Guild Wars Wiki talk:Elections/Archive 4

Proposed Policy Changes

One of the first things that I see when coming here to find out about the operation of the current election is that there are 3 other proposed policies. Is there a possibility this policy will change before this election is completed? While I see nothing wrong with this policy, I can't get my head around how to figure out the merits of deciding between four alternate policies that cover the same topic. Why aren't changes to a policy proposed as such instead of as a new policy? (Okay the last question is being asked rhetorically because I believe they should be.) -- Inspired to ____ 16:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's unlikely that any of the new versions will become official before this election is over. However, even if that does happen, I'd assume that the current election would still be run under the ruleset that it started with, so even if the policy changed now, it probably wouldn't affect the current election. Proposing the changes as separate policies helps to keep the discussions separate - otherwise, this talk page would be clogged with four different discussions going simultaneously. ¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 01:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but if the discussions can really be separate, doesn't that imply that two or more of the alternates could be approved and I don't think that makes sense. Anyway, thanks for the response. -- Inspired to ____ 01:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Call for changes

Ok, Inspired's right. The downsides of stage 3 and the numerous proposals and interpretations above and during election discussions show a serious need for change. Here's how I see it:

Discussion dooms the decision :) What I mean is, if we just ignore the support/oppose votes, any discussion is not likely going to bear fruit without compromise. Take the current election for example. If it were solely Auron vs Tanetris, I think it's impossible to reach consensus through discussion. In the case of last year's election where it was between Xeeron and Tanaric (with only a 1-vote difference), I think it's also impossible for people to have argued for Tanaric over Xeeron. By calling it a "vote", we're essentially sealing the idea that "most votes win" into the minds of the "voters". And with the numbers present, it becomes difficult to actually argue for the merits of particular candidate over another, especially when all of us are mostly voting based on a different set of criteria that we look for. Without a voluntary withdrawal from a candidate, we don't actually know what we should do if it comes to two candidates have the same amount of support versus oppose.

I think we have two directions to move from here: (1) Move towards discussion. (2) Move away from discussion. (bear in mind that these are just my personal generalisations and suggestions on-the-fly rather than actual proposals, I'm not claiming experience in these matters but just to get things started)

(1) Move towards discussion
We drop the votes. Stage 1: nomination. Stage 2: support. A candidate must have at least, say 25, supporters. Once 25 is reached, further support votes are removed and ignored. We should probably disallow oppose, although something like "supporters - opposers = 25" can be considered, meaning the oppose views are neutered by additional support views. All who get the requisite 25 (at least and at most) move on to stage 3, where a discussion fest takes place and everyone goes crazy trying to get everyone to agree on one person.

With this direction, I feel that we really must have a mechanism for getting a result when concensus cannot be reached. And ideally, it doesn't involve ArenaNet. Perhaps we can have a second election for the remaining candidates once a discussion deadline is reached. Like 10 nominations -> 4 into stage 3, discussion narrowed to 2, final vote.

(2) Move away from discussion
Drop stage 3. We ignore consensus and go purely by vote. I realise that many users do not like simple votes (including yours truly) but Tharkun brought up a good point. This election is not for life. It's just for six months. We don't really have to treat it like we're electing our savior. Also, arbitrations don't happen everyday, so even if we don't get the perfectly ideal candidate, things will still work out. The second best candidate won't cause irreparable harm that the best candidate won't.

We can still have discussions, but it's during the voting, where users can attempt to sway or convince other users on who to vote for. It's probably best to delay any discussion of the voting system to use until later.

Let's hope we can work this from start to finish this time around, instead of things getting stagnant halfway through. -- ab.er.rant 05:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

With this type system the challenge will be to set the correct number of supporters to qualify, either by stating a number or a percentage of qualifying votes. You have to remember that this site will start to be abandoned soon, probably in stages, as GWII becomes more established.

Set the number too high, you'll be unable to elect people. Set the number too low and you risk having to raise the barrier higher in the midst of an election in a manner that someone is likely to cry fowl over.

I recommend looking for a working patch on the current system. --Pious 07:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Pious, I do not grok your "correct number of supporters to qualify" statement - could you please explain further? I grok now after reading Aberrant's comment again. :)

Aberrant, consensus is very difficult to attain in such discussions. As seen in the latest discussion all it takes is a few with strong opinions on both (all?) side of the argument, such as a few who really don't like or like one of the candidates, no amount of discussing will cause any side to compromise.

Because of this we need to limit the community discussion on these things. To me this means completely clarifying the result of the voting phase especially the role of the opposed votes. Or... when there is no clear decision to be made from the votes pushing the decision to the group who have been already elected to make difficult decisions for the community - the current standing bureaucrats. Let the community discuss it, the candidates have a say or an option to stand down, then if it is clear that consensus will not emerge the bureaucrats can step in and make a decision which they think is best for the wiki. We might have to limit their right to vote in elections while standing to maintain some illusion of impartiality. I've been watching the current discussion wishing they could do just this. :) --Aspectacle 09:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

(big sigh)

The sigh is for this discussion to come up the umpteenth time after an election. Just check any of the previous close elections for almost all the arguements and check Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/draft B, Guild_Wars_Wiki:Elections/Draft2 and Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/Draft 3 for previous attempts to solve the issue. Maybe that is the way of the wiki: The only way to find a solution is to discuss everything again and again till everyone gets so bored that they agree with any solution.

On a more positive note: Your classification of going towards or away from discussion is helpful. The big problem atm (and at all previous cases) is the clash between those who want to count votes and those who want to reach consensus through discussion. Trying both at the same time obviously does not work, so we have to decide for one of both alternatives. Let me list a few ideas that have come up before, so we do no need to waste time rediscovering them:

Move away from discussion

• Do away with stage 3 completely
• Introduce a 2nd voting stage as runner-off after stage 2
• Move the "discussion phase" from stage 3 to stage 1

Move towards discussion

• Do away with the vote counting in stage 3
• Bureaucrats get the right to prolong stage 3 to find consensus
• Bureaucrats get the right to choose winner if no consensus
• Do away with all voting and simply discuss till consensus on one candidate has been reached (that one has not come up before, but I am listing it for completeness)

There might be more that I did not remember, but this is the general gist. --Xeeron 14:10, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

My understanding of Stage 3 was very different than what happened in the current election. I thought that discussion of candidates merits was to take place during Stage 1 in the midst of nominations but prior to the voting. I also took Stage 3 to be more of a formality to let the editors reach consensus concerning the vote counts in case something was unclear (such as in this election Auron received more supporting votes, but Tanetris received more net votes). Instead, it became a discussion about qualifications and why we should want one over another. I think Stage 3 should be changed to more clearly outline what is to take place. If my understanding of it is close in line with what it was intended to be, how about the following:

1. If the frontrunner receives greater than 10% more supporting votes AND 10% more net votes than the runner-up (or in a case where two seats are open, third place), this stage is unnecesary and the seat is awarded. This would also apply to the runner-up compared to the third-place in the event that two seats are open.
2. If the frontrunner (and/or runner-up in a two-seat election) does not receive sufficient support to be immediately awarded the seat, a run-off would take place in which editors may only vote for one candidate or the other (no opposed option). The more supported candidate takes the seat. Draws are decided by current bcrats.

Such a system should remove doubt over which candidate is more supported, discussion would be more vigorous during Stage 1 (as it would be clear that it would be fruitless during Stage 3), and it would be unlikely that we would ever require ANets intervention. Mohnzh 14:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

A key thing to avoid, with whatever system is agreed on, is that you don't ask people to vote and then have a stage where votes cast for a couple of people are willfully ignored. It is far wiser to ensure that the voting is as well-informed as possible. This is common sense and fits well within the current system, except that a pre-voting discussion isn't formally described nor explicitly encouraged.

A fair system that has a discussion stage following an election should always give due, consistent weighting to votes - otherwise the voting stage should be discontinued and people should just get straight down to the discussion in the first place. In essence the results themselves should be one of the participants in the following discussion, in effect.

A post-election discussion stage is potentially a suitable things for collaborative mediums like wikis but it should be not be used by people to campaign for their favoured candidates in reverse, after the votes have been cast. Instead we should use it to weed out potential vandals and look for more weightier arguments than mere partiality. --Pious Grallatorian 17:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally I feel a simple switch around between stage 2 and stage 3 would be a great move. In that people put themselves forward, we discuss and debate and then we vote. Most positive vote difference wins and then we go on from there. Would simplify the whole thing greatly and get rid of the arguments without any need for arbitration from anet. As then we would only have an issue if 2 candidates got EXACTLY the same number of votes. -- Salome 18:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Couple thoughts...Discussion and consensus work great for many things. I haven't seen anyone suggest that a "vote" is needed for sysops. Why not? Because they exist for an indefinite term and the number of them is not limited. Thus, if there is no consensus, the candidate is not a sysop. Bureaucrat = just the opposite. They are needed for a finite term in a limited number. Discussion leading to consensus would be ideal and will sometimes happen, but would a vote really ever come up with a different answer in those situations. And what about when a vote would be close, well unfortunately that is precisely when discussion and consensus fails. Finally, and I'm not sure how this fits in, but bureaucrat seems to be largely a "status" position. And, that is not to say they are not important, but in large part they actually lose abilities, not gain them. Of course they do gain power, but with that comes responsibility and most people don't go looking for that. (especially the ones we want to have it?) For these reasons, we're generally lucky if they agree to do it, but we can't expect them to take part in their own choosing. And, it becomes much easier when the candidates are not actively lobbying for themselves in a vote then in a discussion/consensus environment. Anyway, just some thoughts. And, one more thing that is most important of all, let's please come up with a clearly understood policy before the next election. -- Inspired to ____ 00:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that I wrote Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/Draft 3, I think it's pretty clear that I support a move towards discussion. Since I already outlined my reasoning on the associated talk page, I won't re-state it all here; however, I would encourage people to post their comments on it. *Defiant Elements* +talk 22:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Your dimention might just be the right one to see this in. Hopefully we can actually get something done. I have to disagree with Xeer's analysis tho'. I don't see the rift as being between majoritarians and those that prefer discussion and concensus. Xeeron is the only one I know of to actually prefer majoritarianism over concensus, all else equal.

The division is in my eyes between a 'Realist' camp who things it's nice on paper but just doesn't work, can't work, and an 'Idealist' camp not willing to accept that. Perhaps the evidence of this election is enough to sway enough people from the latter to the former, enough to affect changes. it certainly haven't been the case with all those earlier tries. Backsword 02:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The Problems

There are two major problems here, discussion is a fool's dream in its current form and the voting system is nonsense. These things actually can tie together, if you totally ditch this current system.

Voting is nonsense because you still allow people to vote for a dozen people. If the same 50 people vote for the same 5 people, basically making mirror images of each other, election after election, what do you think is going to continue to happen? This. The vote points to nothing. People saying "well, they have 50:2 vs 51:4, 51 is higher so 51 wins". Thats insane. It happened last election, it happened this time, it will happen again.

So what happens once people cant vote for everyone under the sun? Maybe you end up getting 30 vs 15, or 41 to 24. It is much more likely to not be anywhere near as balanced once the voters are made to actually choose someone. But lets say it ends up back at the 25 vs 25 as it basically is currently. Now, with everyone having voted for just one person, people actually see the lines drawn. People can see who voted where, and actually start debating those votes now. It becomes more meaningful. There is actually something to build consensus around, you see who can be worked to the other side. How can you debate/discuss when people already support both sides as they do in the current system?

What you need is an initial stage of voting. Weed out the crap by allowing people to vote against as many people as they like, and see if a clear direction is made from the single support votes. If the vote isnt totally clear, then you can build some small consensus. Where a shift in votes goes more towards one person once you start comparing the merits of the remaining choices. Then you have your winner.--riceball 02:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The scenario you describe did not occur last election, Tanaric won the last election by 12 votes, Ab.ber.rant is winning the current election by 8 votes and under the current policy, the situation you describe could never occur, as each opposing vote negates one supporting vote. The only close election was the June 2007 election, in which Tanaric had 25 supporting votes and 2 opposing votes, Xeeron had 26 supporting votes and 2 opposing votes and Xeeron won due to having one more net vote. And approval voting is not "nonsense", it is a logical system which eliminates the spoiler effect. -- Gordon Ecker 02:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) In some ways I think a voting system where you can only choose one person might be preferable. Also while I'm not sure this would fit/work with some of the suggestions in the above "Call for changes" section, I think people should be able to give an actual reason for their vote as we have always done with RFA's since then that could provide a way to gauge the validity of the vote; whether it is an actual thought out vote or if it's a person merely voting for a friend possibly without any idea what the bureaucrat role actually entails. One question for you Riceball, with the suggestion you gave above would there be still a place opposing votes? --Kakarot 02:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok here is my 2 cents on this, I say that we allow disucssion before the voting phase; thus weeding out the joke canidates, etc. etc. and possibly narrowing it down to 2 or 3 canidates. Then for the voting phase we allow one Supporting vote for each person to use on one canidate (similar to the U.S. system). How does that sound? --Shadowphoenix 03:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that the voting and discussion phases should overlap or be combined into one phase. -- Gordon Ecker 03:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The point of having the discussion phase b4 the voting is to weed out the joke canidates and the canidates who, um dont have a chance (on this election that would have been me lol) --Shadowphoenix 03:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I know, by "overlap", I meant "overlap with the discussion phase starting first". I don't think we should use a runoff-free plurality voting system system, as the spoiler effect would allow a candidate with 50% support, 10% indifference and 40% opposition to win against two candidates with 70% support, 25% indifference and 5% opposition due to vote splitting. -- Gordon Ecker 04:00, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, how about this, we allow one supporting from each user to one canidate and allow an oppose section in which oyu can use on all the canidates, sice reading this makes no sense to me (lol) I will make a page in my sandbox to show u what I mean --Shadowphoenix 04:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Shadowphoenix/Sandbox/Election1 that is the basis of what I am trying to say --Shadowphoenix 04:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I think Gordon is misunderstanding my point. I am not talking about 25 vs 25 as meaning one person having 25 support and 25 oppose. I mean two people with similar positive ratios, like 25:2 vs 27:4. How can you really pick between that? That is nonsense. Anyone who thinks voting for 12 people for one position makes sense is insane. What I am suggesting is that you vote once in support, but then you can vote oppose to as many people as you want. Why? Because that is what controls the so-called spoiler effect people seem to be so paranoid about. Maybe you have good reason to be paranoid about it considering the sheep like nature of PvXers, but it can easily be controlled. If someone has a 100:100 ratio and another has 25:1, the 25:1 wins. I didnt suggest we remove the whole positive ratio notion. So if everyone can see a bunch of dumb votes getting tossed on a bad choice, the community needs to adding onto the oppose section.

I did make a mistake about what the last election was. I was thinking about the nonsense that went before the actual last election. You were lucky it didnt happen the previous time. And honestly, I think the only reason why the first choice in this election went so smoothly was because you had 2 open spots. If you didnt, I really dont think there would be a clear choice between any of the top people based on what people are working with presently. And that all comes back to the same people voting for everyone nonsense. Approval voting is not some kind of perfect system. I find it actually funny how it seems to be so big on this wiki. Its like this place is some bubble out of phase with reality. I dont pretend to think plurality voting is perfect. But it is simple, and clear, which is exactly what this place needs considering the mentality of the people here and the nature of this site. You have to think about the right system for the people involved in it. I think approval voting has shown to be an extremely weak and directionless method on this site with these people, and its just going to get worse.

In this election system as its made currently, I dont think you are actually supposed to be picking the person who has 3 votes more, 7 votes more, whatever. You are supposed to be looking at people who have the great ratios and then debating who is actually the best choice. Yet it seems like no one thinks at all about this. They are more concerned with not losing a good admin, or some other dumbass thought. Like someone should be punished from becoming a Bcrat simply because people dont want to do any work. This somehow just becomes a number game, which is kind of interesting considering how anti-plurality people are here, dont you think? Isnt the person with a ratio of 25:3 supposed to be given a shot against someone who is 30:4?--riceball 04:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

That was what I was proposing, i just made an example lol --Shadowphoenix 04:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Preferential voting may well be great, but please, support it with reasoned arguments, not rhetoric. Calling the other sides view "nonsense" or "dumbass" is not going to convince those that need be convinced. Backsword 02:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I did state reasons, but maybe you cant see it past your rhetoric of my rhetoric. I used colorful language, but I thought it might be good to do that, since so many people love Auron. Figured everything would turn to gold. But if you cant see any actual reasons in what I said, and just want to focus on the silly banter instead, well, cant help you then.--riceball 03:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Riceball, I'm not pretending that approval voting is a perfect system, but it's simple, clear and has some significant merits compared to a runoff-free single-vote plurality system. Specifically, it is immune to the spoiler effect, it scales well with multiple seats, and it provides a long, clear list of runners up, which isn't useful at the moment, but would be if we decide to allow runners up to fill vacant seats. As for ties, they are a possibility in any voting system, and I don't think they're a significant problem as long as we have a tie-breaking system. -- Gordon Ecker 06:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Amendment 1 - Discussion during voting

I would like to propose amending changes bit by bit, rather than attempting to come up with a full rewrite. The first obvious change would be when the discussion takes place. I'd like to expand a previous proposal, Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/Draft 3. From the above, and from the current and previous elections, it is apparent that discussion after the voting phase is not beneficial. Riceball makes a valid point. It's hard to argue for one person or another when you've voted for more than one person. It's even more difficult to argue when you've voted for all the candidates.

Let's ignore the voting system for the moment. First amendment: Merge stage 2 and stage 3. The purpose of discussion would be where concerned users would post their comments on why they support or oppose a particular candidate. The idea is to get users to present their perspective and their experience or impression of a particular candidate. "Campaigning" is meant to be done at this point as well, with both sides actively attempting to persuade others to change their votes. Since it's a merge, the duration should be 14 days.

The current stage 4 (which becomes stage 3) becomes a simple buffer stage to confirm the winner of the voting. This is also the stage where extremely close votes (losing by 1 or 2 votes or equal votes) gets a quick discussion, or barring special circumstances such as a candidate giving way to another, or interjection by ArenaNet.

Are there any concerns regarding this changee? (to reiterate, the meat of this first amendment is the merging of stage 2 and stage 3. Let's not consider the voting system and not consider the problem of extremely close votes yet) -- ab.er.rant 15:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I know this might sound dense but why are we merging stage 2 and 3, instead of just reversing there order? Not trying to be a pain here just not seeing why they need merged into 1 stage. EDIT: sorry i think i need to expand on this, What i mean is that I just don't see how beneficial discussion is after someone has voted. Surely trying to sway peoples mind and the campaigning should be done before the vote takes place, any discussion about votes after this point just seems to antagonize people. -- Salome 15:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortately, or probably fortunately, this is not a situation where everyone can enter a booth and cast a secret vote over a short period of time. Thus, discussion can and will occur during voting anyway. That would be my understanding of why someone is allowed to change their vote as the stage proceeds. Yes, much of this hasn't happened, but that's probably just as much a matter of the current senario as anything. Especially, if good arguments are raised during voting, this would hopefully move even closer to consensus then the current situation while still being fully a vote with a definite winner when the stage ends. Besides, surely some people would wait for the discussion to develop while others would actually use the casting of a vote to indicate their preference without going into reasons which might barely exist. In conclusion, I don't believe it hurts to have them combined and I can see it helping. -- Inspired to ____ 16:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

What confuses me is what exactly Stage 3 was meant for orignally. In existing election policy (EP, link at the top of the page), the final paragraph of Stage 2 suggests that Stage 2 already WAS the stage where discussion of merits ought to take place. This election simply did not follow that procedure. People generally limitted themselves to making small comments or jokes on the talk pages and it wasn't until the vote was tallied in Stage that true discussion came out. Yet Stage 3 in the EP did not mention anything of the sort of discussion we saw. The current election followed nearly exactly the proposed policy (PP, the one linked to be aberrant above) rather than the EP. If we had followed EP, this would not be a problem. As it is, we followed a PP. This, in my mind, points out serious flaws in the PP. My feeling is that we should enforce the EP and not accept the PP for the simple reason that the PP did not work. If we want to make changes, I feel like a complete rewrite would be in order. FYI I am not adamant about this, it is just my gut feeling and suggestion after observing this election. Mohnzh say what? 19:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Confusing isn't it. I've come to the conclusion that there really never was consensus on this policy and thus the continuing conflict. Because, although normally that would just mean there is no policy, that didn't work in this case because everyone realized that bureaucrats are needed and there's another policy that says they need to be elected. Thus, there was just enough compromise at the time that is was implemented inspite of (or maybe because of) the confusion over what it meant. Thus, the multitude of proposals to change it and dispute over it when there's an election. So hopefully, Aberrant's concept of incrementally coming to consensus on the pieces will result in a whole that achieves consensus. Of course that requires many more people taking part in this discussion so I'll shut up. -- Inspired to ____ 19:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That's basically correct. There was concensus for one document, but people read it as two different policies. At least it's a good leason in why proposals need to be challenged before they become policy. It's not so easy to fix afterwards, as some havew sugested. Backsword 02:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't look as a merge to me, as it does away with the supposed functioning of stage 3. So no extra week would be needed. Shorter elctions are desirable from my perspective. Backsword 02:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

To address Mohnzh's question. The current election is carried out as per the current policy. It's just that (throughout all the previous elections), most users just misunderstood it to mean what is written in the proposed policy. As Inspired explained his point of view to me, I believe it stemmed from poor wording in the current policy, in that the original meaning is not immediately obvious when reading it without any knowledge of how it first came about. I'm lazy to try to explain the original intention yet again, so I'll skip to the concerns on my amendment proposal instead.

@Salome: I'm not proposing a clause which says that once you cast your vote, you cannot change it; hence my explanation that both stages should be merged. It is meant to encourage discussion and allows users to challenge others or to explain to other users regarding why they voted for a particular candidate. It actually makes it easier to request for comments than after the voting, where users can just not give a reason. As the voting takes place, if a user declines to give a reason for their vote, it makes their vote less substantial and less likely to convince others. That's how I see it anyway. Getting users to talk about their vote, or asking others about their vote, encourages the voicing out of opinions. It's the closest we get to giving weight to votes without actually giving an actual weight.

@Backsword: What would be the benefit to shortening the overall length of the election? I could agree to maybe a 3-day reduction, but I don't see the point of making of it shorter when the idea appears to be to encourage people to talk more about their vote. Shorter elections usually precludes much discussion. Regardless of the length for now, do you have other concerns regarding the merge? -- ab.er.rant 03:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

While Election may be fun, they should not overshadow content. As it is, 40% of our time is in election mode. There have been reports of voter fatigue. I also see no benefit in doubling the length of stage 2 that outweighs that.

That said, I'm fine with this if it's not possible to get support for stage 2 staying the same lenght. Backsword 04:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Speaking as the author of Draft 3 for a second, I don't have a problem with merging stages 2 and 3. Ideally, some form of discussion would be going on during Stage 2 anyway, so I don't see a major issue with the merge. That said, what I don't understand is whether or not you plan to change Stage 4 (heretofore Stage 3) so that it simply reflects the vote tallies rather than the discussion and a couple of other things -- for instance, you mention Anet intervention -- since that kinda stuff wouldn't really be in keeping with Draft 3. *Defiant Elements* +talk 03:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I was hoping to be able to get this small change through before tackling the issue of deciding winners. I believe the problems with how elections keep turning out are resulting from two things: one is a lack of talk prior and during voting; the other is how to read the results of voting. I haven't gotten the vibes on how best to read vote results so I thought to tackle the more straightforward issue of users being confused as to why there's a discussion after casting their votes. Which leads to this proposal (which was actually similarly drafted or hinted at in other places): just restructuring it into something that people general expect to take place after the nomination phase. We can either tackle the problem of interpreting votes as the next amendment or on Gordon's (or your's) draft. -- ab.er.rant 06:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good. *Defiant Elements* +talk 21:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

As requested, this proposal has been added to an existing draft: Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/Draft 3. That draft also contained an allowance for the remaining 2 bureaucrats to make a final decision for ties and very close vote tallies. Winners are primarily decided by vote tallies, as per current expectations by a majority of the voting users. -- ab.er.rant 07:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Another quick update regarding Draft 3. As per Wyn's suggestions on the talk page, the merged stage mentioned by Aberrant above has been reduced to 11 days and a 3 day Stage had been added between Stages 1 and 2 to allow for initial discussion prior to voting. *Defiant Elements* +talk 20:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

here's an idea

i think that we should have different stages of voting. eg,

Stage 1 - Nomination (1 week)

Stage 2 - Voting 1 (3 days)<-- after 3 days any candindate without a positive vote balance must withdraw

Stage 3 - Discussion (3 days)<-- present arguements for/against candidates

Stage 4 - Voting 2 (3 days)<-- all votes made in stage 2 are removed and everyone votes again

Stage 5 - Deciding Winners (3 days)

Stage 6 - Final Judgement

i also think that everyone is allowed 2 support and 2 oppose votes, just to make things more balanced.--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 10:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

No comment on the merits of splitting up the stages like that, I'd just like to comment on their length. Please bear in mind that the reason why each of the stages is currently one week long is because not everyone is on the wiki every day. A lengthier period than just 3 days is necessary, in my opinion. --Dirigible 11:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

How exactly will 2 support votes and 2 oppose votes be "more balanced"? Is that meant for both voting stages or just one? Are you against the stage 2 and stage 3 merge/swap above? -- ab.er.rant 02:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

@dir, 5 days? @ab.er.rant, 2 support/oppose for each voting stage--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 15:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

TBH stage 2 and 3 should be merged, discussion should be going on while voting. As for voting in 2 stages...it seems kinda pointless, everyone will basically vote the same. I think this idea of 2 support/oppose votes should be applied as whole though (which you might have meant idk, it wasn't very clear. I mean that your only allowed 2 support/oppose votes across all candidates (for that election obv.))I do like the idea of people who don't have a positive balance being eliminated between stages though....~PheNaxKian Talk 20:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

the reason for 2 voting stages is so that if people vote in stage 2 for/against someone who is eleminated, then they can vote for/against someone who is still in contention.--Sum Mesmer Guy contribs 06:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it'll be simpler if you treat the first voting as a nomination support voting, and the second being the candidate support voting. And rather two equal votes, it's probably better to have preferential voting (i.e. first choice, second choice) and only for the second vote. The nomination voting part can be like what I describe above, in that you need "nomination support - nomination oppose = x" where x is what is decided to be the minimum count needed to proceed to candidacy. -- ab.er.rant 10:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

New draft

I've written up a revision draft at Guild Wars Wiki:Elections/Draft 4, intended to cover ties and allow vacated seats to be filled. -- Gordon Ecker 03:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to doubly note that Gordon's new draft touches primarily on deciding winners and handling prematurely vacated seats, so it generally does not concern my amendment proposal above regarding stages 2 and 3. Discussions above should continue and not be abandoned in favor of the "latest discussion". -- ab.er.rant 03:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation Aberrant. — ク Eloc 貢 15:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)