by turn.

If we do a poll that anyone can vote then people that haven't got a real understanding of what they are voting for and for what reasons might push the vote in the wrong way.

I love democracy as well, but democracy among educated citizens.

I am not sure how we can overcome this..we have more than 8 people who have never posted here...I am not sure if they even check the forum ever tbh...but in a poll they will be able to vote...sorry but I don't like that.

On the other hand we have some new people that want and try to get involved...it is hard with all these threads...but I want us to help them get involved.

So how do we seperate the pack? How do we make polls that only people that should vote?

Maybe poll is not a solution...maybe everyone needs to post their opinion in writting and Sommer can keep a vote (like he does already about next tech)?