Changing the discussion-vote model

I don't think our current model for voting and discussion works very well.

On one hand, we have the drafting threads inside the Ministry, where most of the discussion happens (though as of late, we don't get much of that).

On the other hand, we have the voting threads. While those are meant for both voting and discussion by the public, they usually only attract the former and no discussion happens (with the exception of a few threads as of late where the authors have appeared).

The Ministry-only discussion threads are meant to produce the voting recommendations. While those have been working very well for the IFVs we send game-side, they are not effective for forum votes: In order to be able to stack/stomp, I have to start forum votes before the corresponding proposals go to vote in-game, and the recommendations are never ready in time for that.

I am thinking of making three changes:
1) Merge the Ministry-only discussion and the voting thread into a single, public one. Instead of the recommendation drafting thread, Deputy Ministers will post their opinions there, hopefully encouraging discussion among our members.
2) Get rid of forum-side recommendations. The discussion alone should be sufficient for members to make up their mind. We will continue to send out IFVs game-side, based on the discussion and what our early vote was.
3) Start these discussion threads earlier. I am considering starting discussion threads even before drafts are submitted, based on the draft threads in the NS GA forums.

I am also thinking of expanding the Executive Staff model to the WA Ministry. This is primarily to try and bring more of WA nations to the forum (think telegramming campaigns "join the WA Ministry to do this and that"). However, I don't have any good ideas as to what these nations could be doing in the Ministry, or really any incentives for them to join it.

Please let me know of your thoughts on the above.

I like the general idea. I think you're right, that transferring the discussions that occur inhere, to the public domain would be better for discussion. I hope that the various Deputies will continue to contribute their thoughts there as much as they do in here.

I am not really sure what members of the Exec Staff for WA affairs could do.. but I will think on it

Scion, SP, what do you think?

I can see the benefit of merging the discussion and recommendation threads, but I think the real issue is lead time for the officials to get on and post a recommendation, what with RL being an omnipresent factor. Starting the recommendation thread before or just as the draft is submitted is a safe way to give us a head start. That might be an option to take before ditching the current system.

We might also get a better read on regional votes faster if there was a regional poll set up. You'd catch more nations who don't always swing by the offsite forum. If you divided the options into "yes/no and in a WA nation" and "yes/no and I'm a nonWA member", you'd be able to essentially disregard the nonWA vote while still preventing too much confusion between the two. Most people don't want to sabotage inoffensive polls.

You can limit in-game polls to WA nations only. I assume you mean in-game polls... But realistically, I think that would intrude on our other programs that use the poll feature, and there is already the vote count once the proposal goes to a vote.

Separatist Peoples:

I can see the benefit of merging the discussion and recommendation threads, but I think the real issue is lead time for the officials to get on and post a recommendation, what with RL being an omnipresent factor. Starting the recommendation thread before or just as the draft is submitted is a safe way to give us a head start. That might be an option to take before ditching the current system.

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That is true, but I am not sure the recommendations are very useful for the forum voters in general. The deputies posting their thoughts in the discussion thread is going to be more informative than a single recommendation, and is probably going to have a larger effect on how people vote.

Posting the threads earlier (not when resolutions reach quorum but when submitted, or maybe even as they are discussed in the NS forum) is something we should probably do, regardless of whether we maintain the private recommendation threads.

Separatist Peoples:

We might also get a better read on regional votes faster if there was a regional poll set up. You'd catch more nations who don't always swing by the offsite forum. If you divided the options into "yes/no and in a WA nation" and "yes/no and I'm a nonWA member", you'd be able to essentially disregard the nonWA vote while still preventing too much confusion between the two. Most people don't want to sabotage inoffensive polls.

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As mcm said, we currently have a busy schedule of in-game polls for other cultural events, and having WA-related in-game polls would conflict with that. Also, part of the reason for holding the votes on the offsite forum is exactly to motivate people to come here and participate in the forum community.

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Kenny now has access to this forum, so I'd love to hear his thoughts as well.

As far as regional polls go, votes can be sorted by WA status (as McM has already stated) and several other factors -- but if only one vote can be held at a time, and TNP thinks culture is a more important use of the poll (and no offense intended if they do), then that issue's moot.

Streamlining the process and encouraging more open discussion of resolutions is, obviously, a good thing, so I support these measures. What I don't support (and this is true of all feeders lately, not just TNP) is casting the delegate votes prematurely, ensuring that votes fall to the lemming effect, rather than a more "democratic" (if you want to call it that) outcome. On the region side of things, it discourages involvement in polls by later voters (if the delegate has already voted, why bother?)...on the GA side, it irritates authors to no end. It's bad enough when mousey does it (and I have records of her railing against delegates who did the same thing back when she was an author), but it seems to have become a trend in the feeders/sinkers, to have such a manic concern for our mammoth vote totals to "have an impact" that delegates vote early on just to shake up the process. It does wonders for our ego, obviously, but it doesn't really help the process when the vote is impossibly tilted in the first hours before an honest assessment of at-vote items can be had.