An Amendment Discussion: Polls

[Epistax]

Article III: Polling currently reads

Polls may be conducted in an ‘unofficial’ format to simply gain information, but CANNOT be used in any official decisions. All of the following rules are regarding ‘official’ polls, which may or may not be used as official results for the actual game. Any unofficial polls must be labeled as so within the first post.

in the first paragraph. The bolded text is the part I find improper, and quite frankly silly. Unofficial polls need to label themselves as such in the first post? Then I'm sure we've many accidentally official polls. I suggest replacing that line with:

Any official polls must be labeled as such within the first post or thread subject.

There is a cleanup effort to be done, defining such terms as 'invalidating a poll', and which polls can be invalided. This is a start. It is my belief that this was written in haste, and not considered carefully.

Any suggestions? Should other parts of the reformatting take place in the same amendment?

Another issue is the ability of both the court and the ministry to invalidate a poll. It is my belief that invalidate means to make an official poll, unofficial, so you cannot invalidate an already unofficial poll. Also, giving both the ministry and court the ability to overrule a poll, which group overrides the other? (court)

Thoughts on this?

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'ld like to see and abstain option required on official polls, and an official interpretation on how that abstain is counted.

[Captain]

I' d like a quorum requirement for polls to pass. If it's 6 votes to 3 votes, that meets the 2/3 requirement for an amendment - but that's just silly to change something without the input of a sufficient number of citizens.

[DAVOUT]

I am not yet prepared to accept that polls are made not to be used in the game. If there are matters where the minister needs more freedom, give them, but dont ask the people what he wants for not doing it.

[Panag]

hi ,

this might seem funny , but we should make a good poll on how to poll , ones done we should put it in the constitution , ...

and we should keep this poll open longer , so we can have more people vote in it

have a nice day

[Epistax]

Polls can be used for many reasons not directly relating to the game. For instance, asking what times people can attend turnchats, or what timezones they live in.

Remember polls aren't law. Ministers may disobey public opinion (that's the entire concept of having elected officials). Are official polls law? Not according to the COL, yet.

I'd like some ACTUAL AMENDMENT suggestions instead of vague concepts.

All poll on how to do polls would be possible, but not needed. Worded opinions carry more meaning than numerical ones.


As for as an abstain option being manditory. I like the option of the poster to specify what abstain means. If abstain doesn't mean no, then I don't see why someone can't just reply 'abstain' to the poll. Then they could decide later if they choose to.

[Captain]

Epi:

Yes, let's change from it from having to label unofficial to having to label official.

I had a thread about this sort of thing way back during Trip's reign but there wasn't sufficient interest to propel it forward. I had the same suggestion. I also suggested that the rules only apply to official polls as they are the only ones that "count" (not really since they can eb ignored by ministers).

We've established by convention that 2/3 means 2/3 of votes cast (ignoring the abstain disucssion for now) rather than 2/3 of citizens able to vote.

But we still need a quorum. I suggest using the same method as CFC. The quorum will be 50% or 2/3 of the votes cast in the most recent Presidential election (or highest number of votes cast in a recent ministerial election). Alternatively, we can go with X% of active citizens as determined by # of active posters within the last week (7 days). I am sure that is not hard to determine if we can get some admin support from the g0dz. This will give us an accurate reflection of active citizens.

Regardless of the method, some quorum is necessary. Clearly, if we have less than 20 votes, results should not be binding. But how many do we need? is 30 enough? 35? that's about half of active citizens. or 40? 45?

a poll on how to do polls? first we'd have to discuss what the poll options would be! why am I even bothering to respond to that? I never know what panag is trying to say anyways.

[DAVOUT]

If official polls does not become law, it is not worth to discuss anything else about them. So I suggest to modify the COL where it says that official polls are not binding the ministers.

[GePap]

I think after every election, we can set a quorum number, and for any poll to be valid, it must have that many votes or more total, excluding abstains. I also don't see the need for abstain on most polls- if you abstain, don't vote on most issues.

I also want a way to have polls binding on ministers, having non-binding pols on in-game issues is worthless

[notyoueither]

Ministers who choose to ignore an official poll may very well find themselves the subject of an impeachment poll. That is binding.

However, maybe the minister had a very good reason for not following the poll. Maybe the poll said we should disband half our military units, and then our largest neighbour declares war right off in the turn chat. Or...

We must allow the people elected to play the game, not be zombies of polls. They in turn must treat the position and the will of the people with respect.

[Togas]

Poll Rule suggestions:

First, we only regulate "Official" Polls. Let everyone post their own unofficial polls as they will. Their results have no authority.

Any poll the violates the rules will be found "Unofficial"

All "Official" polls are binding, plain and simple. If you don't want your poll to be binding, don't make it "official."

Official polls should be done by ministers only. The only exception is votes on things like elections and ammendments. Votes are different from polls. I'd go into why but that's a very long discussion for another time.

Abstain should only mean that "I don't want to vote on this issue." People who abstain just want to see what the results are. You cannot see the results of the election unless you vote or click on abstain. We should keep the option in for quarum purposes.

Quarum should be used for any vote on candidates and ammendments. Captain's suggestions are fine, we just need one that is easy to impliment.

ANYHOW, if no one wants to redraft this thing I'll do it when I get a chance. I have to finish up a few things at work first.

--Togas

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by notyoueither

However, maybe the minister had a very good reason for not following the poll. Maybe the poll said we should disband half our military units, and then our largest neighbour declares war right off in the turn chat. Or...

We must allow the people elected to play the game, not be zombies of polls. They in turn must treat the position and the will of the people with respect.

This example illustrate a change in circumstances ; in such a case, the Minister choosing to desobey an order no longer appropriate, if sued, would not be condemn for wrong doing.
That does not imply that in all cases the Minister has to make a choice.

[Epistax]

Recognizing the minimum number of voters needed for it to be an official decision by the number of votes in the previous election divided by two (breath) might work, but in this case none of our polls would ever receive enough votes. Even the rocks voted in the presidential election.


I do not like the idea of officials being bound by polls. Too many sticky situations we could find ourselves in. We vote to do this in a few turns, then once we reach the time, it's an obviously bad choice, or maybe even impossible. Along with this, I don't believe only officials should be able to make official polls, as they are not binding.


Official polls should be recognized as the will of the public.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Epistax


I do not like the idea of officials being bound by polls. Too many sticky situations we could find ourselves in. We vote to do this in a few turns, then once we reach the time, it's an obviously bad choice, or maybe even impossible. Along with this, I don't believe only officials should be able to make official polls, as they are not binding.


Official polls should be recognized as the will of the public.

If it is impossible to execute the order, where is the problem. As for sticky situations, they will be more easily avoided if the Minister knows that he must apply the poll.
In other words, I hate the idea of polls submited to the people, then not binding the ministers. If need be, enlarge the matters where the ministers have clear powers. A chart of powers with extensive definitions could be useful and avoid a lot of useless polls.

[Togas]

Regarding "Official Polls"

If they're not binding, then why call them "official"? All polls, official or otherwise, are done to represent the "will of the people." We do them to find out what people think about a particular subject. We also do them to ask the people to make an important decision that we intend to follow. We need to distinguish between the two goals.

If we don't want to make them binding, we should say so up front. If we want to make them binding, we should do that too.

For example:

UNOFFICIAL -- Who should be our next target?
OFFICIAL -- Should we declare War on France next turnchat?

I am against the idea of someone posting an "official" poll that says, "The SMC must do this on his next turn" or "we will not pop-rush" or the like. Therefore, I would make it so that the people posted only "unofficial" "will of the people" polls that tell our ministers what they want them to do, but are not binding. That way the people are heard, ministers aren't forced into doing something (as in the previous examples given by NYE and Davout). This is why official polls should only be done by officials only and done only regarding decisions that official needs to make.

Of course the exception is for elections and for ammendments to the law.

Let's come to grips with this official/unofficial thing or better yet, scrap both names and call our polls "binding" and "nonbinding."

--Togas