[CS.] "The question is..."
Mattio
Dear readers,
Earlier, I asked you guys to vote for either Weekstrom or LORDDEMOS. I did not give any explanation to the election, only the opportunity to vote for either one of them.
The original idea of the vote was to eh… well, there was no original idea actually. Maybe give a cookie to the winner or something, I was just curious what would happen. And as it turns out, quite some things happened actually...
To be honest, I was quite surprised by what happened next and I believe we could learn some lessons from it. Most people just started voting, without questioning the whole election. Some of you did question the vote while at the same time participating…
Others happily took part in the vote without knowing what it was about.
It was only after a few votes that people started asking questions without voting.
Without knowing what they should judge the candidates on, people started making up their own criteria to base their vote on.
At this point, I was kind of pleased with how things went. People were voting in an election they had absolutely no knowledge of, making up their own criteria to chose their preferred candidate. I did not imagine it could get even better.
I expected people to discuss what the vote was about, but I did not expect to see people diving into a speculation with the dedication that I later saw.
I think it’s pretty clear by now that there was no idea behind the election. Weekstrom won, but we can’t say what he won because, honestly, he didn’t win anything so we could just as well say that he did not win, but we’re not in a philosophical mood right now.
Still, there are lessons to be learned. Apparently, we are eager to take part in elections without knowing what they are about, without knowing what we should judge our candidates on and without knowing what is at stake.
What does this say about other elections? In the wake of the previous CP elections, Tonie was accused of not having campaigned. People were uncomfortable with having chosen a CP without knowing what he was up to (this is only partially true, as Tonie did publish some campaign articles but there was no real debate nor a real race, as the two largest parties supported his canddiacy). Was this question for more information a feigned face of honest interest in politics, weren’t we all more interested in whom we liked more?
Whether it’s the CP, PP or Congress elections, we should constantly ask ourselves: why do I vote for this person / party? Do I believe they will do their job well, or do I just like them for their personality? Sometimes, these two considerations go hand in hand, but that’s not always the case.
Be critical, be objective, dare to ask before you do. I leave it with that.
Comments
Weekstrom won without winning.
www.erepublik.com/en/article/2557925/1/20
Good experiment. Also add, when u vote for a CP, even when he did not campaign, you know for what are u voting, and u can imagine how he will perform taking into account the past.
Shawty got PUNK'D
Well, his reaction surprised me, but it was not so strange after all. He made an educated guess one could say, he didn't just shout a name.
If i remember correctly djirtdrew mentionned something about this possibly being a wierd way to vote for a new commander. He speculated I followed up on his speculation by stating some facts which indeed resulted in an educated guess.
I guess you could call it being Punk'd hehe. But I believe all who actually voted got punk'd in some way
Blame djirtsdew! \o/
I blame no one, 😃 he just gave me a possible reasoning behind the vote and I actually liked his reasoning. This why I followed up 😃
ps. Djirt wasn't the only one in chats this possibility has also been mentioned 😛
o7
What??! Why are people suddenly blaming me?
I am the "abstain" in the statistics, because I had no idea what it was about. In my opinion that made "Neutral" a bad decision as well.
I mentioned Weekstrom in an indirect way to avoid voting unintentionally. because with the way these elections were set up mentioning the name would count as a vote.
And yes that indirect way included mentioning his current function. In no way was it intended as speculation about these elections...
So I blame Mattio for the way this was setup. If I had been able to mention his name directly a lot of confusion would have been avoided. 😛
I'd like to nominate Djirt 4 Prez next term and name Mattio his do all the work guy (VP)!
I think the next vote will be Djirtsdew as the only option, and then let the audience decide what he's elected for.
Haha, excellent! 😃 Voted!
Good stuff.
Awaiting cookie....
Successfully transferred 1 item(s) to Weekstrom.
Yummy. Cookie!
I voted for me, I won
I voted Weekstrom just because the other person I have absolutely no knowledge about. In congress I vote on basic information not by guessing whats it all about 😃 . But yes this was an excellent field test on voting behavior.