Suggested Modification of WA Endorsement System

[Environmental Support]

Since as it stands, 10 nations basically decide the outcome of every WA proposal.

Well, that's patently false. Just look at the vote going down in the Security Council right now.

It was meant as a bit of a hyperbole, but none the less, a majority of the against side is made up of large delegates alone. And I think I counted 10 of them. So ha, my hyperbole has a small, insignificant, sliver of truth.

[Aclion]

Well, that's patently false. Just look at the vote going down in the Security Council right now.
snip

It was meant as a bit of a hyperbole, but none the less, a majority of the against side is made up of large delegates alone. And I think I counted 10 of them. So ha, my hyperbole has a small, insignificant, sliver of truth.

I'd point out that that proposal is not representative of normal trends. It was passing with wide support by parties. The only reason it's close now is because the region was re-invaded and not everyone has switched their vote. It's a bit disingenuous to present that as normal SC practice.

[Imperium Anglorum]

It was meant as a bit of a hyperbole, but none the less, a majority of the against side is made up of large delegates alone. And I think I counted 10 of them. So ha, my hyperbole has a small, insignificant, sliver of truth.

I'd point out that that proposal is not representative of normal trends. It was passing with wide support by parties. The only reason it's close now is because the region was re-invaded and not everyone has switched their vote. It's a bit disingenuous to present that as normal SC practice.

Yes. But it is clear, however, that 10 nations do not determine the outcome of all WA proposals.

[Glen-Rhodes]

I'd point out that that proposal is not representative of normal trends. It was passing with wide support by parties. The only reason it's close now is because the region was re-invaded and not everyone has switched their vote. It's a bit disingenuous to present that as normal SC practice.

Yes. But it is clear, however, that 10 nations do not determine the outcome of all WA proposals.

That doesn't change the fact that TNP's Delegate alone can make a resolution passing by 1,000 votes actually fail by 200. Just one single person. Combine that with the advent of a multi-regional voting pacts, and it's an even more serious disparity.

It's worth noting that you probably have a conflict of interest here--- your own power and influence in the GA would wane if this was implemented.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

The question isn't really what is fair, or who deserves what, or who is owed what.

The question is what makes for the best game, and what is going to make the maximum number of people feel engaged with the game.

I'm sure those 10 people feel just awesome about having that much say, but that's far outweighed by the apathy and lack of interest of huge numbers of nations.

Here's another solution that we could see:

Don't have delegates for feeder regions. Give them a special status where you can't endorse anyone. This encourages people to move out of the feeder regions, makes the feeder regions unraidable.

And those feeder delegates who have a tonne of votes that they'll lose? Well, we've just heard how they built that power through hard work and determination (as opposed to say, being a region where new people appear, in a game where the default assumption is that you endorse the current delegate to protect your region against raiders, even if you have no idea who the delegate is). If they truly believe that their endorsements are representative of people actually endorsing their rule, they can simply say "I'm setting up a new region called Southeast Pacific. Move there and endorse me now, please". If they they retain the vast number of votes they currently have, then we know that they truly deserve those votes.

[Imperium Anglorum]

It's worth noting that you probably have a conflict of interest here--- your own power and influence in the GA would wane if this was implemented.

To echo you and Christian Democrats, that I have a conflict of interest does not invalidate the legitimacy of my arguments. Lowering delegate vote powers would have quite the strong deterrent against involvement in a WA region such as mine. I've pursued a policies to nurture WA authors with free campaigns, favourable voting, and drafting support. Change would make it harder for a region such as mine, which emphasis into helping GA authors, to recruit favourably.

Given that quite a lot of drafting doesn't occur on the GA forum anymore (see Europeia, the North Pacific, Europe though we do it via telegram), removing regional support would have the effect of disincentivising the influx of authors. Given that authors can and do move around to more favourable regions, authors not already in those regions are unlikely to be forthcoming.

All of that is to ignore the fact that change would also affect the SC. Pro-fenda supporters should be aghast at this — doing something like this would give a massive advantage to people who hold a pile of different regions and whose support is not concentrated into a few large ones.

Combine that with the advent of a multi-regional voting pacts, and it's an even more serious disparity.

The moderators have made it clear many times that multi-regional voting pacts are something which the game is designed to accommodate. If people decide every time that multi-regional voting pacts are too powerful, then you don't actually have the accommodation of multi-regional voting pacts, you have arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement of the rules.

[Glen-Rhodes]

It doesn't mean you can't make an argument against. But it should cause others to reflect on whether your argument is self-interested or unbiased.

To counter your argument, the regions with the most powerful Delegate don't actually have vibrant WA authoring communities. Your own region is home to very few authors (I can really only see you, actually!) and the forum's WA-specific area isn't used at all. TNP's drafting forums are sparsely used. The same with Europeia. Inter-regional pacts have certainly affected World Assembly voting, but your assertion that ballooning Delegate votes create regional WA activity doesn't seem to have very much evidence to back it up.

In my 8+ years of playing, it's always been authors that have been disadvantaged by this setup. They've had to try to convince a handful of players who don't participate in and largely don't care about the GA/SC drafting communities, to either vote for or not sink their resolutions. I don't know of anybody who actually considers this fun or rewarding. And it's certainly neither when your resolution fails at a single person's click of a button.

Combine that with the advent of a multi-regional voting pacts, and it's an even more serious disparity.

The moderators have made it clear many times that multi-regional voting pacts are something which the game is designed to accommodate. If people decide every time that multi-regional voting pacts are too powerful, then you don't actually have the accommodation of multi-regional voting pacts, you have arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement of the rules.

I don't really care what they've decided, and don't find it very convincing anyways. The game has been changed before due to players finding ways to make it unbalanced. WA voting isn't and shouldn't be excluded from possible re-balancing.

[Tananat]

Here's another solution that we could see:

Don't have delegates for feeder regions. Give them a special status where you can't endorse anyone. This encourages people to move out of the feeder regions, makes the feeder regions unraidable.

Why should people be encouraged to move out of feeder regions?

Also the feeder regions are already unraidable and ones like TNP who have spent the better part of the last 3 years building the biggest base of WA voters the game has ever seen - and no that's not something that happens naturally - are essentially uncoupable as well. That's taken the kind of hard work and dedication that you don't actually see all that much in this game, and it continues to this day.

On a more general note: WA Authors want rebalancing because it then becomes easier to institute the lemming effect. You just need to throw out a few campaign TGs and watch the result. Having big powerful delegates protects against this and I would argue leads to better outcomes in the WA.

[Separatist Peoples]

Here's another solution that we could see:

Don't have delegates for feeder regions. Give them a special status where you can't endorse anyone. This encourages people to move out of the feeder regions, makes the feeder regions unraidable.

Why should people be encouraged to move out of feeder regions?

Also the feeder regions are already unraidable and ones like TNP who have spent the better part of the last 3 years building the biggest base of WA voters the game has ever seen - and no that's not something that happens naturally - are essentially uncoupable as well. That's taken the kind of hard work and dedication that you don't actually see all that much in this game, and it continues to this day.

On a more general note: WA Authors want rebalancing because it then becomes easier to institute the lemming effect. You just need to throw out a few campaign TGs and watch the result. Having big powerful delegates protects against this and I would argue leads to better outcomes in the WA.

That is patently untrue. Single large delegate votes benefit the lemming effect.

What possible benefit is there to a nation remaining in a region that the game sorts them into versus searching out a player made region? What makes a game mechanic superior to player organization?

[Environmental Support]

Here's another solution that we could see:

Don't have delegates for feeder regions. Give them a special status where you can't endorse anyone. This encourages people to move out of the feeder regions, makes the feeder regions unraidable.

Why should people be encouraged to move out of feeder regions?

Also the feeder regions are already unraidable and ones like TNP who have spent the better part of the last 3 years building the biggest base of WA voters the game has ever seen - and no that's not something that happens naturally - are essentially uncoupable as well. That's taken the kind of hard work and dedication that you don't actually see all that much in this game, and it continues to this day.

On a more general note: WA Authors want rebalancing because it then becomes easier to institute the lemming effect. You just need to throw out a few campaign TGs and watch the result. Having big powerful delegates protects against this and I would argue leads to better outcomes in the WA.

I agree with your first statement, feeder regions have put in lots of time and effort to get to where they are today. However, the idea of big powerful delegates is very similar to the American political party system. The feeder and large regions, one could argue the majority, control what happens in the political system because they hold the most power, leading to the minority having little to no representation. Now the WA is nowhere near this extreme but it is still true that the majority, WA delegates of large regions, can turn the tide of voting during a split much greater than the regular people with telegrams can.

On a slightly different topic, "better outcomes" is a very subjective term. I've been pissed with the recent proposals that have been passed.

[Imperium Anglorum]

What possible benefit is there to a nation remaining in a region that the game sorts them into versus searching out a player made region? What makes a game mechanic superior to player organization?

Nations don't generally remain in their initial region. New nations get flooded with recruitment telegrams from all corners of the site. With very low barriers to entry and exit, it requires quite a lot of effort to get people to stay.

[Gruenberg]

On a more general note: WA Authors want rebalancing because it then becomes easier to institute the lemming effect.

It's much harder without big delegates stacking early in the vote, so rebalancing would have exactly the opposite effect.

Given that quite a lot of drafting doesn't occur on the GA forum anymore (see Europeia, the North Pacific, Europe though we do it via telegram), removing regional support would have the effect of disincentivising the influx of authors. Given that authors can and do move around to more favourable regions, authors not already in those regions are unlikely to be forthcoming.

None of those regions are particularly active in drafting. Historically, the most prolific regions have been Antarctic Oasis, International Democratic Union, Monkey Island - all of whose delegates were very small in endorsement count compared to the super-regions. And many other high endorsement regions, such as most of the GCRs, have almost zero drafting activity. I'm not convinced by your argument that drafting activity correlates with endorsement size.

All of that is to ignore the fact that change would also affect the SC.

OK, so just do it for the WA, and keep the existing voting mechanic for the SC.

The moderators have made it clear many times that multi-regional voting pacts are something which the game is designed to accommodate.

Admittedly, it is kind of helpful to them that the moderator deciding this is a direct beneficiary of such a pact.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

For my own part, as I've declared, I don't have interest in drafting or affecting WA stuff generally, as my time is taken up with Issues.

Mostly, I'm just thinking as if I was a gamesmaster at some huge game convention, trying to think what system would give the most fun for most of the people in the room.

I can't see that there's any fun to be had in a handful of individuals playing the WA game full on, and others getting to skirt around the edges. I think there should be a right to build delegate strength to become a powerful WA delegate, but I call bullshit on the idea that Feeder regions have earned their level of power. Being a feeder region means you get fed new players all the time, and people will endorse their current delegate just by default: I know I did when I started, and when I moved from the Pacific to 10ki, I continued that trend, endorsing my delegate just because they were my delegate.

Saying the Feeder delegates worked hard for their level of power is like saying the Queen of England works hard for the money she has. For sure, she's a conscientious and hard working lady, but its still undeniable that most of her wealth and power was given to her, and if she did nothing at all, she'd still have a load of wealth and power.

So should we abolish the monarchy? Hell, yes!

Uh... wait... I switched debates there. What I meant to say was:

So, should we change a system that gives unfair advantage to some delegates over others? Hell, yes!

[Gruenberg]

the WA game

Part of the problem stems from thinking about it in this way. There is no "WA game": there is an SC game, and a GA game, and they happen to share the same architecture.

The SC has really changed things in that it gives what were previously mostly very apathetic delegates a major incentive to get involved in voting, but they still tend to have little interest in - or knowledge of - the GA side of things. I once asked a candidate for GCR delegate - they became a player with the second or third highest amount of endorsements in the entire game - about their plans for the GA, and they were genuinely surprised as it had never even occurred to them to think about that. Yet of course they won the election. The existence of superdelegates was less problematic when those delegates mostly voted according to forum polls, voted late on in the vote, 3rd or 4th day, or didn't vote at all.

Those big delegates and their supporters will always oppose change, because they fear losing influence in the SC and not being able to commend their friends/pass liberations/block harmful liberations/etc. But that stymies any chance of change on the GA side of things, where such influence bloc voting really doesn't add anything to the game at all.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

From a tech point of view: It's hard to say that we're gonna change it, and not knowing what to change it to.

In response to this, I've updated the poll to include the 10 simplest formulas offered on this thread and by individuals who have telegrammed me.

[Wordy]

The size of the feeders is the main issue. More feeders to distribute population will reduce the strength of the WA voting blocks. No matter what changes are made there will always be regions that form a voting block and should the feeders do that it is a valid political move.
Keep changes simple and not convoluted and confusing.

[Reploid Productions]

The size of the feeders is the main issue. More feeders to distribute population will reduce the strength of the WA voting blocks. No matter what changes are made there will always be regions that form a voting block and should the feeders do that it is a valid political move.
Keep changes simple and not convoluted and confusing.

That doesn't address the imbalance that really large regions have, though. A simple change to the formula would be a much simpler and across-the-board fix than adding double the number of new GCRs, plus that also addresses the super-large UCRs out there.

[Flanderlion]

The size of the feeders is the main issue. More feeders to distribute population will reduce the strength of the WA voting blocks. No matter what changes are made there will always be regions that form a voting block and should the feeders do that it is a valid political move.
Keep changes simple and not convoluted and confusing.

That doesn't address the imbalance that really large regions have, though. A simple change to the formula would be a much simpler and across-the-board fix than adding double the number of new GCRs, plus that also addresses the super-large UCRs out there.

Why should each voice in a region with a small number of nations be worth more than the voices of those in larger regions? Hiding the world votes (while leaving players able to see their regions voting) for the first 12 or 24 hours would dramatically reduce the stacking effect, without the need to change the value of votes.

[Separatist Peoples]

That doesn't address the imbalance that really large regions have, though. A simple change to the formula would be a much simpler and across-the-board fix than adding double the number of new GCRs, plus that also addresses the super-large UCRs out there.

Why should each voice in a region with a small number of nations be worth more than the voices of those in larger regions? Hiding the world votes (while leaving players able to see their regions voting) for the first 12 or 24 hours would dramatically reduce the stacking effect, without the need to change the value of votes.

That makes it impossible to reasonably predict, as the author, what is going to happen. Which dictates whether follow-up campaigns or preemptive edits are necessary.

[Aclion]

To help with visualization I've graphed the proposed changes and the current system
Excluded are the endorsement caps, because I took my last maths class 5 years ago and have no idea how to do that.

snip

here here

It's worth noting that you probably have a conflict of interest here--- your own power and influence in the GA would wane if this was implemented.

I don't think it's advisable to bring up people's current vote counts, I'm sure IA doesn't expect to be a delegate forever, and it's just not helpful. He could just as easily argue that it is we that have a conflict of interest as we stand to gain from reducing the power of endorsement.

Why should each voice in a region with a small number of nations be worth more than the voices of those in larger regions? Hiding the world votes (while leaving players able to see their regions voting) for the first 12 or 24 hours would dramatically reduce the stacking effect, without the need to change the value of votes.

Remember that every WA member also get a vote of their own. What's being proposed is curbing the power of large delegates compared to both smaller delegates(who; as a tangent are better able to represent their supporters, purely by virtue of having fewer of them) and individual member nation. The reason for this vary but the general goal is to make the WA more accessible to everyone, including members of large regions.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

To help with visualization I've graphed the proposed changes and the current system
Excluded are the endorsement caps, because I took my last maths class 5 years ago and have no idea how to do that.

I think it's more important to understand how a new endorsement system would affect the votes of the WA as a whole, rather than individual nations's votes.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

Yes. But it is clear, however, that 10 nations do not determine the outcome of all WA proposals.

That doesn't change the fact that TNP's Delegate alone can make a resolution passing by 1,000 votes actually fail by 200. Just one single person. Combine that with the advent of a multi-regional voting pacts, and it's an even more serious disparity.

In fact, if Plembobria changed their vote from "for" to "against" (as occurred with Compliance Commission), a resolution passing by 2200 votes would be failing by 200.

[The Kolam Brotherhood]

I believe we should reduce the delegates with over 62 endorsements' votes to 1/2 of their endorsements, rounding down to the nearest oneth. For delegates with under 62 endorsements, their votes can be for 3/5 of their endorsements, rounding down to the nearest oneth. This will better represent the nations as well as the individual regions.

The Kolam Method:
If e=>62, then v=1+e(1/2), delegates only
If e=<62, then v=1+e(3/5), delegates only

[Nilla Wayfarers]

I believe we should reduce the delegates with over 62 endorsements' votes to 1/2 of their endorsements, rounding down to the nearest oneth. For delegates with under 62 endorsements, their votes can be for 3/5 of their endorsements, rounding down to the nearest oneth. This will better represent the nations as well as the individual regions.

The Kolam Method:
If e=>62, then v=e(1/2), delegates only
If e=<62, then v=e(3/5), delegates only

Don't forget the +1 for the vote that they already have before endorsements.

[The Kolam Brotherhood]

I believe we should reduce the delegates with over 62 endorsements' votes to 1/2 of their endorsements, rounding down to the nearest oneth. For delegates with under 62 endorsements, their votes can be for 3/5 of their endorsements, rounding down to the nearest oneth. This will better represent the nations as well as the individual regions.

The Kolam Method:
If e=>62, then v=e(1/2), delegates only
If e=<62, then v=e(3/5), delegates only

Don't forget the +1 for the vote that they already have before endorsements.

Just did so.