Timer dicussion

[Sommerswerd]

The thing is that cause for possible in-game impact in the scenarios is not equivalent.

I think I will just go ahead and explain this again...

When Yossa said "Lets support Plako", I said "That will irritate the other players which will hurt us in-game"
Yossa (and others) responded "No it won't, they can seperate out of game stuff from in-game behaviors"

Then

When Yossa again said "Lets support Plako", I said "Lets not support Plako"
Yossa replied "That will irritate the other players" (He did not say "which will hurt us in-game", but I felt that the "which will hurt us in-game" was implied). And here is the contradiction. When I said it would irritate players he said that in-game was seperate but then he ignored that seperation by implying that the irritation would hurt us in-game.

I said "I agree that it will irritate them but it won't cause in-game action against us (because RB is so far ahead)." Then I pointed out the contradiction.

Aivo said "This will irritate the other players which will hurt us in-game because it will make them quit"

tobiasn said "This will irritate the other players but Yossa wasnt implying it would hurt us in-game"

Yossa said "I am not implying that it will hurt us in-game just that it will irritate the other players"

Then you (Aivo) said "What Yossa is saying is this will irritate the other players which would hurt us in-game"

Wait... what? Please go back and look at what Yossa is saying. You are trying to agree with Yossa, defending him and "explaining" his arguments without even being clear on what he is saying. You are misrepresenting him.

I understand Yossa's point. Yossa is arguing that our attempt to suggest someone else will irritate the others, which will cause them to reject our suggestion. The in-game effect is not addressed directly. This is a good argument BTW, because it sidesteps in-game impact, but ironically, I think I might be the only one who understood it.

Everyone trying to "explain it" to me keeps getting it wrong...

Anyway, my response to Yossa's actual argument, is that our "veto power" in this situation outweighs the rejection factor as-in they can accept our suggestion or stick with status quo. And any in-game effect is canceled out by self- preservation, as-in they can't act against us because that gives RB the game.

 

[Caledorn]

I would like to add that this whole discussion, while fun, is really not that important since there is no pressing admin decision on the table.

But I did notice however that we have been missing/not checking our diplo messages lately... I just worried that this debate is getting more focus than it deserves and is causing other things to get neglected... Just thought I remind us to keep our eye on the ball

The diplomessages is entirely my fault. I have upgraded my phone to the new HTC One, and I have forgotten to add the diplo account to the Google accounts on the new phone. It has nothing to do with this discussion, but is purely because of me forgetting it.

Adding the account now for autochecking again!

 

[YossarianLives]

Yossa said "I am not implying that it will hurt us in-game just that it will irritate the other players"

This is correct. I think it will annoy the others but I don't think it will have an in-game impact. Especially at this point, we already know where the teams that matter stand. I guess I can't speak towards how the French and German teams would react, but I'm pretty sure our vote would not have an in-game impact as far as RB / CP / Poly / Spaniards / WPC are concerned.

I will concede though that this should not be a determining factor on how we vote on the admin issue. We should do what we think is best for the game, not on how the other teams will react to us.

...

As far as the actual poll, I forgot that Sommerswerd had objected to an "Abstain" option. I had to search the thread to remind myself what the issue is. This is what I found:

IMNSHO The poll has a fatal flaw. The good-old "strawman" option. Right now there is not a "majority" in agreement with you. 45% is certainly NOT a majority. The "majority" either abstain or they do not agree. So if you sent the email you would actually be going against the majority. Also, generally speaking, the "abstain" option unnecessarily clouds the poll result. And does abstain mean that you dont have enough info to decide, or that you dont want to discuss this or that you dont care either way?

Remember that you can also "abstain" by just not voting at all.

I guess the premise is that if someone votes for the abstain option, they are supporting the status quo which is similar to voting against Plako as admin? Is that accurate? Would it solve the issue if we just count the Abstainers as being on your side unless they post in the thread that what they meant is that they have no opinion and would just like to go with whatever the majority prefers? In that case we could remove them from the vote count entirely. This method might still be considered to cloud the vote but at least it clouds it in your favor so hopefully that should remove your objection to it?

I will edit the first post of that thread to request that nobody else votes "Abstain", and instead simply declines to vote if that is their preference. My intention is to get an accurate assessment of the team opinion and I do appreciate the input on the best manner to do this. As witnessed by earlier discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of different styles of voting, there are some on the team with a lot more background and knowledge on this topic than I myself have.

...

Sorry team about the walls of text. This is not the fun part of the game, but I do think it is important to keep the game moving. Here is a picture to keep things a little less dry and boring

Spoiler :

Ok, ok, this is just text too, but at least it's kinda funny.

No? Not funny? Ok then here is a picture of our Taj Mahal but you have to squint to see it.

...

I really need to stop taking the bait, but one last thing I wanted to comment on. Each team gets a vote on this issue, and their vote matters regardless of how much internal discussion or research they have done. We have been extremely thorough and have questioned Plako directly on this, but even so we seem to have different understandings concerning his philosophy and how he would rule. So we don't really have complete information ourselves. I don't want to speak for you but I feel your opinion is we shouldn't make any decision until complete information is obtained. My opinion is that complete information may never be obtained but that should not paralyze us from moving forward on this issue.

Edit: Crosspost with Caledorn. I try to check our team email every few days. I was out of town this weekend and checked when I got home earlier today. I definitely encourage others on the team to check out our team email also to help us catch messages and read them in their original form. It's diplo.civfanatics password hangingGardens

 

[RegentMan]

Abstaining gives an option to state "I'm still around but I don't have strong opinion about the issue at hand".

Exactly. This is why I am very against a poll without an abstain option. This let's members say "I'm here!" rather than us going "Oh look, only five people voted yes/no. What is happening to team participation?"

 

[Caledorn]

Exactly. This is why I am very against a poll without an abstain option. This let's members say "I'm here!" rather than us going "Oh look, only five people voted yes/no. What is happening to team participation?"

I am against using "Abstain" as an option in polls, because either side of what is being polled will count the abstention votes in their favour. If what we wish to achieve by having such an option I suggest we replace it in the future with an option that says this: "My vote is blank, and should not be counted in favour of any of the options regardless of the poll outcome, but I would like the team to know that I am present". That way the vote is a non vote that cannot be counted either way.

The alternative is to create an option that says: "Count my vote as an additional vote to the option above that gets the most votes at the end of the poll".

The option "I abstain" is disturbing, and only serves to create more conflict about the poll topic, whatever that is, and I strongly prefer we eliminate that from all our future polls. In fact, I would like to call for a vote right now, which I would like to be a binary vote (yes/no - no abstain option) in this regard.

Poll subject "Should we use Abstain as an option in future polls?". Options "Yes" and "No".

When we have a majority decision based out of that vote, if the majority is in favour of including abstaining as an option, we need a new poll to deal with how to handle the abstain votes.

 

[vranasm]

^^ the bigger issue I see is that the "abstain" option has to have the same wage as the other options and should not be automatically added to any other option just because.

let's say we would make a vote on something and abstain option will have most votes?

Either side will start argue that the abstain votes are actually theirs.

Not voting automatically means you abstain...it's the same as with everything else in the game discussion had....

for example when we settled our capital, there people heavy in the discussion about it, making their opinions/votes and some other guys who just watched... we didn't need from them to come and say "well I couldn't care less about where we settle our capital".

Why we need now to hear "I couldn't care less if plako is new admin" from everyone who doesn't have an opinion?

 

[Calis]

Guys, do we have to go to court over this issue?

It's a game after all. This discussion is very strange to say the least. We are asked to give our result.

Now go ahead and confirm plako. That is what the poll says. And every other team already confirmed. Nobody will mind CFC confirming an RB admin anymore. (Alright, I did not read all the latest posts, so this statement might be obsolete ).

 

[vranasm]

Guys, do we have to go to court over this issue?

It's a game after all. This discussion is very strange to say the least. We are asked to give our result.

Now go ahead and confirm plako. That is what the poll says. And every other team already confirmed. Nobody will mind CFC confirming an RB admin anymore. (Alright, I did not read all the latest posts, so this statement might be obsolete ).

and if every other team jumps out the window we jump too?

coming from CZE makes me really really sensitive about democratic principles considering 40 years of totality...

seems to me like people easily forget censorship and forced voting for KSC

 

[Calis]

and if every other team jumps out the window we jump too?

coming from CZE makes me really really sensitive about democratic principles considering 40 years of totality...

seems to me like people easily forget censorship and forced voting for KSC

As a German I also have some sensitivity for such issues, believe me. But we are talking about a game. So we do not risk too much here, do we?

And your first sentence you can tell some children or so. I said that because at some point of the discussion, it was feared that CFC could make a wrong impression by supporting an RB admin. And with all other teams confirming him, I do not see that anymore.

 

[vranasm]

As a German I also have some sensitivity for such issues, believe me. But we are talking about a game. So we do not risk too much here, do we?

And your first sentence you can tell some children or so. I said that because at some point of the discussion, it was feared that CFC could make a wrong impression by supporting an RB admin. And with all other teams confirming him, I do not see that anymore.

I see in last 2 pages more important issue discussed though...

just to reiterate...
if plako will or will not stick to the rulebook agreed before start of the game...
and there is other issue if other teams (voting for plako already) know that he admits that he thinks about the possibility about overruling agreed rules if he doesn't see the result of rules as "fair".

Seems to me like important issue in the vote process and still not sure if we shouldn't inform other teams about the possibility of new admin making decisions that are NOT FOLLOWING AGREED RULES. Maybe they would change their votes then?

 

[Calis]

I see in last 2 pages more important issue discussed though...

just to reiterate...
if plako will or will not stick to the rulebook agreed before start of the game...
and there is other issue if other teams (voting for plako already) know that he admits that he thinks about the possibility about overruling agreed rules if he doesn't see the result of rules as "fair".

Seems to me like important issue in the vote process and still not sure if we shouldn't inform other teams about the possibility of new admin making decisions that are NOT FOLLOWING AGREED RULES. Maybe they would change their votes then?

If his ruling follows common sense, it's fine by me. And he was not talking about some specific rule, afair.

He's not going to say, CFC is not allowed to use military units for the retst of the game, or something like that. I am not sure what we fear so much, honestly.

 

[2metraninja]

Plako already said he have no intention of changing particular rules he already sees in the ruleset, And I feel this is enough to count that this "I will judge by my feeling of fairness" is meant for some hypothetical case which may arise during the game. This my assumption is right, yes, Plako?

He's not going to say, CFC is not allowed to use military units for the retst of the game, or something like that. I am not sure what we fear so much, honestly.

But still, just to give example what would have been a real issue in this game, which just happened in the preparation game for ISDG, which died unfinished. Civic switch missions are considered unfair in RB. But they were voted with majority of teams to be legal in this ISDG. I think this even influenced very much our choice of leader (SPI can change civics without anarchy) and if now a hypothetical admin decides those civic switch missions are not fair, he can ban them. Then we have a problem, because most players dont like rules changed during mid-game. Especially if those rules changes harm them.

 

[Calis]

But still, just to give example what would have been a real issue in this game, which just happened in the preparation game for ISDG, which died unfinished. Civic switch missions are considered unfair in RB. But they were voted with majority of teams to be legal in this ISDG. I think this even influenced very much our choice of leader (SPI can change civics without anarchy) and if now a hypothetical admin decides those civic switch missions are not fair, he can ban them. Then we have a problem, because most players dont like rules changed during mid-game. Especially if those rules changes harm them.

Thank you for this very good example. But to change such a rule during the running game would not be common sense. This would be an obvious change to the disadvantage for a certain team. In this specific case, us. I can't believe that anybody would do this. And furthermore I think an admin could be overruled by an unamious opinion of all teams.

 

[2metraninja]

Well, initially Plako did not said "common sense" but his "sense of fair" (not 100% sure and won't go back to check exact wording).

 

[Calis]

I used common sense. But he cannot change (and I do not think that he intends to do so) such basics, which were decided democratically. In this case, he would not be taken seriously by most teams.

 

[2metraninja]

The rules says that a given rule can be changed either by all teams voting for it or by admin decision.

 

[plako]

There is no rule I wanna get changed at the moment. This concerns e.g. the "civic/religion switch" enablement. It has been thoroughly discussed during the setup process and voted in and everybody knows they're allowed, so there is 0 reason to change this.

This doesn't change the fact that I think it was bad idea to have these missions enabled.

 

[2metraninja]

There is no rule I wanna get changed at the moment. This concerns e.g. the "civic/religion switch" enablement. It has been thoroughly discussed during the setup process and voted in and everybody knows they're allowed, so there is 0 reason to change this.

This doesn't change the fact that I think it was bad idea to have these missions enabled.

That is the answer I was looking for.

I voted to explore other options, but I am OK with appointing Plako as admin as I truly do believe he is fair and wont let us down in our hopes for good admin.

Lets get this solved and move on. We have a game to play. Turbulent times are ahead of us. Stick together team!

 

[Aivoturso]

@Sommerswerd: Sorry, I just read my message and I was being rather rude. The message was written in a hurry. I didn't mean any offence. I'm not saying that your original concerns were flawed. I disagree with your original concern though, but your argument for that concern is valid. What I meant to say is that in my opinion Yossa is not being contradictory as there is importand difference in the reason for possible irritation. What I disagree with in your argumentation is that you stated that Yossa is trying to have it both ways, when in my opinion he is not.

OK... But what about my suggestion that IF AND ONLY IF this hypothetical doomsday scenario comes up where we need an emergency admin decision we just appoint Plako as the arbiter? Doesn't that resolve your concern without any need for making Plako the admin right this instant?

Sorry again. I did not deliberatly ignore you. For some reason I thought that you were just being rethorical here instead of wanting an answer. In theory this would solve the situation, but for two reasons I don't find this desirable. First, this solution assumes that if we now leave Plako hanging, he would be still available when we need him. I find that very risky assumption. The second problem I see is that I don't really see too much difference here to Plako being the real administrator. As far as I understand, administrator in MP games is supposed to be most of the time invisible. Only times when admin involvement is required is when there is alleged rule infringement, or a team wants an admin decision on rule interpretation, e.g. concerning an exploit. For these reasons I would rather have Plako as full time admin than having him hopefully at call when a situation rises.

IMO, in most cases abstain option does not pollute the poll. Everyone has a default option to abstain by not voting since voting is not mandatory. Abstaining gives an option to state "I'm still around but I don't have strong opinion about the issue at hand".

Then your opinion is wrong... Sorry again. And Im sorry to be a prick but this concept is far too simple to explain. It's like trying to explain why 1+1=2. If someone doesn't get it they just don't get it.

OK, now you are being an ass. Just saying that I must be stupid if I disagree with you without elaborating is really insulting. Let me rephrase why I think abstain is a special case in voting. I'll start with the relevant dictionary definition:
Verb
abstain
4. Deliberately refrain from casting one's vote at a meeting where one is present.
(source: Wiktionary, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abstain)

In my country in almost every vote whether it is an election or a meeting decision one is allowed to leave an empty ballot (to abstain). Or in elections where pen and paper ballots are used it is possible to write down a non-running candidate or even draw rude pictures in the ballot. In fact in our presidential and parliamential elections there have practically always been some tens of votes cast for Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse. These are counted as rejected ballots.

In my country the empty ballots (abstainees votes) and rejected ballots are always counted in the same way. They do not count in the final result of the vote. Even if in hypothetical presidential elections we were to have two candidates and the first candidate gets 35 % of all votes and the second gets 25 % of all votes and 40 % would be empty or rejected, the actual result of the election would be that the first candidate will be elected with 58.3 % majority of valid votes.

Now can you please explain why your interpretation of abstaining leading to ambiguous result is correct one?

 

[vranasm]

well there is a difference though...since the votes are invalid based on rules... not the same thing as with "real" abstain vote.

there is no way we can call voting for an option of abstain on this forum as "invalid by rules" since there is no way how one can make invalid vote in polls on this forum.

the things you describe are more like we would see in polls results votes "4,5,6" in 3-way vote and that's not possible since this is PC...

In no way votes in RL offer "abstain votes", all the things you describe are creativity by human people abusing the fact that the vote is done by paper and not by PC, which would not allow this misuse in first place.
In PC voting you use the votes offered or you have to hack the server for skewing results and then probably you would use such hacking in a better way ;-).

edit:
actually if you think about it the "abstain vote" referenced by the vocabulary is actually not showing up for the vote.
For example in the last presidential vote in round 2 here in CZE it was Milos Zeman and Karel Schwarzenberg and I abstained from the vote by not going there... in a sense I calculated that not giving the vote to Schwarzenberg is favoring Zeman from myself, but couldn't convince myself to go and vote for Zeman directly

(since Zeman was favorite of "left side" parties and voters of these parties are notorious for showing up compared to "right side" parties... I think in UK you would reference them as labours and conservatives, not sure other countries, we describe them as left parties and right parties, where left are socialists and communists)