My proposal for this forum

[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:

1. 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.
2. We don't waste time rehashing process and governance level conversations unless there is a specific need to do so.
3. 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.
4. We have our next Council Meeting soon. Everyone who would like to attend or volunteer, please put in your availability here.
5. 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.

1. (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

2. 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.

3. 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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[rob]

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[SaraWolk]

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[A Former User]

@rob

I like the idea of frequent polls. ...on single-winner methods (ovearall proposal merit,including enactability & implentation--not just abstract performance merit), & traditional PR systems & allocation-rules.

Yes, polls with optional choice of methods, or maybe separate simultaneous versions of the poll via various methods.

I nominate, for the polls:

Approval
Ranked-Pairs(wv)
Hare

[Lime]

@michaelossipoff I'd be happy to see some kind of poll organized comparing voting methods, and ideally published somewhere so it can be cited. We can probably pull participants from this forum, Electowiki, and the electoral-methods email list, and ideally a snowball sample of any academics we can find with experience studying voting methods.

[Jack Waugh]

Maybe we should start a new topic about polling on favored voting systems. The present topic was started by Rob Brown, who was banned by the governing council of this forum.

If we are going to meaningfully poll ourselves, with or without a larger community, I think a key thing is to discuss and agree on a fixed set of alternatives for people to opine on. Currently there are probably as many categorizations of voting systems as there are participants here, and many of the signatures address the systems by category. Without fixing on a set of "candidates", there is no way to run an "election" based on every participant giving opinions based on their categorizations. For example, if one person says she likes Score Voting, and another says he likes Approval, there is overlap between those opinions, since Approval is two-valued Score. We need to agree on a set of "candidates" before being polled. Maybe more than one poll would be useful, based on different ways of organizing the candidate systems. For example, one poll could just ask for levels of support for specific voting systems, and another could address categories of them.

[A Former User]

@lime

Lime—
Frequent polling is essential, because it demonstrates the voting-systems, & makes them concrete instead theoretical.
Polling on voting-systems, but also presidential-polls.
As was already pointed-out, though automated balloting & count would be an eventual goal, there’s no need to wait for it. Polls could be conducted right here, right now, at a polling-thread. People post their approvals, STAR-ratings & rankings.
There could be a nomination-period of a few days, for candidates in the voting-system poll & in the party presidential-poll.
…& also suggestions for methods to use. Some rank-methods could count the same rankings in their various ways, but, for some, the strategy is different, & people would have to specify which rank-count(s) their ranking(s) is/are for.
Though of course anyone could suggest, & count, any new-invention method they choose, it’s necessary that they do the counting for it.
I suggest that traditional well-known methods with some popularity, among at least some groups, are important for inclusion. They’re primary, because they’re the ones that could be enacted.
For methods for these polls, I suggest the following:

Approval
STAR
Ranked-Pairs(wv) (RP(wv) ).
Hare

I’d rank differently in RP & Hare, because RP is much more strategy-free.
Of course anyone could suggest other methods, but their value depends on their enactability.
My above-written suggestions for some methods to use in the poll (which should use various methods) are also my nominations for the “candidates”, the alternatives in the voting-system poll.
For the presidential poll, there could easily be 20 candidates. Unless someone has RP automated, I don’t know when there’d be a result, when 380 votes would have to be counted for each voter.
…
With lots of candidates, of course the Approval, STAR & Hare results would be reported long before the RP results…unless someone has RP automated.
…
Hare, STAR & Approval all have about the same count-time, which of course isn’t seriously time-consuming.
…
I’d suggest, instead of candidates, the presidential poll, at least the 1st one, should be a poll among parties.

I nominate the following 4 parties:
…
Green
…
Democrat
…
Libertarian
…
Republican

Of course anyone could nominate additional ones.
…
There’s no reason to wait, for doing this poll.
…
I invite nominations right now, for 1)Voting-systems to be used; 2) Voting systems as candidates in the voting-system poll; & 3) Political parties as candidates in the presidential poll.
…
Why delay? Start now, & post your nominations.
…
Let’s allow, say, 2 days?, for nominations.
…
,..after which approvals, STAR-ratings, RP rankings, & Hare rankings could be posted by voters, for the two polls. …& of course votes for any other proposed method that the voter chooses to participate in.

[Jack Waugh]

@michaelossipoff, I nominate Liquid Democracy. For single-winner elections (if they can't be avoided), I nominate Score{50, 49, 40, 0, -40, -49, -50}.

For single-winner elections (if they can't be avoided), I nominate a system where the voters rate the candidates as above {50, 49, 40, 0, -40, -49, -50}, but if there is a Condorcet loser (someone beaten pairwise by each other candidate), that candidate is eliminated from further consideration in the election. This is repeated until there are no more Condorcet losers. If only one candidate remains, elect her. If there are multiple, the ballots are linearly expanded to use the whole range, and the candidate having the highest total score wins.

[A Former User]

@lime

Yes, polling provides experience with the voting-systems. It makes them concrete instead of theoretical. So, frequent polling is essential.

Polling about voting-systems, but also presidential polls.

…using a variety of methods. Especially the already familiar or popular ones.

…&, why not, whatever new-invention methods anyone wants to add. Of course the proponent of that method does the counting.

The obvious popular methods to use include are
Approval, Condorcet, STAR & Hare.

For Condorcet, I suggest the winning-votes measure of defeat-strength, due to its powerful deterrent against offensive strategy.

Ranked-Pairs (RP) & Schulze are widely acknowledged as the criteria-compliance prizewinners.

RP is much more briefly defined. Also, it’s been said that the RP winner usually pairbeats the Schulze winner.

Hare should be included, even if only for its popularity. But it could work if people use it right, though I prefer Condorcet because, if you want to reliably & thoroughly avoid strategy problems, it’s necessary to elect the CW, even when s/he’s little-liked.

In any case, Hare is fine when there isn’t perceived lesser-evil giveaway need for anyone.

So those are my nominations:

Approval
RP(wv)
STAR
Hare

I nominate those 1) as methods to use in the polls; & 2) as alternatives to vote among in the voting system polls.

Condorcet requires an exhaustive pairwise-count, for which a handcount starts becoming prohibitive when the number of candidates rises to 5.

So, if we have lots of candidates, I’ll report the Approval-winner long before I report the RP winner. Hare’s handcount-time is about the same as that of Approval.

I like the suggestion to do polls via a thread here. Sure, later make balloting & count automated, but we needn’t wait for that. Just ask people to state, in the polling-thread, their approvals, their STAR ratings, & their rankings for RP, & for Hare.

(Because I believe that our candidate-lineups are dichotomous, I’d vote different rankings for RP & Hare.)

My nominations for a presidential poll.

There could be 20 candidates, so let’s limit the 1st presidential poll to parties.

I nominate:

Green
Democrat
Libertarian
Republican

There’s no reason to delay the start of this poll.

So, I invite people to post nominations right now, for a voting system poll & a party presidential poll.

If you nominate a lot of alternatives, of course the RP result will be delayed unless someone has it automated.