Should plurality decisons be binding?

[donsig]

The time has come to face a difficult question. This is a democracy game and a major premise is the majority rules. But what happens if there is no majority decison? Do we give plurality decisions equal weight with majority decisions?

If we have a two option forum poll and one option gets more votes than the other we consider this to be a binding decision and demand that our elected officials and turn players follow the results of the voting in that forum poll.

Once we begin choosing among three or more poll options we run the risk of none getting a majority of the votes. Take for example a poll to decide where to build a city. Say the poll has 4 different sites as options and the results of the poll are 3/5/8/4. Should we demand that the site getting 8 votes (out of 20) be the binding choice of the people?

 

[Hyronymus]

Most votes should win, I don't see any reason why we should make matters worse. It's tough for the competition but even a 1-vote difference means we have a winner and a loser (or losers).

 

[ravensfire]

Yes. Absolutely.

Need a solid example? Elections.

Should we require one over the other? No. Both systems have their uses and benefits.

Some decisions need to be made quickly, and plurality works perfectly for that. Other decisions, ultimately, aren't that significant, and plurality works perfectly for that.

Decisions where there are lots of ideas are ideal for a second poll from the top choices, and I think we should push for that.

Major, critical decisions are good candidates to require a majority poll. A major war, a potentially explosive city placement - all of these can have significant, material impact on the DG as a whole.

I'd like to see us lay out scenarios where we should strongly suggest majority polls and run-off polls, but not require them.

EDIT: Thanks, donsig - good topic!

-- Ravensfire

 

[Hyronymus]

This is a proposal, don't shoot me! The division of topics over majority or plurality polls is what I come up with and do by no means claims to be the perfect solution.

Majority polls

A majority is reached when 1 poll option accumulated more votes than any competing poll option.​

Majority polls should be considered when citizens are asked to express their views on non-critical matters such as:

• Naming cities, rivers, regions (land or water).
• Gameplay issues.
• Revoking or amending initiatives.

Pluarlity polls

A plurality is reached when 50% or more of the votes have been accumulated by 1 poll option.​

Plurality polls should be considered when citizens are asked to express their views on critical matters such as:

• Nominating Chieftain, Elder, Judge Advocate, Public Defender or the Designated player pool.
• Diplomatic relations, including war declarations.

Additional reading on plurality and majority: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781456.html

 

[donsig]

@Hyronymus and Ravensfire: What you both say is logical but ignores a crucial reason for requiring that we stick with majority decisions only. That reaosn involves elected officials. We've had complaints from officials that they are merely scribes who have to poll everything and we've had complaints from citizens that officials don't poll enough. My proposal is that anyone can post any forum poll and anyone can post gameplay instructions based on a majority decision from a completed forum poll. My proposal looks upon plurality decisions as non-decisions and allows the appropriate elected official (or DP) to make the decision. The crux of the matter - and the reason for this discussion and eventual poll - is to determine if we are going to give our officials this leeway.

Reasons for not letting officials make their own choice in plurality matters:

• The official might choose an option that didn't get the most votes.

Reasons for allowing officials to make their own choice in plurality matter:

• Offices have some power and become more appealing.
• An option getting most votes does not necessarily mean it would be the consensus choice
• Officials who want to be re-elected to office will still face political consideratons when making plurality decisions
• The official can always choose the option getting most votes
• It's flexible and doesn't cause delays or repolling

I encourage everyone to look at this issue in light of the overall scheme of the democracy game.

EDIT: Hyronymus, I think you have your headers switched. For items such as naming, I don't really care how we make those decisions. I'm focusing on gameplay decisions and democracy game initiatives that impact how those gameplay decisons are made. I'm also not thinking about elections here though there are reasons not to blindly accept pluralities there either. The link you provide is quite specific to the crazy presidential election system we have in the US. The minority president's listed got a minority of popular votes but (obviously) a majority of electoral votes. (Or a majority of electoral commission votes in the case of Hayes or a majority of Supreme Court justice votes in the case of George W. Bush.) Since we are stuck with using the one month calender terms in the DG we don't have time to do proper run-offs when we have multiple candidates. I'd really prefer multi-choice elections with run-offs among any candidates getting more than 50% of the vote or something along those lines. I canonly fight one battle at a time and right now it's the majority versus plurality battle in non-election forum polls.

 

[Hyronymus]

Where's the switch to the overall democracy game scheme light?

Oh, I think I found it but I'm still confused by what I see. You say officials or DP might not choose the poll option that gathered >50% of the votes in a pluarlity poll. But isnt the aim of a poll preventing officials or DP to do what they want to in the first place?

I find your reasons for allowing the officials or DP to choose themselves not compelling either. Some Offices will most likely be less challenging than others but that's the way it is. The appeal of the Offices is something people have to determin for themselves though. We cannot guide them.
If a poll options gathers a plurality but isn't the concensus' choice then that's "tough". Unless we make voting in polls compulsory for all citizens there is nothing we can do to prevent this from happening. Afterwards we can amend or revoke an initiative though. I agree that that delays the game more and probably makes it less appealing but that's also the way it is (I fear).

 

[DaveShack]

My model for officials not having to poll is based on listening to the people. If the official asks a question in a thread and gets a strong response, most people posting the same opinion in support of the official's position, then no poll is needed. If most people disagree, then the official should see that and not continue. If it's unclear, then someone can poll it and it doesn't matter who starts the poll. If the apparent majority doesn't poll, the apparent minority can poll. But all polling is optional.

If there is a poll, I think we should do what the most people want. If we're concerned about having a true majority with more than two possible answers, then just start early enough that several layers of polls can be completed before the final decision is needed. There is nothing to prevent a plurality decision from being repolled with the top options, at any time before we perform the action the poll is directed towards. If we run out of time, then we push on. For a really critical decision, we delay the play session.

This way we don't free officials to choose the least supported option of a plurality on the very thin concept that no majority is no decision.

 

[dutchfire]

Plurality decisions should be binding.
If you feel that a plurality decision doesn't have enough support, you can still poll it again with only the top 2 options, so you will get a majority decision.

In 90% of the cases, this isn't needed, but I might be needed sometimes, and in those cases, repolling is the solution.

 

[DaveShack]

We've had complaints from officials that they are merely scribes who have to poll everything and we've had complaints from citizens that officials don't poll enough. My proposal is that anyone can post any forum poll and anyone can post gameplay instructions based on a majority decision from a completed forum poll.

In past games we had officials with the ability to make decisions, by concensus. Before that we had officials who would refuse to poll something when there was a dissenter who thought strongly that there had been an unfair concensus, and we fixed that by allowing polls posted by anyone to be binding. But too many people confused polls being allowed with polls being required, and we got a couple of games where officials were treated badly by the citizens.

If we collectively responded to unnecessary polls with "we admire your effort to poll this but you didn't really need to" we would go a long ways towards bolstering the power of officials without neutering necessary polls with more than two options.

Now you'll say "define 'unnecessary'" and several of us will reply with "it's like 'obscene', we know it when we see it".

 

[donsig]

My model for officials not having to poll is based on listening to the people. If the official asks a question in a thread and gets a strong response, most people posting the same opinion in support of the official's position, then no poll is needed. If most people disagree, then the official should see that and not continue. If it's unclear, then someone can poll it and it doesn't matter who starts the poll. If the apparent majority doesn't poll, the apparent minority can poll. But all polling is optional.

I agree with this and fail to see how my proposal is at odds with this. Since we seem to have agreement let's look at the rest.

If there is a poll, I think we should do what the most people want. If we're concerned about having a true majority with more than two possible answers, then just start early enough that several layers of polls can be completed before the final decision is needed. There is nothing to prevent a plurality decision from being repolled with the top options, at any time before we perform the action the poll is directed towards. If we run out of time, then we push on. For a really critical decision, we delay the play session.

Three reasons why my propoal is better. 1) There is never a reason to delay the game since someone always has authority to make a decision. 2) Citizens can guide the decison process without going through all the hoops of multiple polls. 3) I agree we should do what the most people want but a plurality decision is not always what the most people want. C'mon DaveShack, you are an intelligent guy. You know that in a poll with three options you might like option A or B but definately not C. In fact a majority may feel the same way as you but the Vote comes down to 6/7/12 and C wins. How does doing something that most people don't' want fit into our democracy game ethos? I don't have an easy answer to this problem but I'm willing to fall back on letting our trusted elected officials make the choice here.

This way we don't free officials to choose the least supported option of a plurality on the very thin concept that no majority is no decision.

You're the one always posting about elected officials being trustworthy and judicial official being fair by definition. Why are you balking now?

Perhaps we need to discuss using the multi-choice option when we have a poll with more than two choices. Perhaps we can find a way to use that feature to get a better grasp of WtMPW.

 

[Falcon02]

Donsig, the problem I see with your proposal is simularly to DS's comment.

You're saying 3/5/8/4 and C wins, but the ones who voted for A and D might have voted for B otherwise, giving B a clear majority.

An official picks C (given it has the most votes)... since that is the "plurality" then nothing is really accomplished. We've still got the same thing we've had before. An official does not necessarily know the mind of those 7 citizens, and how they would have voted. The only difference is the official if he/she chooses could pick, A,B, or D. Not based on the citizens actual opinion, but based on what he/she THINKS the citizens actual opinion is.

There doesn't have to be an malevolence in it, just supports of say B have been much more vocal, so Official feels B is what would have been selected in a runoff of the top two. However, in reality had it been repolled between the top tow choices, A would have gained the majority.

Most major issues can wait, and we should start planning out our city positions well in advanced.


That said on the Official Power issue.... the Official's powers are in the details...

Military Leader DG1, I polled major decisions. Declaration of War, Spoils of War we wanted before Peace, Declaration of Peace, and in general anything I wasn't really sure on.

On the other hand, Troop movements, Unit stack organization, Unit upgrades, etc. the actual details of day to day business, that I only had discussion threads. I took the Citizens views into consideration, and where I saw improvement I applied it to my plans.

I was very satisfied with my job, and I felt the people were very satisfied with my job. I did continue to get reelected until I decided to step down myself to concentrate on college at least.

Now with positions such as Civic, Culture, Science, there's slightly less "day to day" stuff like that, so I could understand there being a problem of "Everything is polled, why am I here?" type issue. But that's solved by the more streamline government we've tried to create. In order to reduce the number of offices where everything is polled and there's nothing much for the official to do.

 

[Hyronymus]

The problem seems to be that some of us want absolute certainty where others are fine with close-to-absolute certainty.

Absolute certainty is a fable except for death and making errors in life.

 

[DaveShack]

Three reasons why my propoal is better. 1) There is never a reason to delay the game since someone always has authority to make a decision. 2) Citizens can guide the decison process without going through all the hoops of multiple polls. 3) I agree we should do what the most people want but a plurality decision is not always what the most people want. C'mon DaveShack, you are an intelligent guy. You know that in a poll with three options you might like option A or B but definately not C. In fact a majority may feel the same way as you but the Vote comes down to 6/7/12 and C wins. How does doing something that most people don't' want fit into our democracy game ethos? I don't have an easy answer to this problem but I'm willing to fall back on letting our trusted elected officials make the choice here.

Taking your initial example, with 4 options getting 3/5/8/4 votes respectively. If all of our officials are fair and trustworthy, they will pick C whether we allow the plurality to be binding or not. However, in the other thread you were attempting to beat me up about people not being fair. If a plurality vote is a no decision, then some official might pick A, the option that the least people want, or even option E which isn't even in the poll. We have at least one person in the DG who I think would do that just to make a point, even if it's a bad decision. Therefore I want the poll to be binding.

 

[donsig]

I was very satisfied with my job, and I felt the people were very satisfied with my job. I did continue to get reelected until I decided to step down myself to concentrate on college at least.

I was very happy with your job. That's why I still call you General. Not all officials since you have done this though so we (citizens) need the right to post binding polls. But honestly, I don't see how what you say conflicts with my proposal. Using the system I suggest, an official could do things just as you did and there would not be a problem.

You're saying 3/5/8/4 and C wins, but the ones who voted for A and D might have voted for B otherwise, giving B a clear majority.

An official picks C (given it has the most votes)... since that is the "plurality" then nothing is really accomplished. We've still got the same thing we've had before. An official does not necessarily know the mind of those 7 citizens, and how they would have voted.

I'm not saying my system is better at determing what the majority actually want. I am saying that by making plurality decisions binding we sometimes end up doing what a majority do not want to do. I'm saying that until we find a decent way to handle polls with more than two mutually exclusive options let's try giving our elected officials the responsibility to lead us. The only real argument I've heard against my system is the official won't know what the majority want and so won't be able to make the right decision. Well, no duh. We're talking about something we've polled and could not decide. Obviously we don't know what we want and need some leadership on the issue. I fail to see what everyone is afraid of here. A by product of using this system just might be better polls, a better decision making mechanism and better advance planning on our part.

Taking your initial example, with 4 options getting 3/5/8/4 votes respectively. If all of our officials are fair and trustworthy, they will pick C whether we allow the plurality to be binding or not. However, in the other thread you were attempting to beat me up about people not being fair. If a plurality vote is a no decision, then some official might pick A, the option that the least people want, or even option E which isn't even in the poll. We have at least one person in the DG who I think would do that just to make a point, even if it's a bad decision. Therefore I want the poll to be binding.

Don't worry about me picking E just to make a point. I can't even get elected CJ anymore. While we're on the subject, if you'd quit fighting me everystep of the way on my ideas I might not have to go to such lengths to make a point. Remember the private versus public poll fiasco last game? A reasonable discussion and polling process would have avoided all that. Instead you blindly stuck to public polls (as Censor) instead of letting it have a fair airing. The same thing is laready happening in this game regarding abstain. Octavian X finally reminded us all where that came from. The reasons for requiring abstain have disappeard just as the reasons for requiring public polls are gone. Finally, I'm tired of you implying things about me. Just come out and say what you want to say. I'm, a big boy and can take it. I won't run to a mod.

Back on topic. I don't agree that a fair and trustworthy official would always pick C in the original example I gave. What if that was a poll about city site selection and A and B are one tile apart while C is far away and those who voted for A prefer B over C and those who voted for B prefer A over C. In other words if the poll were worded (A or B), C, abstain then the vote would have been 8/8/4. There are an infinite number of examples like this. The whole point is that plurality decisions are not always what we want anyway. Letting an official pick A is not a big hairy deal in this scenario, is it? Sure, letting officials choose may stick us with a choice most don't want - but plurality decisions do that too!!! At least my system allows elected offcials to show their stuff. It's admitedly an expiriment and it may well backfire. But I see no reason not to try it here since are using an overall system that allows us to make changes anyway.

Stop fighting and give it a try. While we watch the expiriment unfold we can explore better ways to make plurality decisions. I think if we discuss multi-choice polls we might actually come up with a way of making plurality decisons we can all livw with.

 

[Falcon02]

First, Donsig, thanks for the compliment.

But honestly, I don't see how what you say conflicts with my proposal. Using the system I suggest, an official could do things just as you did and there would not be a problem.

Agreed, I'm just pretty much with Daveshack on this that if it's purely left up to the Official to determine "what the right choice is" when we get a plurality like that, the most logical option would be the one which got the most votes, thus changing nothing from pure "most votes wins". If the official choices one of the other options, we've sorta got a hanging chad situation... The official is determining how the citizens would have voted if the outcome had been known, and the poll itself is more or less thrown out the window as null.

Now if this is a minor/informational type decision, I've got no problem with the official making the call... The problem though is major gameplay decisions (which I think is what you're concentrating on here), such as city placement. In which case I feel we should either go with most votes, or do a run off, though I don't really think a run-off would be neccisary in most cases. Delaying a decision 2 more days I don't think would be a big problem if we need a runoff, though hopefully we wouldn't make a habit of runoffs... And if we do... we plan ahead on the potential to have a runoff and close the original poll the game session ahead of when we need the decision.

Though at the same time, this is assuming the poll itself is of quality, specifcally so we don't have excess options which are obviously BAD sites. But all "good options" that survived the discussion are polled. I think Civ III DG1 we choose sites based on "most votes."



Also, I really don't have a problem with citizen posted polls...
However, I would like to avoid a spamming of citizen polls trying to poll every little thing. "Detail Polls" should really be Official only, when they want input on said details. Of course then you've got a problem of quantifying what counts as "details," because the citizens and official may easily disagree on that.

Also we need to avoid polls which don't have any discussion before hand, which is much more likely I think. But officials can easily be guilty of this as well. Also, by encouraging discussion before posting a poll, it makes it easier to avoid the first potential problem with citizen polls of "over-polling."

 

[DaveShack]

Stop fighting and give it a try.

I post my opinions and the reasons I hold those opinions. If I don't make my concerns known, then the people won't have the information they need to make an informed decision when it is polled. I'm very confident that the result of that poll will be that plurality decisions should be binding. It's obvious, easy, and correct most of the time.
If we people are doing our jobs and replying to questionable mock polls before they are posted, then the ones like your (A or B) vs C questions will be filtered out before they even reach the poll stage.

If I thought a change was appropriate, then I'd stand with you. Don't forget that Tribal Government came from Build as you Go, which was your idea. Don't forget that I jumped in and tried to help with the continuous play idea.

 

[DaveShack]

I wouldn't have any problem with allowing the official to break ties. I don't remember seeing this discussed anywhere. It would accomplish one of my goals (simple and fast) along with what appears to be one of donsig's goals (increased official authority).

 

[donsig]

I wouldn't have any problem with allowing the official to break ties. I don't remember seeing this discussed anywhere. It would accomplish one of my goals (simple and fast) along with what appears to be one of donsig's goals (increased official authority).

As stated in the poll thread, my system would view a tie as a non-decision thus allowing the elected official or DP to make the decision. This is how it has been in every democracy game we've played in the last four years.

It's obvious, easy, and correct most of the time.

This is true only if we have a good mechanism for filtering out bad polls. A good mechanism would not throw out good polls like many a censor did last game.

If we people are doing our jobs and replying to questionable mock polls before they are posted, then the ones like your (A or B) vs C questions will be filtered out before they even reach the poll stage.

We can't respond to mock polls that aren't posted. Now we could mandate (via an initiative) that any poll is invalid unless a mock poll is posted first. But that really gets us nowhere since an official could just post a poll without first posting a mock poll. Said official would then be free to ignore the results the poll since it would be invalid. Any citizen seeking to rectify the situation would first have to post a mock poll of his own in order to have it over-ride the official's bad poll. This would either delay the game or allow the official a chance at a fait acompli (pardon my French).

If I thought a change was appropriate, then I'd stand with you.

So you are saying we already have a system that works fine? We don't even have a system in place yet for invalidating a poll.

 

[Shattered]

Well, what kind of decisions should be held as binding? How are we to determine this? Should the official be given complete freedom to make the decisions he/she sees fit?

These are the questions I have for you donsig. Do we want a majority decision to go ignored by an official because his ideas dont co-incide with the public's? Say we have a two choice, simple yes no poll. (abstain not present for simplicity of example) The final tally of said poll turns out to be 12 yes, 8 no. Now, a majority has been reached, but the official chooses to not implement the decision because he didn't agree with the intial discussion. If the public "determines" that the result of the poll is binding, should not the result be the choice of the official? What powers can we hand the officials without being able to have a semblence of control as a citizen? Sure, we can have a coup-de-tat against the offending official, but that just slows down gameplay and doesn't come close to solving the problem. I advocate officials with power, but too much power can corrupt. Another problem I see, which complicates this whole rant even more, is if we don't give the official a choice to make his own moves, it would make our leadership a weak, decorative position. Now with your system donsig, it could balance out many of these problems, but, there are so many obstacles and other bureaucratic junk that could over-power or deflate your system. Take abstain for example. If we include this as a counted vote in our vote system, then there's a solid chance that a majority won't be reached. Are we to let the official decide then? Since when has this democracy turned into a democratic republic? (coughamericacough) I guess I will just sit back and wait for the DG to start rolling foward, as most of these concerns are just from me not having ever participated in a DG.

Salutations,
Shattered

 

[GenMarshall]

The Majority should rule for the decision to be binding. Not no silly formula or ration. Were all not Mathamatician nuts here .