The WA Voting Bias

[Britarvia]

To many Liberals

[The FTR]

I can't stand auto-clicking either. I say that we put up a new resolution after the old one is over that is the polar opposite IE: Support Animal Cruelty. People who voted yes or no for both should have their voting history looked at, and then these nations should be contacted.

[Alevuss]

I think a lot of this is to do with people merely reading the numbers for and the numbers against. Why not keep them secret until the voting ends. This is what happens in any other voting system, so why not do it here. This way people would actually have to read the resolution rather than simply saying, "lot's of votes 'for', I'll go with that."

This too. I do that sometimes if I don't understand the resolution.

To many Liberals

Not enough Libbies.

[Yuktova]

I hate it when a good WA Resolution gets passed for let's say, improvement of civil rights. Then after a few days, it gets repealed just because one clause didn't match up, and ALL of the article is ignored. With that being said, I could say clones have absolutely no rights, and are given the death penalty, when in the repeal it mention nothing of this, and in the article it did. That gets me so mad!

[Knootoss]

I would like to point out that all the reasons mentioned, together, contribute to sometimes idiotic outcomes in the World Assembly. I have decided to illustrate the principle by means of a diagram:

(Image)

It should be noted that serious people can still have legitimate policy disagreements, and split their vote.

I would like to know your definition of fluffies before making comments

"Fluffies" are a type of World Assembly voter. The term is used by many World Assembly "regulars" to describe bleeding hearts. You don't have to make a rational argument to convince of a fluffie, as long as you appeal to them emotionally. All you need to do to get the fluffy vote, is to create a moral panic in the pre-ambulatory lines and then present your half-assed solution in the closing statement. Fluffies will ALWAYS vote for human rights and social justice resolutions, no matter how ill-conceived. They can easily be won over by implying that a failure to vote for your resolution will somehow, indirectly, hurt children. Or the resolution could do anything that involves cute animals, really.

'Animal Cruelty Prevention' is a good example of a resolution that can count on the fluffy vote, because sensible arguments about poorly written clauses will not defer them from voting to stop HURTING POOR BUNNIES. In that sense, fluffies can also be lemmings.

Unibot isn't really a fluffy, but it is his natural core vote.

[Knootoss]

Ah yes.. and this gentle(wo)man here arrived just in time to provide an example of a genuine fluffy-style argument:

I hate it when a good WA Resolution gets passed for let's say, improvement of civil rights. Then after a few days, it gets repealed just because one clause didn't match up, and ALL of the article is ignored. With that being said, I could say clones have absolutely no rights, and are given the death penalty, when in the repeal it mention nothing of this, and in the article it did. That gets me so mad!

Poor clones. All killed. Just because the meanie old NatSovs pointed out the glaring flaws in a resolution.

[Yuanfen]

I would like to point out that all the reasons mentioned, together, contribute to sometimes idiotic outcomes in the World Assembly. I have decided to illustrate the principle by means of a diagram:

(Image)

It should be noted that serious people can still have legitimate policy disagreements, and split their vote.

I don't understand this graph - are the fluffers for the lemmings or the trolls?

[Yuktova]

Ah yes.. and this gentle(wo)man here arrived just in time to provide an example of a genuine fluffy-style argument:

I hate it when a good WA Resolution gets passed for let's say, improvement of civil rights. Then after a few days, it gets repealed just because one clause didn't match up, and ALL of the article is ignored. With that being said, I could say clones have absolutely no rights, and are given the death penalty, when in the repeal it mention nothing of this, and in the article it did. That gets me so mad!

Poor clones. All killed. Just because the meanie old NatSovs pointed out the glaring flaws in a resolution.

I was using that resolution as an example. Just saying, I don't like it when very good ideas get repealed. If they do, they should be replaced with fair, better versions of it.

[[violet]]

This situation is very common in real-life, though. Voters & lawmakers frequently have to choose between imperfect legislation or nothing. That's politics.

I suspect that if you could amend resolutions, WA votes would be far more rubber-stampy, because almost every proposed amendment would be a clear minor improvement. It would also encourage rough first drafts to be put up as resolutions, and passed with the thinking that it can always be improved later.

[Alevuss]

This situation is very common in real-life, though. Voters & lawmakers frequently have to choose between imperfect legislation or nothing. That's politics.

I suspect that if you could amend resolutions, WA votes would be far more rubber-stampy, because almost every proposed amendment would be a clear minor improvement. It would also encourage rough first drafts to be put up as resolutions, and passed with the thinking that it can always be improved later.

Yeah. We've been talking about this in my region: Saying that the WA should be changed to allow amendments to Resolutions, not deleting them and letting the entire Resolution lie at wayside, when it only had minor problems.

[Knootoss]

Violet was actually arguing the opposite point, I believe.

[Hassett]

Just use the R-Rule for method of voting: roll call vote. Individual telegrams to all WA nations.

I kid, I kid, that would get annoying.

[Lordieth]

True Violet, but in real life politicians have a level of accountability - actions can have career affecting consequences.

I think the graphs are a great opportunity to give the WA foundations a bit of a poke though. I'd be interested to see if an entirely legal yet completely ridiculous resolution could pass solely on the basis of popularity - like a well known meme. Something so utterly pointless that would only serve to waste time. It would need to be entirely within rules, mind, and be allowed to get to vote. It's only when consequences and responsibility are on a fair level that we can draw a reasonable comparison. When one is higher than the other any bias is exacerbated. If there is a strong bias that is. The graphs could track the trend of such a lemming resolution.

[Yuanfen]

This situation is very common in real-life, though. Voters & lawmakers frequently have to choose between imperfect legislation or nothing. That's politics.

I suspect that if you could amend resolutions, WA votes would be far more rubber-stampy, because almost every proposed amendment would be a clear minor improvement. It would also encourage rough first drafts to be put up as resolutions, and passed with the thinking that it can always be improved later.

Good points. This gets right to the heart of why every law that comes out of the US congress these days is in the neighborhood of 1000 pages

Also speaks to why the UN doesnt do amendments. It leaves the question, must politics always come down to choosing the imperfect or nothing, can't there be some kind of middle way? (careful, there are Buddhists listening)

NS doesn't have an executive branch, except insomuch as the mods and admins do some meta-things along those lines, and WA serves as a legislative branch, kindasorta, so maybe the answer is in the general direction of WA resolutions that don't try to close an infinite number of loopholes, but just assert a general principle, then when the loopholes do come up, there could be a world court chartered to interpret the spirit, not the letter, of the resolution. Of course the make-up, term limits, powers, etc of this court is a whole other set of questions.

Seems unlikely that the enforcement of any resolution, or the escalation to a court case, will ever be an actual concern, and this is certainly not a proposal of any sort - just the kind of thing that I would imagine some of the people here like to kick around the pro/con about, as a kind of political junky kind of thing?

[Mahaj WA Seat]

Ah yes.. and this gentle(wo)man here arrived just in time to provide an example of a genuine fluffy-style argument:

I hate it when a good WA Resolution gets passed for let's say, improvement of civil rights. Then after a few days, it gets repealed just because one clause didn't match up, and ALL of the article is ignored. With that being said, I could say clones have absolutely no rights, and are given the death penalty, when in the repeal it mention nothing of this, and in the article it did. That gets me so mad!

Poor clones. All killed. Just because the meanie old NatSovs pointed out the glaring flaws in a resolution.

I don't believe it was the old NatSovs that did it, but some crap repeal by a someone who just submitted it and it got pushed through.

[Yuktova]

This situation is very common in real-life, though. Voters & lawmakers frequently have to choose between imperfect legislation or nothing. That's politics.

I suspect that if you could amend resolutions, WA votes would be far more rubber-stampy, because almost every proposed amendment would be a clear minor improvement. It would also encourage rough first drafts to be put up as resolutions, and passed with the thinking that it can always be improved later.

Yeah. We've been talking about this in my region: Saying that the WA should be changed to allow amendments to Resolutions, not deleting them and letting the entire Resolution lie at wayside, when it only had minor problems.

I agree with both Violet and Alevuss. Most people would propose resolutions but in draft form, and hope/wait for improvements later on. Maybe we could have a segment where only part of the law is null and only the parts that were not said to be incorrect be allowed to still be void.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

You don't agree with [violet]. She was arguing against amendments as their allowance would weaken legislative drafts.

[Flibbleites]

Taking information away from people that they've previously had access to, isn't generally a good idea. Yes, the 'lemming effect' does exist, but it's not a major problem, and it can be overcome.

Make a resolution under something like"WA voting reforms" If you're correct about the scale of the problem all you need to do is get it to the floor for voting.

Spoken like someone who hasn't read the Proposal Rules, otherwise you'd know that you can't change how the game works via WA proposal.

[Christian Democrats]

A direct link to the debate thread for the resolution at vote above the vote buttons.

This is the only suggestion that I like.

I don't believe this happens. People almost always have a good reason for voting the way they do. Track down a few nations and ask them why they voted that way; you'll get reasons.

The key phrase is "almost always." When I launched a telegram campaign against "On Abortion," I encountered one delegate who votes solely based on the form of proposals. I kid you not. (I wish I had saved his response to my telegram.)

there could be a world court

I've argued for a supreme court of game moderators in the past (but for a different reason, i.e., to have a more open system for ruling on the legality of proposals), and no one likes the idea.

-----------

I still think we should have a repeal & replace option for General Assembly proposals; however, there would have to be a requirement for the replacement to make significant changes.

[Yuktova]

Yes, there would have to be changes, little changes for some. Large ones for others. And sometimes you have to scrap it entirely. But if only a few things are wrong, then don't scrap it entirely, but change it little by little.

[Unibot II]

I would like to know your definition of fluffies before making comments

"Fluffies" are a type of World Assembly voter. The term is used by many World Assembly "regulars" to describe bleeding hearts. You don't have to make a rational argument to convince of a fluffie, as long as you appeal to them emotionally. All you need to do to get the fluffy vote, is to create a moral panic in the pre-ambulatory lines and then present your half-assed solution in the closing statement. Fluffies will ALWAYS vote for human rights and social justice resolutions, no matter how ill-conceived. They can easily be won over by implying that a failure to vote for your resolution will somehow, indirectly, hurt children. Or the resolution could do anything that involves cute animals, really.

'Animal Cruelty Prevention' is a good example of a resolution that can count on the fluffy vote, because sensible arguments about poorly written clauses will not defer them from voting to stop HURTING POOR BUNNIES. In that sense, fluffies can also be lemmings.

Unibot isn't really a fluffy, but it is his natural core vote.

AKA, "Fluffies" are people who vote for resolutions that Knootoss doesn't agree with.

[Jagalonia]

True Violet, but in real life politicians have a level of accountability - actions can have career affecting consequences.

I think the graphs are a great opportunity to give the WA foundations a bit of a poke though. I'd be interested to see if an entirely legal yet completely ridiculous resolution could pass solely on the basis of popularity - like a well known meme. Something so utterly pointless that would only serve to waste time. It would need to be entirely within rules, mind, and be allowed to get to vote. It's only when consequences and responsibility are on a fair level that we can draw a reasonable comparison. When one is higher than the other any bias is exacerbated. If there is a strong bias that is. The graphs could track the trend of such a lemming resolution.

You mean...Like Max Barry Day?

[Bears Armed]

True Violet, but in real life politicians have a level of accountability - actions can have career affecting consequences.

I think the graphs are a great opportunity to give the WA foundations a bit of a poke though. I'd be interested to see if an entirely legal yet completely ridiculous resolution could pass solely on the basis of popularity - like a well known meme. Something so utterly pointless that would only serve to waste time. It would need to be entirely within rules, mind, and be allowed to get to vote. It's only when consequences and responsibility are on a fair level that we can draw a reasonable comparison. When one is higher than the other any bias is exacerbated. If there is a strong bias that is. The graphs could track the trend of such a lemming resolution.

You mean...Like Max Barry Day?

That wasn't "entirely legal", though...

[Licana]

I don't think I'm the only one who thinks there is a lot of auto-click behaviour on resolutions at vote, with a fair few nations voting FOR without really reading the resolution. Is there a way we could cut down on this? A few ideas;

- Turn the For/Against into a text box with manual vote typing How would this work, exactly?

- Include a 'have you read and understood the resolution?' Tick Box, required to be ticked to make a vote. I think this would be as effective as the "are you over 18" prompt on pornographic websites if this really is that much of a problem, to be honest.

- Flipping the FOR/AGAINST button placements around randomly. I could see this potentially having some effect, but since you can change your vote, it might not.

- A direct link to the debate thread for the resolution at vote above the vote buttons. Even thought they aren't that hard to find, I'd go with this.

- Prevent 'instant' voting by putting in a timer when a resoulution comes to vote (e.g Voting to Commence in; 30 Minutes). I think this may work, but it would require an increase in the amount of time the issue was up, or a decrease in overall voting time. Also, the time period required would have to be fairly long for it to be remotely effective, due to not every WA member being on at the same time in anticipation of the upcoming vote.

Just a few ideas to throw around.

I've added my own responses (in red) to some of the ideas you had. Now, my reasoning may be off (as I'm not a regular in either the General Assembly or Security Council), as to some of the reasons for/against some of what you presented, so bear with my ignorance.

[Lordieth]

Licana, I appreciate the constructive critisism. In response to the manual text box; you would input (type) the word 'for' or 'against' manually, as a way to curb insta-votes from blind voters. I don't profess that all those ideas are good ones, so i'd welcome any suggestions that could help improve upon them or better them entirely.

The direct resolution linking does seems the most warmly received idea there; easiest to implement and doesn't change the WA system itself. However its benefits are untested. I would hope it increases resolution debate. I do recognise the argument that it may further centralise discussion on the NS forum though.