My proposal for this forum

Keith Edmonds

@rob I have two major points here.

I thought this forum was set up with a board who would make policy decisions such as those you have proposed. @SaraWolk does such a board not exist? If you want to take over the technical responsibilities of the forum, have the forum adopt an official stance on electoral methods or disband the board I would think that the proper place to bring it up would be to the board. I think the method you have taken seems undemocratic and the appearance is important. At a bear minimum you could have called for a vote on this from the people on the forum. At least then it would look more like a populist upraising to overthrow the government instead of a coup. I know you are not going for this but again it is about appearance to people like me who are not in the weeds on the running of this forum. And I am a lot further down in the weeds than some her.
I would be strongly opposed to limiting any discussion on any topic that is at least somewhat related to electoral reform. It is not really clear to me that IRV is better than plurality in the objective sense. Its like choosing between burning and freezing to death to me. Both seem bad but in opposing and hard to compare ways so why choose? Would this opinion of mine being honestly held be banned on this forum? I recently had a conversation with David Deutsch where he expressed a similar but different sentiment. He wrote a whole chapter about it in one of his books. Are you proposing that if a famous professor started debating with us here we should ban his point of view?

rob

@keith-edmonds said in My proposal for this forum:

If you want to take over the technical responsibilities of the forum, have the forum adopt an official stance on electoral methods or disband the board I would think that the proper place to bring it up would be to the board. I think the method you have taken seems undemocratic and the appearance is important. At a bear minimum you could have called for a vote on this from the people on the forum

I actually would like to call a vote of the people on this forum. But prior to doing so, I want to engage them in a discussion. That's all I'm doing here, trying to get a feeling, from the people here, of what they want. I plan to be at the council meeting when it happens (unless it is made clear ahead of time that people here are against what I am proposing, in which case I probably won't bother).

And if we are going to have a vote, we need to have more than one option to vote for. Right now there is one, the proposal above (that I run the technical side, with important decisions made by open vote of forum participants). The status quo, having Jack continue to run the forum, isn't an option as far as I can tell.

Key point: If there is something other than my suggestion on the table, now would be a good time for someone to come forward with it.

So before we have a vote, I'd like to know if anyone else is offering to step up to fill Jack's role. As well as if anyone wants to step up and do moderation and "social" duties, or some of the other things I've suggested I'd take primary responsibility for until someone offers to do so (design/content issues, including reworking the categories [1]).

At least then it would look more like a populist upraising to overthrow the government instead of a coup.

I'm not suggesting overthrowing anything. I'm seeing what people want. If enough want what I am suggesting, we can simply ask nicely. But the whole point is to discuss it here, with the people who use the forum.

I think the method you have taken seems undemocratic

I'm surprised you'd see anything I'm doing as undemocratic. The whole idea of this is to be more democratic. This is what I said above:

the forum should be run democratically, with participants able to vote on everything substantial. We can even include in that a process for people to vote to have someone other than me run it. (if a majority want me to step down, I will do so without protest and help in the process of transitioning it to someone else)

I'm not sure how much more democratic I could be. That is literally my primary motivation for trying to do this, and for proposing this forum in the first place 2 or 3 years ago: that we try to make a voting community that aggressively leans into using our own stuff.

@keith-edmonds said in My proposal for this forum:

I would be strongly opposed to limiting any discussion on any topic that is at least somewhat related to electoral reform.

If you are specifically talking about my agreeing with the EndFPTP rule that we shouldn't "bash alternatives to FPTP", you, @spelunker and @Toby-Pereira all disagreed with me. Here's why all three of you are wrong and we should go with my suggestion:

Haha, just kidding that's how someone who was not being democratic would handle it.

That sounds like an informal vote of 3-1 against my idea. Democracy wins, I lose. But I still count that as a win.

I edited the proposal above to note that we should not have rules against any voting-theory-relevant opinion. (instead we should attempt to guide any discussion away from combativeness and conspiratorial stuff, but with good judgement that, obviously, would allow your famous professor acquaintance to present his views)

[1] Discussions of changing the categories and which is the front page. Jack chose not to move forward on anything until the council approved it, which meant that nothing happened. This to me is evidence that the status quo is not working.
https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/231/fewer-categories?=1679902300647
https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/227/way-too-many-categories?=1679902300650
https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/293/forum-change-requests-that-need-council-approval

Jack Waugh

@rob said in My proposal for this forum:

Jack's role

I would like to know what you think that is.

rob

@jack-waugh said in My proposal for this forum:

Jack's role

I would like to know what you think that is.

You are free to describe it in your own words, but what I intended is that you have been the person who got it running and keeps it running, and if changes are made, makes them.

I am aware you have chosen not to be particularly involved in what you call social aspects. However, you have been the most prolific poster, often posting new things when the board seems dead, which often gets the discussion happening again. While this is something that anyone can do, it appears to me to be a positive contribution you've been making to the social side.

But mostly I meant you "run" the forum in a technical sense.It appears that, after getting it running (which was a pretty big undertaking), you haven't done a whole lot in terms of improving it other than to just keep it running. That's not a complaint, just an observation. My own view is that regular improvements would be a plus, and for that to happen, we need a combination of someone having the drive and ability to do such improvements, and a more streamlined process for getting approval for doing them. (i.e. publicly put it to the forum and going with what people agree to, rather than waiting for council meetings that may never happen)

Jack Waugh

@rob

Yes, I did get the board running. That part is clear and correct.

As part of starting the site, I not only installed NodeBB and MongoDB and configured nginx; I also coded the app that publishes the archive, and I implemented the home page, following Sara's visual design.

No actions have been necessary, that I recall, to keep the board running. It has just continued to run on its own without trouble.

I put up some half-assed backup scheme and haven't bothered to check whether it is even working as I designed it to, let alone complete it to include the pictures.

I have stood at the ready for in case trouble should have arisen, and in such a case, might fairly likely have been able to solve it sooner or later. One resource that could have helped is the discussion forum regarding the NodeBB software. I would have turned to that if the site had started misbehaving in some way that I couldn't have explained by finding some cause outside NodeBB, such as running out of disk.

But in factual history, there hasn't been any serious outage. NodeBB has Just Worked for us, to date.

rob

@jack-waugh It's good to know NodeBB has worked without a hitch. I suggested it in the first place (when I was going to be the one deploying it), and worried afterwards that it might end up being problematic. The only reason for using it (as opposed to just a hosted forums plan) was so we could bend it to our will, but that hasn't happened yet. I've got a whole bunch of cool stuff I'd be ready to add (mostly voting widgets, static pages and shared source code and data files) once we can be confident there is someone to fulfill the role of "standing at the ready in case trouble arises"

Still hoping to have a call with you where we can talk about technical and logistical stuff. I'd like to know as much as possible before the council meeting so it is clear what I am proposing.

Sass

the forum should be run democratically, with participants able to vote on everything substantial. We can even include in that a process for people to vote...

Votes can happen on the forum itself, and should be very transparent in that everyone can see how everyone else votes, from the moment they cast their vote. We would have crystal clear rules for who is allowed to vote, which should be everyone who participates with any regularity at all. For any votes that have tangible consequences, we would always respect the outcome.

But it is important to me that people who are involved in any decision making be regular participants.

I actually would like to call a vote of the people on this forum.

...we can simply ask nicely.

There are processes already in place for voting in our bylaws and procedures. Fortunately, Sara's on top of scheduling a meeting where some votes can happen soon. Importantly, we should follow the protocols already in place. They're there for a reason.

The main thing that I proposed is that the forum will not just discuss voting methods, but also serve as a hub for developing resources that advance the general cause (of replacing plurality/FPTP with something better). So that means building voting “widgets”, building tools for testing methods, tools for holding internet votes, tools for visualizing how they work, for simulating elections, and so on. Also, it means hosting some static content, which can be web pages (that may link or embed external things, like youtube videos or CodePen apps), libraries of code (typically javascript since this is the web and all, but it can be any language), images, ChatGPT conversations (which are just web pages, but all of a certain type and format) and so on.

I'll repeat what I stated before, Rob. If you'd like to help build out features and tech improvements, then do so. No vote is needed for that until we're ready to implement. No control needs to change. Additionally, Jack informed Sara that he unilaterally added you to the tech committee for the forum that was formed by the council after a unanimous vote on Motion 4, which Sara highlighted here. Tech upgrades are something you can just start working on.

I'll note that the Equal Vote Software Development committee has been working on some of the features you've described in a modular way that should be easy to fold into the forum soon, including a tool that allows people to vote with many different voting methods. This work is already being done by a coalition of volunteers and I'm sure they would like your help. The best way to do so is to sign up to volunteer at equal.vote/join.

I would hope that all discussions about the forum take place on the forum itself, rather than in external meetings that everyone must attend at the same time, I think this is both more inclusive, better documented, and simply takes advantage of the fact that we actually have a discussion board. Votes can happen on the forum itself, and should be very transparent in that everyone can see how everyone else votes, from the moment they cast their vote.

If the participants here make decisions that are just as good as those that could be made in meetings, but without having meetings, that in itself will amount to a significant innovation in the practice and theory of social choice.

If we can have methods to arrive at decisions without everyone having to meet at the same time, and without a "council" of specially-anointed people having to meet and decide, I think that will be great and it is the way we should go if we can figure out how to make it work so that people will feel that the process is legitimate and fair.

I'm generally in favor of streamlining the democratic process. If anyone has specific ideas for changes to our bylaws or procedures, they should draft a formal proposal to take to the upcoming meeting to be voted on. I'll state that I would never vote in favor of any consequential change if that change is just some ideas in an informal discussion in a forum thread. A specific, written proposal is the minimum bar for me to consider seriously adopting a change to any consequential process, and I suspect many others feel that way, too. If we want to change the process, that's fine, but we have to go through our current process make that change happen. Attempting to circumvent that process is one of the least democratic things we could do in this forum.

In terms of what you've been proposing, it seems so far to be incredibly nebulous and full of holes. Who gets to vote? How do you define "actively participating in the forum"? How does it address accessibility for those spread thin across different, relevant platforms? How do we ensure every voter is informed? What kind of timeline do we use? Which method? What if someone has to take a leave of absence? Which things do we bother voting on? How many people need to vote? What's quorum? How do we categorize different changes in relation to the last few questions? The list goes on. Overall, it feels poorly considered in my opinion.

If I were handling the "social" side of things, this is how I'd typically handle things. One, I'd be sure that if anyone new posted to the forum, that they'd get a response welcoming them and engaging them in conversation, assuming they seemed sincere and interested in voting theory. This doesn't mean it will always be me, but if no one else did, I would. I think that is one of the most important things a person running a forum can do.... keep people engaged and coming back.

If there was a thread that seemed to get adversarial, I'd jump in and attempt to steer it back to a positive discussion, or maybe advise each party to wrap things up or take it to private messages, because it isn't positive.

I'd have a general "be nice, be respectful" policy. If someone seemed to violate it, I'd usually DM the person first and see if they were willing to edit their content. If it was egegious enough I'd remove it immediately, but always engage them via DM so they don't feel like I am running them off.

This also applies to divisive political content that isn't directly related to voting theory. I think it is fair to say that I differ with Jack on how this should be handled, but I think I am in agreement with several others here that allowing that sort of content is toxic and counter to our mission. ("mission" being getting better voting systems in use in political elections). Again, I'd typically DM the person who seemed to go out of bounds. We're not "cancelling" anyone, but we are saying you need to stay on topic or at least steer clear of the sort of divisive content that could drive people away, or make people suspect that our motives are partisan.

Finally, the third category of problematic content that I'd tend to moderate is that which slams too hard on ranked choice / IRV. There's nothing wrong with saying that there are way better systems (I don't think any current participant disagrees with that), but I would usually draw the line at statements such as "IRV is worse than plurality". If you really want to make that argument, I think you should make it elsewhere. IRV, Score, STAR, and Approval are ALL significantly better than plurality, and I think that is essentially the one thing that the forum can have a "guiding philosophy" on. If you want to call that a "bias", ok.

EDIT: three people disagreed with limiting discussion on IRV being worse than plurality, so I'll back off that one.

Rob, we already have an existing code of conduct. A quick scan through it makes me wary of your ability to enforce it. Your first post on this topic was pretty inflammatory and arguably akin to a personal or professional attack as defined in Section e. It could also be consider disrespectful according to Section a depending how one defines "disrespect".

Diversity and inclusion are specifically highlighted throughout the code multiple times, mostly in the first half. Some of the few people who are not white, male, or neurotypical but have spent time on this forum — regardless of whether they've posted — have told me that the forum does not feel welcoming to them, in part because of the nature of your posts. It might not feel like it to you, but some of your posts feel unnecessarily aggressive to some folks, particularly those who regularly experience that kind of behavior from others in their real life. I don't feel equipped to recount their experiences here, but I think you should start by asking what you can do differently.

I believe we should facilitate more active moderation, but I'd opt for moderators who would do a better job of making this forum feel welcoming and inclusive.

Beyond all that, from what I can tell, @Jack-Waugh seems to have some desire to pass on some responsibilities or keys. This was the case before your first post. That's part of what the upcoming meeting is for and a few of us are scouting for volunteers to help with that, including through the Software Development Committee. In my opinion, a bit more consolidation would be helpful to improve simplicity and consistency. It would also better enable you to help with feature improvements through streamlining the overall operations.

Overall, I think we need to engage constructively about this issue and commit to going through the processes that are already in place.

Jack Waugh

@sass From Sara's reminder, it looks as though we four on the council did agree that there would be a tech committee. But who are its members?

SaraWolk

Hi everyone,
I'd like to share some information for people who might have missed previous threads or comments, and I'd like to offer a proposal.

For reference:
Key Motions Passed in Council Meetings (all unanimous!):
Motion 1, v2: “To establish an independent organization with the purpose of owning and maintaining the online discussion forum.”
Motion 2 v2: “Move to establish and try to publish an online discussion forum based on the “NodeBB” forum software.”
Motion 3: “To do due diligence and apply best practices to protect and minimize the storage of PII of users, with these responsibilities explicitly delegated to specific responsible individuals trusted by the council/board.”
Motion 4: “Create a tech committee empowered to make non-controversial “technical decisions” on behalf of the group as needed, with the understanding that the council could revisit those decisions later if needed. The committee should consult the council on questions where the decision may be controversial.”
Motion 5: “Order of operations. 1. Pass bylaws. 2. Elect board. 3. Launch website.”
Motion 6: “Adopt categories list”
Motion 7: “Adopt Code of Conduct, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy.”
Motion 8: “Motion passed unanimously to coalition with Equal Vote and receive donations and pay expenses through Equal Vote account.”

Resources:
Bylaws: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1obwaF82x5022V_K-gifdv7Why-O5LzqFAiB_d4EwqAw/edit?usp=sharing
Procedure Manual: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TCRbEXuBqY8N1glKf7YHNWMVIWD7blgZQhwomfteigY/edit?usp=sharing
Privacy policy. Ready for review. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QzZp2QAsP60Ti1WWPk29Q8dInGIM2l438rcJDZLd2Ug/edit?usp=sharing
Terms of Service: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AlnP1gvvc986n0iiYYkA0Tc9L33erbxDftM7sX5ypz4/edit?usp=sharing
Code of Conduct: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ExGrryHIFOjSfPiTtHYBRPw7GQY8lRsCfWiWsLEsImc/edit?usp=sharing

Forum Council Members:
Sara Wolk, William "Jack" Waugh, David Hinds, Connor Frankston, Micah Fitch.
Moderators:
Sara Wolk. Connor Frankston, David Hinds, Connor Frankston, Micah Fitch, Gary Litke.
Tech Committee
William Waugh, (Rob Brown was added by Jack and keys have been shared but that has not been officially authorized yet).

Key points: This forum already has a Council that governs it in terms of the big picture decisions. It also has a tech team and moderation team that can work on things and address issues as needed. They are also empowered to make non-controversial decisions without needing to call a Council meeting or jump through unnecessary hoops. The Forum Council can also approve decisions between meetings, as it has done in the past. The main barrier to progress as I see it is that we could use more volunteers to help. If you'd like to volunteer, email us at forum@equal.vote.

I don't think there is any benefit to rehashing our processes or decisions that have already been made with plenty of consideration and lots of input from Council Members (past and current) and with input gathered from Forum participants at large through the forum itself. To date all our votes since the forum launched have been unanimous.

I do think it's very problematic to make consequential or controversial decisions via forum posting. That opens the door to leadership who don't have the time to read all the posts missing a huge decision. Meetings also allow us to bring in perspectives from other spaces where relevant discussion takes place. Voting via forum post would make it next to impossible to ensure that people have read the relevant discussions and have the background needed before they vote. I love the idea about getting feedback from participants and taking polls to inform council decisions, as we have always done, but for bylaw level items, an actual meeting with real face to face discussion protects the longevity and integrity of the forum much better.

For those who don't know me, I've put in a lot of time and effort over the last 2 years to help build an inclusive, robust, and stable forum that will be an asset to our community for years to come. We included everyone in that process start to finish who wanted to contribute. All the work I've put in has been done in a volunteer capacity, (not as part of my job with Equal Vote). I was really excited and proud to have finished our long list of meta level set up tasks (see resource list above) and hope to not spend too much time revisiting them. The more fun work of making the forum better and bigger and discussing voting science is still ahead.

My Proposal for Forum Next Steps:

We recruit some new volunteers to our Forum Council, Tech Committee, and Moderation Committee. Each of these requires a different time commitment and skill set so finding the right people for each task is important. Email forum@equal.vote to volunteer.
We don't waste time rehashing process and governance level conversations unless there is a specific need to do so.
Jack finishes passing the keys for management and billing of the forum to Equal Vote so Equal Vote can pay for the Forum's hosting and URL with the new grant money we recently obtained for software dev. The Forum is still autonomous, this is just a coalition service that we've gotten agreement from both boards on. This ensures that our Forum assets will be protected and will be renewed and paid for and that keys can be passed easily if needed. (Right now it's under Jack's personal account, which is problematic.) This is all in accordance with what was decided already, and allows us to ensure that the council has recourse if any one person goes AWOL or if there is a problem with an individual admin. Everyone is in agreement that the Forum should be and stay autonomous to keep it welcoming for advocates of all types of reforms.
We have our next Council Meeting soon. Everyone who would like to attend or volunteer, please put in your availability here.
We keep the forum constructive and drama free. We resolve any issues or disputes that might come up (such as Rob's here) by reaching out to each other more directly so we can hopefully avoid stress and hurt feelings or unnecessary escalation. I think that keeping posts like this off the forum itself unless other avenues have been tried and failed will help recruit and retain volunteers and forum participants in general. It will certainly help me be more comfortable inviting new people to join us here.

In order to improve engagement on this forum we should double down on the commitments we've already made to make this a non-toxic space for new people and to keep our current volunteers motivated to complete the action items already on the list.

Jack Waugh

@sarawolk Generally valid and useful points and thanks for gathering the list of decisions in one place and reminding us of them. I hope that all who have an interest or an opinion on how the forum should be run, both on the social side and the technical side, can come together and see their concerns addressed and I hope we can all benefit from the ideas for improvements.

ArendPeter

@sass said in My proposal for this forum:

I'll note that the Equal Vote Software Development committee has been working on some of the features you've described in a modular way that should be easy to fold into the forum soon, including a tool that allows people to vote with many different voting methods. This work is already being done by a coalition of volunteers and I'm sure they would like your help. The best way to do so is to sign up to volunteer at equal.vote/join.

Hi, I'm one of the members of the equal vote software committee and I'm new to the forum. I'd be happy to start sharing regular updates here to keep people in the loop on our software projects. It could be a good way to find opportunities for collaborating and using each other's tools

rob

@sarawolk said in My proposal for this forum:

We recruit some new volunteers to our Forum Council, Tech Committee, and Moderation Committee.

From where? The forum has been nearly a ghost town for most of its existence. But if a team of volunteers want to step up, that sounds like a plan and it doesn't sound like you need what I've offered. I will admit it seems a bit like magical thinking to me, but maybe you know something I don't.

I suggest you assemble this team of volunteers first, let them convince you that they are actually going to stick around and do the work, then make decisions. To me, it doesn't make sense to make decisions assuming a bunch of people are going to be ready to take on responsibilities, especially if those people haven't been participating in the forum already. I just don't see it happening.

When talking to Jack, he seemed to be convinced there was tech team ready to jump in. So maybe I'm wrong. I just have seen no signs of this.

We keep the forum constructive and drama free.

Offering to step up and run this democratically, per the original vision, doesn't sound like drama, and I would consider it constructive. I'm not attacking you or anyone else. I'm just saying the forum wasn't gaining traction, for very predictable reasons. Meanwhile the only person who has taken on day-to-day responsibility for the forum, Jack, says he's not willing to do that anymore. I have offered to spend a lot of my time, time that most people on the council don't seem to have, to both fill in the role Jack had played, while otherwise making positive things happen.

Also regarding drama: I've gone out of my way to try to suppress drama on the forum, only once using my admin powers (in a case of doxxing, I edited a post and diplomatically DM'd its author [1]), but often stepping in [2], sometimes in the awkward situation of, well, our tech admin posting stuff that many found offensive, off-topic and divisive. I don't know if anyone else ever has, other than a couple people weighing in, such as @spelunker did when he first arrived and was greeted by some toxic content, or as @Andy-Dienes did in that same situation. (I believe we've lost Andy, one of our best contributors --- I don't want to speak for him but I believe the "tone" of the forum was a significant thing that drove him away, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of a discussion of the future of the forum, since he also wished for some significant changes [3]).

Regardless, I am not trying to rehash events of two years ago, and am not attacking anyone. I don't see how this is escalating anything. I do feel that general issues about the forum's future should be resolvable in public at the forum. I understand taking things to private discussion for very specific cases, but for discussing how decisions are made at the forum and such..... why the need for secrecy? If you are worried about someone coming to the forum and being put off by my post...well, sorry, but I don't get it. If they are going to be put off by anything, it is that there is little activity, and whatever activity there is is not easy to find without several clicks, and if they do that, sometimes it is toxic and off topic. Not that we are talking about options to make the forum better.

I am honestly confused as to Jack's ongoing role. I understood he was wanting to back away due to frustration over a non-responsive council. If this wasn't the case, I would never have offered to step up.

That said, I think we need a lot more than what Jack has been doing, as I have outlined above. Basically, someone who is likely to be here on a daily basis, managing the social side, adding features and organizing the site and content etc. I don't see why a forum would be expected to succeed in the absence of this.

In any case, my offer stands for the time being but unless I hear strongly enough that people want this, I'm mostly assuming that the few left at the forum aren't interested.

(the doxxing has been removed but this is one conversation where moderation was otherwise needed) https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/256/new-method-i-think-hare-squared/12
https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/301/deutschland/14
https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/303/the-metadiscussion
Note that if Jack wasn't the admin of the board, and we had anyone else who was actively moderating, a better way to handle it is for a moderator to delete the post, and DM Jack to diplomatically explain why without making a big public deal.
Here is where Andy suggested improvements , we all agreed, and nothing happened. If I had the role I propose, I would have put it to an open vote (on the forum), notified the council, and unless there were objections within a week or two, made the changes:
https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/227/way-too-many-categories
I would have, separately, proposed and held a vote on changing the front page to be the "recent activity page", with a banner for links to other things at the site such as the CES forum archive.

Jack Waugh

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