[Smokin]

There has been at least two cases now where a poll was run where it was either tied or it was so close (3%) where it was difficult to say one way or another. What should the policy be? Should a poll to change policy have a requirement of a certain percentage difference difference to allow it to change policy? Of course this is excluded if only 10 people vote. Voter turnout is the member's responsibility.

<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="http://www.viperalley.com/dopoll.php"><INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="pollname" VALUE="1043028934SmokinV10">


Should a poll with at least 20 votes that is very close count?
<input type="radio" name="option" value="1" />Yes, always
<input type="radio" name="option" value="2" />Yes, but only if the difference is >5%
<INPUT TYPE=Submit NAME=Submit VALUE="Submit vote" class="buttons"></form>

 

[Smokin]

by the way I chose the value of 20 votes because if not enough people bother to vote, each vote starts to weigh too much, causing the possibilites of "stalemates" to become too common on unpopular polls where the topic is not "hot"

 

[King GTS]

I say if the poll says 11-10 then 11 wins. If the President of the U.S. wins by (1) vote, he's the new President.

 

[Smokin]

Trey I agree with you, but some have expressed hesistation inusing this approach.

 

[vipernathan]

What if this poll ends with a majority of <5% ??

 

[Smokin]

Well according to this poll, if the race is within 5%, the situation remains unchanged.

 

[City]

It is still apparent that much of our site's populous do NOT vote. I think that if we were not to honor a vote despite the slightest of majorities, we would even loose the interest of those that do take the 3 seconds to vote. If we bother to post it, we have to honor it. My HO.

 

[pj]

ELections are won and lost by one vote. People who dont vote cant say they werent given a chance, so I say a win is a win.

 

[par]

I completely agree. In particular i don't think that a close vote means that a rule should be "soften" in any way.

However, with the limited amount of voting going on in here we don't get enough people voting to get a statistically correct sample i.e. the error bars are very high. So as much as i think that a majority is a majority, i also belive that Smoke did the right call when the vote was less than 5% apart to declare the vote "too close to call". For votes with less than let's say 20 people we won't reflect the membership accurately if we use simple majority.

For this reason, i support that votes with less than 20 votes should have an absolute 10% margin to pass or it should be declared to close to call. I think that it is in the best interest of the members to use a system of absolute majority instead of simple majority when the voter turnout is really low.

my few cents...

 

[Smokin]

I have to agree here as well. I am, however putting up this poll at the request of some members who were rather "passionate" about the post whoring poll outcome. I did vote for "yes, always"

 

[par]

Hmm... We do have a bit of conundrum here... There's only 15 people voting. But its a 73% vs 26% majority (rounding error) so i think it's fair to say that this vote is statistically significant. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[King GTS]

I completely agree. In particular i don't think that a close vote means that a rule should be "soften" in any way.

However, with the limited amount of voting going on in here we don't get enough people voting to get a statistically correct sample i.e. the error bars are very high. So as much as i think that a majority is a majority, i also belive that Smoke did the right call when the vote was less than 5% apart to declare the vote "too close to call". For votes with less than let's say 20 people we won't reflect the membership accurately if we use simple majority.

For this reason, i support that votes with less than 20 votes should have an absolute 10% margin to pass or it should be declared to close to call. I think that it is in the best interest of the members to use a system of absolute majority instead of simple majority when the voter turnout is really low.

my few cents... <hr /></blockquote>

I do not agree. I feel that everyone here knows how the system works. I for one, go out of my way to let them know how, when, and where, to vote and participate. We've even changed the location of this forum to stress the importance of this section. You can't make people vote. I can't stress that enough. And at the same time, you can't punish those that did take the time to vote and let their voice be heard, by making their vote in-effective because "everyone" isn't voting. I feel that when rules and policy's are implemented that some disagree with, then they'll start to be more active in our system. Possibly even over turning an existing rule that they previously hadn't voted on. (1) man/person = (1) vote. 6 to 5 means 6 - 5 just as much if it were 155 to 154. It's convaluted logic not to impose the will of the people, the ones that wanted to participate, simply because some members had no interest in voting. No flames intended. Just my honest opinion & observation.

 

[par]

Are you sure you want this?

Using this logic, by a slim margin -about 3%, you are supposed to lock threads that you consider don't add value to this site (PostWhoring). This is a highly subjective task, i can see a lot of posts/topic that i think are interesting and subjective that others see no value in at all. I don't want to be accused of waving a magic wand just because i don't care for the content. Trolling is obviously another topic, we already have rules in place for that, but big picture do you really want to have such sweeping changes based on a vote whose outcome can be decided on a statistical error? I would have no qualms about closing topics if the members would have said 60% vs. 40% that this is what they wanted, but with such a small margin, and so few voters this is statistically insignificant. Let's not forget that we are supposed to look out for the greater good of all members, including the ones who doesn't vote. If we don't do that, i'm afraid we'll have votes and re-votes ad nauseum and i don't think anyone really wants that.

I still think that Smoke made the right choice when he decided that there are too many people divided over this issue that without a clearer signal from the members it's too close to call.

-Par

 

[par]

What if this poll ends with a majority of <5% ?? <hr /></blockquote>

As things look right now 75% vs. 25% i'd say we have a real majority.
There is no doubt what the members want /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-Par

 

[Smokin]

Well this poll has another 3 hours and then its official. We should be able to lock post whoring threads.

 

[Smokin]

The overwhelming majority voted in favor of a policy where NO margin that is too small for for a poll to be implemented. This will be the site's policy moving forward. Thank you for voting.