I would suggest that before 302 is proposed, we work out a way to organize things a little better to help prevent confusion during voting. This obviously wouldn't be a rule, it would just be a set of guidelines or something that people would follow.
1) I would suggest that we create a new proposal and a discussion thread on the forums for each proposal. Until voting begins.
2) The only comments on the proposal before voting starts should be updated versions of the proposal. All discussion should go in the discussion thready on the forum.
3) Once a vote is called, voting happens with simple "yes"\"no" on the proposal. Additionally, vote tallying and score keeping once vote is over should happen on the proposal.
Why do this? During 301 there was considerable confusion about what version of the proposal was being voted, partially due to the quite-long comment thread. By keeping the discussion in the forums, we keep the proposal comments shorter, so the current version of the proposal can be found simply by looking at the most recent one in the comments. It also makes it easier to keep track of votes, because votes are not mixed in with discussion.
Good idea.
Maybe a linked-list type structure (programmer-types represent!) starting out as the proposal + discussion in the comments. Every time the original proposer revises the proposal, start a new thread and edit the old one to say "superseeded" with a link to the new one. The final version thread should say "final proposal - voting open" or something, and only have votes in the comments.
That's essentially the two-thread concept that has been talked about before, with intermediate threads for revisions. That should keep the thread length down to something manageable.
Uh, superseded, apparently. I misspell that word a different way every time.
Still, I like the poll module idea for the final vote, if it doesn't become too much of a holdup to get it posted.
I was already shuffling the poll module around. The link to "Create new... Proposal" in the sidebar now creates a drupal poll.
The poll module provides public voting records and the ability to change your vote until poll deactivation.
Does this work for everybody?
We're not allowing mid-stream editing of the proposal going forward. What's posted at the top of the poll/proposal is the definitive text to vote on.
That's awesome.
I just noticed the Poll Duration field on the submission form, so polls can be closed 1 or 2 days (or whatever the current rules will say) after creation without a human needing to set an alarm clock.
When did we decide this, Jay? If I understand you, that you're saying that the original proposal cannot be amended before the time a vote is called, I completely disagree with this.
See Rule 111: "If a rule-change as proposed is unclear, ambiguous, paradoxical, or destructive of play, or if it arguably consists of two or more rule-changes compounded or is an amendment that makes no difference, or if it is otherwise of questionable value, then the other players may suggest amendments or argue against the proposal before the vote. A reasonable time must be allowed for this debate. The proponent decides the final form in which the proposal is to be voted on and, unless the Judge has been asked to do so, also decides the time to end debate and vote."
This rule explicitly allows the proposer to change the rule up to the time a vote is called. I don't see a way we can categorically disallow this without a vote, without expecting a definite invocation of judgment.
I agree we should establish a gentleman's agreement of sorts about organisation. My proposal is that the proposer start a thread with the first version of the proposal at the top, as well as a repeated version as the first comment. Then, as the proposer amends the proposal, they can amend the top post so that the most up to date version is always at the top of the thread without losing the history of the amendments (which would be fully contained within the thread). Also, it might be good to have a thread solely for the vote if we're voting within comments?
I like the suggestion at the top of the thread, though. I'd be willing to go with something like that. ctmf's suggestion good, too, although I would personally prefer to have fewer long threads rather than many many short threads.
Does anyone else have proposals? Let's get all the good ideas out there!
I think the poll module is the way to go once the proposer decides discussion is over and the vote should start. The proposal should not be editable after that point, (which is, I think, what Jay meant,) or it would risk previous voters having voted on something they didn't think they were voting on. What if they vote and then don't check back again until after the vote is over?
Before that, maybe just a rough rule of thumb that "whenever it becomes confusing what the proposal is, we should start a new thread, linking forward from the old one to the new and clearly marking the old one as "old." Llinking backward to the old one from the new one for ease of reference would be nice, too.
I don't think we should allow editing of the proposal in the original thread. Rather if Rule 111 is invoked we should start a separate thread for discussion and proposals, with the original thread being marked in some way to denote that 111 has been invoked (and maybe posting suspended).
Remember that under 111 other players can put forward amendments. When the discussion is done, then the original proposer should put forward the new proposal in a new thread and the old thread closed.
I mean you shouldn't amend a proposal after a vote is called. Amendments can be done in the modifiable forum posts pre-vote.
Agreed, starting a new thread for the new vote would be the way to go. This keeps players who miss a day from getting their earlier vote counted against the wrong issue.
The poll module's question field is a one-line text field, not a multi-line text area. I'll have to find another way to run these, or all rules would have to be in paragraph form. (nice format, but !jim would lose his bullet pointing)
Yeah, all rules being in paragraph form would be pretty hard to read.
i don't personally like the multiple discussion threads idea because it creates a whole bunch of threads to follow (instead of one), which for me is harder. For example, 301 would have had 3 separate discussion threads.
I like my idea better, because we would have seen the original 301, and then 2 comments, the 2nd of which would be the proposal to vote on.
There is only one vote per proposal, unless I am mistaken. Everything preceding the official vote is just discussion.
It looks like my original suggestion, may be shouted down, but I am adament that there be some way of highlighting proposals, separating proposals and comments, and pointing to the current one, since otherwise people have become confused about what they are voting on.
Without the original proposal, the discussion leading to the current one would become nonsensical. To me, a forum thread is linear, so if I see a comment, I expect it to reply to thing above it, not something that was above it an hour ago.
I got the poll module's question text to show up as a full textarea.
I do think the voting module should get used because it provides as an automated voting record without the need to keep repasting player lists, and would serve as the definitive click to vote (or recast your vote) to get rid of the "I already said Yes twice" problem.
I missed the default disabled body field before on polls and just turned it on.
I think the remaining question is whether multiple draft versions of a pre-vote Proposal should be pasted into different threads, or whether discussion should be consolidated to one thread.
notJim, let's codify your suggestion into the Intro, since it's a platform thing and not a rule process thing (until such time as the rules more explicitly spell out the voting process).
... and if it turns out to be a process thing I'll invoke Judgment so that current judge notJim can authoritatively define the Proposal discussion and voting process.
Adding to the confusion is that there is a link something called the "Voting Booth" on the top-left links, which takes me to the spork vote.
I made the sister site and will be yanking all Spork content momentarily.
It took me a few clicks around the place to find the version of the current vote which has the tabs at the top. I really like the voting booth idea, but can we make it so that clicking on that takes you to the tabbed version? If not directly then by one other click.
It may actually do that now. I clicked a bunch of different places and saw several versions of the proposed vote (302) and can't really remember which ones went where. I want to be able to see how everyone else is voting before I make my decision (actually, I already decided I just wanted to see if voting had started, but same diff), and the different versions I got were confusing.
I know, me too. It isn't obvious, but I found that clicking the header on the front page (302. Hastening...) it takes you to the real page instead of the little front-page preview. The real page has the tabs.
The new voting method means that a vote is called as soon as the proposal is posted. This means that the proposer doesn't get to call a beginning of the vote, and that people can vote before a reasonable discussion phase has completed.
Rules:
111
This probably sounds kind of pedantic, but it actually does seem important to me that we get to discuss before we vote to avoid confusion about changing votes, and to avoid the possibility of having you vote count against a later version of a proposal.
Also, if we're voting with the poll module, and discussing in forums (yes.), we should disable comments on the proposal itself.
...avoid the possibility of having you vote count against a later version of a proposal.
If the proposal changes once the vote has started, all previous votes should be void and a new vote started. No question.
If we turned off comments on the voting pages as suggested, and pre-vote and during-vote discussion took place in the forums, then posting a Proposal poll would be the official action to start the vote and any pertinent clocks.
Drafts => forum
Final => proposal vote without comments
If a proposal changes after voting has begun, which I hope we outlaw, then a new Proposal would be posted to get a clean voting slate. (this keeps us from having to pass out vote modification privs)
In the left sidebar I re-enabled the list of Proposals you can click on for that version. That made the 'voting booth' link redundant so it's gone.
Aww, I quite liked the idea of a voting booth to go huddle in. But yeah, the new sidebar organisation and linking is better, thanks.
Having the discussion in the forum and the voting in a separate poll as we are doing for 302 works really well. We just need to maybe be a bit more careful with timing and not put up the vote straight away.
I do like how the whole drupal installation thingy evolves a bit more each day. Often quite subtle changes but they are really making it easier to use.
Thank you :) I didn't start the month with a goal of developing a Nomic hosting platform, but here we are.
I just created a Judgment Invocation node type, which when created should show up in the same sidebar block as Proposals.
The comment tracker does not seem to be showing a lot of history --- only the last ten hours or so (maybe it show as fixed number of comments?) -- thats not really enough, its not showing any of the comments that were posted last time I had checked (14 hour or so ago). Is it possible to show more, or better yet, link through to older comments?