1.3 : The Forest for the Trees
Day 2,029, 21:23
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Ludonarr
Mood music to get us started
If you can, grab a drink. It will likely make this all easier.
After the soreness created by this month's CP Unity process, it was decided that folks should come together in discussion and attempt to hash out a new process to guide us until such time as Unity can be ended (hopefully soon).
While I support it, having called for something similar over a week ago, thus far I am disappoint.
At the time I said, "I see sniping and snark, buttsoreness and pettiness. I see folks going around like their shat don't stink and they've never done an underhanded thing in their eRep career. It reeks of dysfunction, disunity, and hypocrisy."
Seven days later and not much has changed.
No specifics here folks, sorry. You want the juicy details, go ask someone else you hyenas. I only brought it up to ease into the topic of Unity, what is being done about it, and what we should be doing about it.
Currently in vogue is the notion that Unity primaries should be done as a popular vote instead of the electoral system we currently use. The argument being that it is more fair, democratic, etc and helps us to avoid the mess we had this month.
You can find elsewhere quality articles detailing the merits of this system, and I have no doubt that for some, this would be very appealing. However, more than anything it seems a near sighted, knee-jerk reaction to one particular incident.
Popular vs. electoral is a debate that has permeated RL American politics for quite some time and it is not without merit. Any system worth its salt should be continually examined and challenged. Same is true for eRep.
Simply put, I believe we should stick with an electoral system. I believe it offers benefits that a popular vote just does not and avoids pitfalls that seem readily apparent in a popular vote.
Equitable - There is a reason we use this system in RL as well (flawed as it may be). Electoral provides more incentive for candidates to campaign and address concerns of smaller T4 parties and 6th parties. Popular vote will give no such incentive. Some have said this just gives incentive for parties to boost meta activity, but until that happens it will be a windfall for the largest/most activeparties party.
Easy - It is what we already do, hence we already have most of the structures in place. I firmly believe Unity needs to be scrapped/improved, but we do not need to develop new structures and bureaucracies to achieve our goals. If we are seeking a fix that will hopefully not be needed for long, why reinvent the wheel when we can just keep rolling with what we have?
Flawed - The popular vote system that is, at least as proposed. Our goal here is to create the most secure and "fair" Unity system possible. So far the discussion seems to be focusing on the latter rather than the former. If our new system doesn't protect against PTO and other threats as well as the current system, what's the point?
Those are my three main points, but I will also note that maintaining a system akin to how things are done in game would be ideal. In game candidates win party endorsements, this has little to do with popular vote counts. Some would say that not doing a popular vote could cause folks to be disenfranchised and not vote on election day, but honestly the same thing could happen with an electoral system. Butthurt will be butthurt regardless.
Finally, I feel that modifications to the current electoral system could better bring 6th parties into the fold and give them a seat at the table with everyone else. As it is now we offer them the crappy folding card table in the den and expect them to be grateful to us.
That's all for me, if you made it this far, go have another drink. You've earned it
-Ludo
Postscript:
Making changes to Unity is not something that should be done without much thought and consideration of all options. Unfortunately, it seems that many are in a hurry to make changes and are thus receptive to the first thing put in front of them. Maybe I am becoming an Ent here, but this all seems very hasty. I would rather do nothing than rush through something that is less than helpful simply to say we took action.
If you can, grab a drink. It will likely make this all easier.
After the soreness created by this month's CP Unity process, it was decided that folks should come together in discussion and attempt to hash out a new process to guide us until such time as Unity can be ended (hopefully soon).
While I support it, having called for something similar over a week ago, thus far I am disappoint.
At the time I said, "I see sniping and snark, buttsoreness and pettiness. I see folks going around like their shat don't stink and they've never done an underhanded thing in their eRep career. It reeks of dysfunction, disunity, and hypocrisy."
Seven days later and not much has changed.
No specifics here folks, sorry. You want the juicy details, go ask someone else you hyenas. I only brought it up to ease into the topic of Unity, what is being done about it, and what we should be doing about it.
Currently in vogue is the notion that Unity primaries should be done as a popular vote instead of the electoral system we currently use. The argument being that it is more fair, democratic, etc and helps us to avoid the mess we had this month.
You can find elsewhere quality articles detailing the merits of this system, and I have no doubt that for some, this would be very appealing. However, more than anything it seems a near sighted, knee-jerk reaction to one particular incident.
Popular vs. electoral is a debate that has permeated RL American politics for quite some time and it is not without merit. Any system worth its salt should be continually examined and challenged. Same is true for eRep.
Simply put, I believe we should stick with an electoral system. I believe it offers benefits that a popular vote just does not and avoids pitfalls that seem readily apparent in a popular vote.
Equitable - There is a reason we use this system in RL as well (flawed as it may be). Electoral provides more incentive for candidates to campaign and address concerns of smaller T4 parties and 6th parties. Popular vote will give no such incentive. Some have said this just gives incentive for parties to boost meta activity, but until that happens it will be a windfall for the largest/most active
Easy - It is what we already do, hence we already have most of the structures in place. I firmly believe Unity needs to be scrapped/improved, but we do not need to develop new structures and bureaucracies to achieve our goals. If we are seeking a fix that will hopefully not be needed for long, why reinvent the wheel when we can just keep rolling with what we have?
Flawed - The popular vote system that is, at least as proposed. Our goal here is to create the most secure and "fair" Unity system possible. So far the discussion seems to be focusing on the latter rather than the former. If our new system doesn't protect against PTO and other threats as well as the current system, what's the point?
Those are my three main points, but I will also note that maintaining a system akin to how things are done in game would be ideal. In game candidates win party endorsements, this has little to do with popular vote counts. Some would say that not doing a popular vote could cause folks to be disenfranchised and not vote on election day, but honestly the same thing could happen with an electoral system. Butthurt will be butthurt regardless.
Finally, I feel that modifications to the current electoral system could better bring 6th parties into the fold and give them a seat at the table with everyone else. As it is now we offer them the crappy folding card table in the den and expect them to be grateful to us.
That's all for me, if you made it this far, go have another drink. You've earned it
-Ludo
Postscript:
Making changes to Unity is not something that should be done without much thought and consideration of all options. Unfortunately, it seems that many are in a hurry to make changes and are thus receptive to the first thing put in front of them. Maybe I am becoming an Ent here, but this all seems very hasty. I would rather do nothing than rush through something that is less than helpful simply to say we took action.
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One Question....
1. Let's suppose Party A has 500 members of those 500 members only 20 vote in the primary.
2. Lets suppose PArty B has 150 members and is a 6th Party but over 50 people voted in their primary.
Which party should get the most electoral votes. The Large party that only had 20 voters or the small 6th party that had over 50 people voting?
Good question Josh!
The role of 6ths would need to be sorted out anyways, but setting that aside, I could see it going a few different ways.
-Electoral college is what it is, votes are awarded not by activity but by size. Therefore the 500 member party would carry roughly three times as many electoral votes because of its size.
-We somehow combine the two (size and activity) and have a shifting scale each month, where electoral votes are determined by a UC or someone of the sort based on size and some measure of activity.
I obviously don't have a perfect solution thought out, thankful we have many minds to discuss these things.
So essentially I could load a party up with inactives, eventual dead people or multis, secure a top 5 spot and be worth more than a 6th party that has an active and informed voter base.
@Josh - yes this would be possible, but it really isn't any MORE work to have those same multis vote in an offsite primary.
I say we just let Dogpyle decide.
Voted
Alright Dogpyle, you're on the clock
Hey Dogpyle, a comment like that really needs to be voted up by Dogpyle.
Voted
I went ahead and voted for my comment too just so you wouldn't feel like such a dork
Effed up the reply thing.
If we implemented a shit system, then yeah certainly. I'd imagine if folks put some thought into it they could develop a more adequate electoral system that wouldn't fall prey to that.
Then again, i'm sure if we put some more thought into the current popular vote proposal, we could probably develop one less susceptible to manipulation.
Hopefully the discussion leads to at least one of those.
This debate process is going as I expected.