Guild of Writers Leadership

[Aloys]

Bluewyvern is right. There is no perfect system. But by having people register to vote (much like you do in real life BTW; in most countries at least) we make sure that those who do vote are actually interested in the process and the life of the guild, and then the vote results become relevant.
And again there is no discrimination of any kind in this (post count or other).

[belford]

I agree that "registered forum members" is a useless number -- any forum has more dead accounts than live ones.

I don't agree that "active forum member" is easy to define, or a useful measure of how significant a vote is. If you insist that people post before voting, they'll do just that: post "Bibbety bobbety boo!" before voting. Does that satisfy you? Or do you define that as illegal?

You're looking for a way to distinguish people who will be involved from those who won't. My suggestion: someone who knows there's a vote going on, and bothers to vote, is involved. If you post a vote page on the web site, and announce it on the forums, you're *already* selecting for people who are currently hanging out here.

And nothing you do is going to force those people to *stay* involved, anyhow. There is no magic guarantee that you've got hold of *the community*.

[bluewyvern]

I don't anticipate having a big problem with non-active members voting to influence decisions, so I don't think a "post before you vote" requirement makes much sense. If someone doesn't care enough to contribute, I doubt they'll care enough to vote. Are there really hordes of outsiders breaking down our doors, eager to foul up our important decisions and hijack the direction of the guild? I'm more concerned with people who do care getting left out of an important issue because maybe they got busy and didn't keep up with the torrent of new posts for a few weeks (I know I missed out on a lot of this formational stuff in the past month...just because there was a little while where I didn't read the forums every day doesn't mean that I wouldn't have liked to be involved or wasn't interested in the outcome). By registering, you say that you care and want to be included, and when there's a vote to be decided, you can be called up to play your part. That frees us up to, say, work on modeling Ages or whatever it is we like to do and stay involved in the guild without having to read posts for hours every day of every week for fear of missing something.

Also, in most voting processes, some kind of quorum is required to validate most results. If enough people don't turn out to vote on a major issue, then the results are not considered conclusive. Having a registry will tell us how many responses to expect, so important votes won't be decided by only a handful out of all the interested people.

Having a voter registry will also encourage those who are registered to officially abstain rather than just not vote, which is also an important distinction.

[Nadnerb]

Once again, I see a problem being created where there was none before. First you want to create some sort of "leadership" or "representation" in an environment where it is both unnecessary and physically impossible. We're volunteers on a web forum. Even if you wanted to enforce something, you couldn't. I don't think anyone else here could represent me, and I don't think I could represent anyone here. People will gain respect for the work they do toward the aims of the guild. Making ages.

Now that you've successfully managed to force this idea on enough people to have a coherent discussion about it, now you're fussing over the technicalities of having fair votes about it. This is not necessary. Since membership in the guild is 100% open, anyone registered for the forums would naturally be able to voice their opinion and vote. As for people intentionally skewing the vote, that's ridiculous. Tell me, who in their right mind is going to take the time and effort required to trick a forum poll via multiple accounts on an obscure subject that only a small subset of Uru players even know about in the first place? No one! Please! These are delusions of grandeur. Get over them and work on some ages.

[BAD]

Nadnerb,

You continually stifle our attempts to create some form of representation to aid in organization and communications between Cyan and other guilds.

We are not trying to tell anyone what to do. We want to be prepared for Cyan and the other guilds. That is all. Please, would you keep your ideas on how to help us make this fair, rather than just throwing negativity at it?

Bluewyvern,

I think you are not seeing the simplicity of the system we have set up. We are not going to check every user to see if they have been active on the forum. We are simply going to count how many people have been active within the last six months to get a base amount of people that will most likely vote. Just because you were not active within that time, does not mean you can't vote. We just need a number that gives us a fair starting point to judge how many votes we need to have a valid vote (20% of active users within the last 6 months).

We could have a registry if that is what everyone wants. It doesn't bother me, I just don't see it as necessary RIGHT NOW. Once we get more settled with the council in place we could make that the first Council Vote we create.

[bluewyvern]

BAD, I hope you don't mind if I break down and reply to your points line-by-line. Usually this indicates a rather heated and contentious discussion, but I'm just doing it because I think my proposal is getting confused with some of the other arguments and I want to clarify.

Bluewyvern, I think you are not seeing the simplicity of the system we have set up.

I agree, it's simple, and I'm willing to concede that the registry I'm agitating for may add some unwanted complexity. I still think it might be useful.

We are not going to check every user to see if they have been active on the forum.

I'm not proposing anything like that. I'm saying every six months we clear the registry, and whoever wants to at that point re-registers. No checking involved -- just repeated opt-ins, to make sure the total is still accurate and everyone who's on the list actually still plans to come vote.

We are simply going to count how many people have been active within the last six months to get a base amount of people that will most likely vote. Just because you were not active within that time, does not mean you can't vote.

The registry wouldn't prevent anyone from voting, ever. Anyone can join at any time, including right before casting a vote. It just gets cleared every six months to remove dead weight.

We just need a number that gives us a fair starting point to judge how many votes we need to have a valid vote (20% of active users within the last 6 months).

That's my issue -- 20% is just a guess. It might turn out to be a good guess, but we really have no way of knowing how many of the people who actively post actually care that much about the decisions. It might be almost all of them, it might be a lot fewer. Maybe it's just you, me, and the handful of others who posted in this thread, and everyone else couldn't care less. A registry is a self-selected sample of everyone who cares, no guessing involved. It amounts to standing up and saying, "yeah, I plan to participate in the decision-making. When there's a vote, I'll be there."

We could have a registry if that is what everyone wants. It doesn't bother me, I just don't see it as necessary RIGHT NOW. Once we get more settled with the council in place we could make that the first Council Vote we create.

I may be making things more complicated than they need to be. I just think it's a good idea and might be a useful tool, and I wanted to explain it properly. I think I've done that now, so I'll shut up and let someone else have a turn.

Edit: Okay, one more point. I also really like the idea of getting an e-mail notification when there's a vote, and sending an announcement out to the whole forum in the absence of a separate voters group probably wouldn't be appreciated.

[Chacal]

Nadnerb,

You continually stifle our attempts to create some form of representation to aid in organization and communications between Cyan and other guilds.

We are not trying to tell anyone what to do. We want to be prepared for Cyan and the other guilds. That is all. Please, would you keep your ideas on how to help us make this fair, rather than just throwing negativity at it.

No, I don't want him to do that, I want him to speak his mind, and I don't want anyone to try to shut him up.
I was supporting this new attempt but now I'm withdrawing my support.

[Trylon]

Since membership in the guild is 100% open, anyone registered for the forums would naturally be able to voice their opinion and vote. As for people intentionally skewing the vote, that's ridiculous. Tell me, who in their right mind is going to take the time and effort required to trick a forum poll via multiple accounts on an obscure subject that only a small subset of Uru players even know about in the first place?

Heh On this part, I fully agree with you. I'd say we check out how it works as it is now, before we decide to change it. If it should be changed, the new council could put out a proposal on that

Nadnerb,

You continually stifle our attempts to create some form of representation to aid in organization and communications between Cyan and other guilds.

We are not trying to tell anyone what to do. We want to be prepared for Cyan and the other guilds. That is all. Please, would you keep your ideas on how to help us make this fair, rather than just throwing negativity at it.

No, I don't want him to do that, I want him to speak his mind, and I don't want anyone to try to shut him up.
I was supporting this new attempt but now I'm withdrawing my support.

Chacal, I think you misunderstood Bad. He wasn't asking him to shut up, he was just asking him to keep a positive input.
I agree Bad's sentence could have been constructed better. As for me, I think Nadnerb can say whatever he seems fit - he had some pretty positive stuff buried in that post

[BAD]

Nadnerb,

You continually stifle our attempts to create some form of representation to aid in organization and communications between Cyan and other guilds.

We are not trying to tell anyone what to do. We want to be prepared for Cyan and the other guilds. That is all. Please, would you keep your ideas on how to help us make this fair, rather than just throwing negativity at it.

No, I don't want him to do that, I want him to speak his mind, and I don't want anyone to try to shut him up.
I was supporting this new attempt but now I'm withdrawing my support.

I wasn't telling him to do anything, I was asking. That is why the please was there. I did forget to put a question mark, which I will fix now. Can I ask that you don't make any rash decisions based on disputes, and to please make your decisions based on the validity of what we propose? Would that be me trying to tell you what to do again?

EDIT: Besides, I don't think anything I could say to Nadnerb would stop him from speaking his mind.

[Chacal]

Hahaha I guess that's true.
Sorry but it was how your post sounded. I'll take your word for it that it wasn't your intention.

It is true that some people "continually stifle (y)our attempts to create some form of representation to aid in organization and communications between Cyan and other guilds". It is normal because we think it's a bad idea, no matter how often you come up with it or how you package it. So in the end I am, as you say, making a decision based on the validity of what you propose.