The Polling Act of 1655 AD

[Hyronymus]

Citizen's Initiative - The Polling Act of 1655 AD

Introduction
As polling is at the core of our decision-making process, guidelines and requirements for polls must exist. Poll requirements are poll properties that enable Officials, Designated Players and Citizens to identify an invalid poll. If one or more poll requirements are omitted the poll may be found to be invalid by the Judiciary at any time, as the result of an official complaint or by the Judiciary's own instignation (see Citizen's Initiative - Poll Invalidation Act of 1680 BC). Nonetheless, Officials, Designated Players and Citizens are free to approch the Judiciary with requests to investigate a poll on other grounds too.


Guidelines and Requirements

Guidelines

* Poll options that are not immediately obvious should be explained in the initial post.
* Polls should run for at least 2 days to allow every Citizen and Official to vote.
* When making complicated decisions, polls should start at the general level (Do A or B), then get detailed (Do A in manner X or Do A in manner Y). Conditional polls are valid (If we decide to do A, do it in manner X or Y), and may be posted at the same time as the initial poll.
* Polls should be preceded by discussion, with a proposed poll posted in that discussion.


Requirements

* The initial post must be stated in a clear and neutral manner, giving, when applicable, a summary of the related discussion(s).
* The poll question and poll options must be stated in a clear and neutral manner. All poll options must be exhaustive (all relevant poll options are available) and mutually exclusive (every poll option covers a unique choice).
* Polls must explain in the initial post how the poll result will be interpreted. A lack of such explanation means the single option with the most votes wins. The explanation of the interpretation may not change after 1 hour from the posting of the poll. If a poll requires a different interpretation after all a new poll must be made.
* Polls will cover one and only one question.
* Polls must be open for a minimum of 2 days.
* Polls that cover an actionable item in the Civ 4 demogame II or the DG meta-game are initiatives, and thus binding.
* Polls may not cover a subject already being polled. The outcome of the other poll dealing with the subject must be awaited before repolling the subject.


Jurispudence
The status of the Abstain option has been determined by the Citizens of Yasutan in an earlier stage (see The Status of Abstain). Abstain votes should not be counted towards the winning vote. Plurality polls have been found binding in a similar way, see Binding Plurality Poll Act. Plurality Polls are binding. Polls can be private or public, unless mandated otherwise by our Constitution (see The Constitution, Article D sub 2. Naturally, only closed polls are binding.

Poll Question:
Do you agree with the changes proposed in the Polling Act of 1655 AD on how we poll?

Poll Options:
Yes
No

Poll type & duration:
Public poll, lasts for 2 days

Additional notes:
Remember that this Polling Act can always be amanded in the future.

 

[Provolution]

I will vote YES to this (in sheer spite to "The Founding Fathers" that block all new amendments).

 

[Tanktunker]

What is this supposed to remedy?

 

[Hyronymus]

I'm not going to summarise 7 pages of discussion here, if you read the proposal you will see what it's about and what it should prevent.

 

[DaveShack]

The initiative itself must be present in the OP, not just a link. Especially for this poll -- which if passed will required exactly what I'm asking for.

I would like to vote yes, if this minor problem is fixed and the proposal matches what I remember seeing before.

 

[Provolution]

Hyro, please cut and paste in the 1625 proposal in the poll thread, and you may win a couple of votes.

 

[Hyronymus]

Fixed, now vote !

 

[HUSch]

Polls should be preceded by discussion, with a proposed poll posted in that discussion

What is the consistency of this? Many more legalism or judicary polls/decisions or will we make friendly gestures, then we needn't a new act.

 

[Provolution]

This will make arbitrary polls more or less history, as proposed poll options would have to take place in a discussion. It would be much harder to avoid to poll something that 3-4 citizens presented as a poll option in the discussions. This would also make it harder for a wild-eyed citizen to poll something before the discussion had run its course.

This proposal would create more order to the workflows of this game, and I am surprised this was not in place before I came in.

Moderator Action: Wild-eyed can be seen as a derogatory term thus trolling. Please choose your words more carefully

 

[ravensfire]

What is the consistency of this? Many more legalism or judicary polls/decisions or will we make friendly gestures, then we needn't a new act.

Nope - the section you quoted is a Guideline. This initiative also listed Requirements, which must be present.

Think of this as both a "You must do this when polling" and "Your poll will be better if you do these things as well" initiative. It both requires certain actions and tries to help people post better polls.

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

This will make arbitrary polls more or less history, as proposed poll options would have to take place in a discussion.

Read again please -- it says nothing about the options in the poll having to have been stated in the discussion, only that a discussion must have taken place.

It would be much harder to avoid to poll something that 3-4 citizens presented as a poll option in the discussions.

If even 1 citizen asks for a poll, as a citizen I expect there to be a poll. Either the official can open it, or the citizen can. This initiative does not change the underlying principle.

This would also make it harder for a wild-eyed citizen to poll something before the discussion had run its course.

There is nothing which says the discussion must have run its course, only that there has been a discussion. Of course citizens will have much less incentive to resort to polling to get the official's attention if officials actually respond to the citizen's concerns, not with platitudes like "all will be well".

 

[Provolution]

All right, I will make another amendment to this, but at least Hyro tried to do the right thing, as opposed to a lot of others here. Shame the founding fathers close out all new ideas...

Daveshack, I learnt my lesson with the German Longbowman....

 

[grant2004]

Definitely a yes for me, I'm glad to see this amendment has finally come to a vote, it will certainly improve our polling process, but without needlessly restricting the rights of citizens.

 

[donsig]

I cannot vote yes on this. This law will make more problems than it solves by opening the door to much legal action over polls. I shudder to think about serving on the judiciary if this initiative is passed.

The clause about not being able to poll a subject that is already polled is extremely uncalled for and a knee jerk reaction to events of the last two terms. It is especially reprehensible since the later polls were many times put up to rectify poor but earlier posted polls. This clause let's someone pre-empt an issue by hastily posting a poll - the thing that caused the original repolls this law seeks to fix.

I urge everyone voting on this initiative to imagine themselves on the judiciary being faced with the kinds of cases this law would bring about. Think about that and then cast your vote here.

EDIT: After seeing that this poll has been edited I am asking the judiciary to look into its validity.

 

[DaveShack]

EDIT: After seeing that this poll has been edited I am asking the judiciary to look into its validity.

The original OP had only a link to the discussion thread. After it was requested to be updated to include the actual law, the text from the thread was copied into the OP.

If the objection remains given this information, it should be an easy thing to repost it as a new poll. That would give a cleaner audit trail.

 

[Provolution]

Clearly, we need an "official discussion" amendment as well, to make sure a discussion runs its course over a set number of days, in order to avoid citizens preemptively polling their heart-case before all discussions had run its course.

This is what Donsig wants to avoid. Individual citizens hijacking and locking a case by polling only one option before a discussion have presented other pollable options.

 

[Hyronymus]

&%(#+#@!)#@i%

Fine, the Polling Act has only been discussed for a few months but why not come up with solutions when it's being polled. Talking about having a discussion before something is polled...

 

[Provolution]

I think we need discussion act to go with this, to avoid people hijacking issues with polling preemptively before a discussion run its course.

I am on your side Hyro, but that problem must be dealt with.

 

[Hyronymus]

I cannot vote yes on this. This law will make more problems than it solves by opening the door to much legal action over polls. I shudder to think about serving on the judiciary if this initiative is passed.

I guess it comes down to what you prefer more: endless bickering in the discussion topic leading to the poll/in the poll topic or a clear-cut procedure for dealing with polls.

The clause about not being able to poll a subject that is already polled is extremely uncalled for and a knee jerk reaction to events of the last two terms. It is especially reprehensible since the later polls were many times put up to rectify poor but earlier posted polls. This clause let's someone pre-empt an issue by hastily posting a poll - the thing that caused the original repolls this law seeks to fix.

You are misquoting.

Polls may not cover a subject already being polled. The outcome of the other poll dealing with the subject must be awaited before repolling the subject.

Again, this is only to prevent a subject being polled multiple times, at the same time, in different polls. Having multiple polls on the same subject at the same time inevitably leads to problems.

I urge everyone voting on this initiative to imagine themselves on the judiciary being faced with the kinds of cases this law would bring about. Think about that and then cast your vote here.

You are exploiting people's sentiment. The kind of cases the Judiciary will be facing are, as I said earlier, clearcut though. Any citizen or Official can ask the Judiciary to review a poll if the poll fails any one or more requirements as described in the Polling Act or when any of the Acts mentioned in the jurispudence are violated.

How difficult is that to imagine?

EDIT: After seeing that this poll has been edited I am asking the judiciary to look into its validity.

So now making a poll even clearer is a crime too?

 

[DaveShack]

I think we need discussion act to go with this, to avoid people hijacking issues with polling preemptively before a discussion run its course.

I am on your side Hyro, but that problem must be dealt with.

Then you give people the ability to hijack by just never ending the discussion, or waiting until the last moment to start the discussion.

It can keep going forever like this, with law after law each trying to trump another loophole, or we can be nice from the beginning of each discussion so that people don't find a need to poll to get their point across. That way emergency "gotta start this poll now to prevent the game from continuing without my idea being heard" polls aren't a problem.