To everyone who was expecting the new poll to reflect the name, it isn't. There was some great discussion over the past two days regarding polls. The consensus seems to be that the current poll system won't work for something "official" like voting for a name. Problems with the current system include allowing anonymous voting (thus implicitly encouraging ballot-stuffing schemes and proxies), allowing voters to see the results in real time (perhaps influencing their vote decisions) and not permitting some type of multi-voting scheme (whether rank ordered or approval voting or some other type). We'd like to do this right.
So we're going to hold off on the name vote for now. I know everyone was eager to forge ahead, including myself and NCommander, but we'd rather not do this until we can do it right. We do still plan on holding the vote though, so put away the pitchforks and torches. But given a choice between half-assing something now or doing what is best for the community, we choose the community all the time. As always, thanks for reading! ~mattie_p
Starting Score:
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(Score: 4, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:33PM
i can't vote. 'none' is a non-physical concept that also cannot be measured. is it simply an absence of something, or is the 'none' statement coherentt and meaningful, therefore 'something'?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @11:40AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday March 14 2014, @11:40AM (#16452)
Actually, it says right below the poll:
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
I previously argued [dev.soylentnews.org] that we should have a discussion before the poll. The reply was "if there is some kind of overwhelming choice, and the same is reflected in comments and chatter, then that makes it a pretty easy decision. If it's all a mess and full of controversy then we have to go back to the drawing board." This was fine by me.
But if the decision now is that there should be a proper vote, I think that makes it even more important that we have are told the options and have a discussion about them a few days in advance. You could easily imagine that 20 hours into such a discussion, someone brings up a very important point that would legitimately sway lots of people for or against one of the options. But if most people had already voted by then, it would be too late.
P.S. Regarding voting technology, don't necessarily re-invent the wheel. You can outsource this kind of thing. The one such body I've heard of is ERS [electoralreform.co.uk] (but there will surely be others). They don't provide enough info on their website, but I could phone them up and ask them about prices, etc. if required. Or just something like https://www.surveymonkey.com/ [surveymonkey.com] Or just conduct the vote using people's verified email addresses, and count manually.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mattie_p on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:28PM
To everyone who was expecting the new poll to reflect the name, it isn't. There was some great discussion over the past two days regarding polls. The consensus seems to be that the current poll system won't work for something "official" like voting for a name. Problems with the current system include allowing anonymous voting (thus implicitly encouraging ballot-stuffing schemes and proxies), allowing voters to see the results in real time (perhaps influencing their vote decisions) and not permitting some type of multi-voting scheme (whether rank ordered or approval voting or some other type). We'd like to do this right.
So we're going to hold off on the name vote for now. I know everyone was eager to forge ahead, including myself and NCommander, but we'd rather not do this until we can do it right. We do still plan on holding the vote though, so put away the pitchforks and torches. But given a choice between half-assing something now or doing what is best for the community, we choose the community all the time. As always, thanks for reading! ~mattie_p
(Score: 4, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 13 2014, @11:33PM
Mod parent offtopic, as we're discussing units of measure for temperature.
Celsius will probably win. In my case it's used a lot for approximating and calculating the Speed of sound in seawater. [npl.co.uk]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by crutchy on Friday March 14 2014, @09:03AM
I vote none. 'Degrees' isn't a physical quantity that can be measured. It is simply a unit of measure for both temperature and angle.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by beckett on Friday March 14 2014, @11:35AM
i can't vote. 'none' is a non-physical concept that also cannot be measured. is it simply an absence of something, or is the 'none' statement coherentt and meaningful, therefore 'something'?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @07:24AM
Please Moderators make it happen: +5 offtopic and then funny.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @11:40AM
Actually, it says right below the poll:
(Score: 3, Funny) by linsane on Friday March 14 2014, @01:14PM
So should be OK then? :-)
(Score: 1) by Dogeball on Tuesday March 18 2014, @06:28AM
Hey, you can ballot-stuff just like I can. That makes it fair ;)
(Score: 1) by ancientt on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:42PM
I kind of agree. Not that I'd want things to actually run that way, but I like systems that allow passionate people to have stronger influence.
Granted that I think the most appropriate method is generally discussion, debate and straight up arguing, rather than ballot stuffing.
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(Score: 2) by Open4D on Friday March 21 2014, @06:26PM
I previously argued [dev.soylentnews.org] that we should have a discussion before the poll. The reply was "if there is some kind of overwhelming choice, and the same is reflected in comments and chatter, then that makes it a pretty easy decision. If it's all a mess and full of controversy then we have to go back to the drawing board." This was fine by me.
But if the decision now is that there should be a proper vote, I think that makes it even more important that we have are told the options and have a discussion about them a few days in advance. You could easily imagine that 20 hours into such a discussion, someone brings up a very important point that would legitimately sway lots of people for or against one of the options. But if most people had already voted by then, it would be too late.
P.S. Regarding voting technology, don't necessarily re-invent the wheel. You can outsource this kind of thing. The one such body I've heard of is ERS [electoralreform.co.uk] (but there will surely be others). They don't provide enough info on their website, but I could phone them up and ask them about prices, etc. if required. Or just something like https://www.surveymonkey.com/ [surveymonkey.com] Or just conduct the vote using people's verified email addresses, and count manually.