My opinions:
We don't need to make every decision with a majority. "Most votes wins" is sufficient in my opinion.
We do need a way to invalidate a poll if it's a bad poll, no matter how few people think it's a bad poll. That power must be placed in the hands of someone we trust. There is always the "false or misleading" language in the forum rules to fall back on, if it comes to that. I really don't want to go there unless forced -- I'd rather the people choose someone to police it based on DG rules instead of forum rules.
Why don't you try being consistent in your stances DaveShack? In the past you've advocated interpreting things the way the
majority want them interpreted yet when presented with a system that does just that you balk - and worse yet talk about resorting to a vague forum rule so you can invoke your moderator powers if necessary (and of course YOU will be the judge, jury and executioner when deciding what is
necessary).
We tried using an official last game to invalidate polls and it was a total disaster. Setting aside for now the questions of whether we can all agree on someone we can trust or whether anyone by him or her self is competent enough to make such judgements, don't you think the job is a bit much for one person? Last game the censor did not even make a post in every poll but fell back on the reprehensible tactic of declaring all polls valid unless otherwise stated!
I'm not suggesting that we need a committee to do this as that would be an even greater disaster.
If we build the invalidation method into the poll then we all get a say in whether a poll is fair or not. Using an
other option and counting those towards figuring the majority, would put the invalidation process into the hands of the citizens. We could still use
abstain and not count those towards the majority calculation. It's simple, it's objective and it's straight forward. I really don't see your problem with the proposal.
It does have to be coupled with the idea of tossing out pluraity (or minority) decisions. But that ties in with the fix for our elected official woes. Elected officials are bound by majority decisions, they are not bound by pluraity decisions. By sticking with majority decisons we have a clearcut and fair criteria for knowing when officials must follow a poll and when they can use their own judgement in creating game play instructions. By allowing officials to make decisions in the absence of majority decisions we make offices more appealing. By allowing anyone to post any kind of binding poll (and making all completed forum polls binding) we safeguard citizens from officials who want to manipulate polls so they can make their own decisions. Leaders are still free to lead and post polls the old fashioned way. Officials may not be bound to follow plurality decisons but if they want to win re-election they will certainly have to seriously consider the wishes of these sizeable blocks of voters.
If you look at the whole system I'm proposing you'll see that it has checks and balances and addresses many of the complaints we've heard from various corners in past democracy games. I am really mystified (and quite frustrated) that the proposal is given such short shrift, especially in the name of doing things the old (and unsuccessful) way.
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