A Land Far Away

Staff usergroups (important since keyed to voting rights) have been changing unannounced over the last 24ish hours, most recently within the last hour.

The only staff noticed as changing a fair bit seem to have been:

Miz cut from PA team
Danielmn cut from PA team (ok that one WAS announced)
Rotku added to PA team
Maxcell added to PA team
Regas added to PA team (welcome back Regas, haven't seen ya in months)

I quit DMA team before the election, so that part of the list is accurate.

....

Note this is NOT an integrity attack. This might just be to reflect new people picking up duties, without any intention to vote.

This is a call to get KMJ or whoever is supposed to be keeping the whole "election process" on an even keel, as perhaps the sole editor of the various usergroups that feed into the ultimate polling activities. I know all Admin have edit rights for convenience, but it's not worth exercising without explanation at this time (i.e., "cleanup" looks a hell of a lot like "stacking the deck", even when innocent).

Again, people can quit positions left and right and lose voting rights during an election, but gaining them has historically, been forbidden.

To sum up the changes, as far as I am aware:
Miz stepped down from AR Head. Replaced by Regas.
Daniel stepped down from Admissions Head. Replaced by Max.
Rotku was appointed Documents Head.

You are completely correct in saying that the voting rights cannot be changed during an election; however to my understanding it was more during the voting phase itself. To quote the CC forum "Any made after the start of a voting cycle will not be made until the end of that election."

Smells like conspiracy to me!

I've already informed Admin that as per policy, additions to the usergroup after the election cycle began won't get their vote. To my knowledge, we've never had a question about whether the candidacy declarations or the voting cycle actually begin the election cycle, but I would think the former, since the policy in place is meant to avoid even the appearance of vote stacking. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to PM all the people in question before taking a few hours off ALFA for RL.

Thanks.

Again, good to have people in the varied positions, but since Usergroups are where "entitlements" tie as far as determining viewer vs. participant status in a poll, I guess there's a balance to be struck between having someone in a UG so they can see Staff only forums to pick up tasks, and accidentally ending up with the ability to vote, which might cause confusion and the need to "back out" ineligible voters.

Also, welcome back Regas, heh, only name I'd not seen active since about Nov / Dec '07. I didn't even know we had active AR's anymore.

Pretty standard to straighten out the voter rolls before an election- otherwise you get problems with votes cast by people who've long since left their posts, or currently serving staffers/DMs/etc who can't vote when they should be able to. I believe in past days we on the CC always tended to nudge Admin to update info on who was in the Staff Head spots if there were vacancies leading up to the election (or if those in some of the seats hadn't been seen since before last election, etc). Ditto for HDMs and their higher-turnover (and more frequently vacant EADMs).

We try to think of many unlikely scenarios and keep them accounted-for in terms of charter-directed voting rules, but the Admin resignation (and related staff resignations) immediately followed by a re-election bid in which those resigning would have had a vote- I wouldn't say it was something we'd expected to see. What would be dodgy would be something like Lead exercising the right to appoint interim DMA staffers to fill in until the election, effectively stacking the vacant DMA's seats with choice voters. As far as I know, nothing of the sort has happened.

I guess one could say- if you're an admin who is going to quit but then run for re-election right afterwards, tell your staffers not to quit with you if you still want their votes to count.

But if someone wants to say it's inappropriate to fill a vacancy in Admissions Head, less than a week before OAS2 Live, because of an election, that would be pretty ridiculous, as would be suggesting that whoever stepped up to try to fill those shoes at such a critical time didn't deserve a say in who the next DMA was going to be.

[edit: if Wynna says the new staffers won't vote, then that can be extra assurance, I guess. To my memory the freeze of the voting roles has always been at the opening of the polls itself (I recall a few times when Cassiel had to be nudged to look over the permissions before I could post the polls).]

To start with, if people are questioning the fairness of this, I won't vote.

However, in FIs defence, this change is something that we have been discussing since during the PA elections, before she was actaully voted in - it's not just something that has come up to try and stack the votes against a candidate.

However, in saying that, I disagree with Wynna's assumption. Liam, in his thread in the CC forum which has been keeping track of voting since Aug 05, clearly refers to the VOTING cycle, as opposed to the ELECTION cycle. If you take a look at the final paragraph in his post, you will see he says:

Please post here if something needs updated; requests made prior to the start of an election will count for that election. Any made after the start of a voting cycle will not be made until the end of that election.

Other than that, I can find no further reference to the fact that the voting status of people cannot be changed during an election. If someone can point me towards where it mentions the election cycle as opposed to the voting cycle, I would be interested in reading it.

If it's merely something we're just getting around to documenting now, but was in effect before, then I suppose you get to vote.

But if people are just getting appointed, maybe it would be best if they stood down from voting.

I hardly think it is the case here that there is some sort of shenanigans goingon. I don't think that's what Brokenbone is trying to say either. Burt's nose is broken.

But Brokenbone does have a point in that the appearance of impropriety can, perhaps, be just as bad as actual impropriety.

Only those eligible voters on the public list on the day the election is called get to vote. Anything else just looks dodgy.

Well someone could have just PMd me about this.

The list got updated because Wynna made a post asking us to update it. I hadn't even thought of the thing until she mentioned it.

For transparency's sake, Rotku and I have been discussing documentation and his part in it since my inception as PA. Officially, he became head of documentation on March 21st when he accepted the position via PM.

Maxcell volunteered and was accepted as Head of Admissions after he heard that Daniel had quit due to the recent unpleasantness. This was on March 22.

MizBiz has been inactive from the community for a while and did not respond to the AR roll call, which I put out in the first week of February. Regas is actually still considering the position. He is the most recently active AR, and I have spoken with him in the past couple of weeks.

These people are being put into these positions for the contributions they can make in these offices. If they can vote or cannot vote is not a concern of mine. The work of the PA's office must continue in this critical time in the weeks before we go live regardless of whether there is an election going on or not.

All well and good, but...

FanaticusIncendi wrote:The work of the PA's office must continue in this critical time in the weeks before we go live regardless of whether there is an election going on or not.

no. No one, even admin, may disregard the requirements of elections. All admin should appreciate the absolute necessity of election integrity both in fact and appearance.

That said, it has been historical practice to allow the voter list to change up until the actual vote has begun. If this is deemed unsuitable, then limits on changes should be made explicit as to what are desired.

Fluff/Rotku/AL, if you can point to history or precedent in which a change to the voter's list has taken place after candidacy statements were solicited, then I will restore the three Department Heads I removed from the user group. I, however, believe that voting rights should be disallowed once candidacy statements are solicited. It would be nice, though, if our new department heads actually had staff access to do their jobs. FI's, right, also, I asked her to add them to the CC list of Department Heads, which does not mechanically allow voting but is a traditional forum for determining who should be in the user groups that do allow voting. The fact that we need department heads, especially an Admission Head, at this critical juncture before live, outweighs the confusion it causes.

Tangentially to all of this, Rusty informed me via PM the other day that two ADMs are having DNS problems and must be accorded the chance to vote. I responded that we would do what was in our power to ensure that everybody enfranchised had the ability. I'm not sure if they still are having issues, but after thought I've come to the conclusion that it is not my place to email people at their homes to get out the vote. Nor will I be accepting email votes. Bad precedent, bad form. In this day of friends, work, school and internet cafes with functioning connections, anybody with DNS issues from their home account or on holiday or otherwise completely away from their home account has every opportunity in the week of the election and the four days of the runoff to find a portal into ALFA's forums and register their vote. Alternatively, something called a proxy account is posted in chat, which apparently may offer connection. Additionally, if you know Viigas or Arkan well enough to email them, please let them know that they have a week to find another access point. I have every confidence that if they wish to, they can.

*Edited to add "week of the election and four days of the runoff"

I know Arkan (and Iarwain, who had the same problem) has been able to get proxy access to the website, and although viigas has, as yet, not, he's hoping that Iarwain can walk him through the process in the next day or so.

Years ago when I was CC head, I permitted changes during the nomination period. I don't recall instances since the names didn't matter to me, only the rule mattered. My impression is that Cassiel did the same, though you would have to ask him to be sure. I vaguely recall getting one individual in a voting usergroup in haste during the nom period to be sure they got their vote before the voting had begun.

The reason this all started was not to avoid deck-stacking per se, but also just to maintain consistency. This of course implies no burden on current or future practice, it was merely how it was done before. As long as the list doesn't change during the actual vote I don't think its that big a deal, but I don't care so much as long as everybody is on the same page.

Oh, and the first round of voting only lasts 4 days with a 3-day second round.

fluffmonster wrote:

FanaticusIncendi wrote:The work of the PA's office must continue in this critical time in the weeks before we go live regardless of whether there is an election going on or not.

no. No one, even admin, may disregard the requirements of elections. All admin should appreciate the absolute necessity of election integrity both in fact and appearance.

Fluff! That is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen you write!!!

Basically, in it's entirety, it's a statement saying we don't need these people to vote, voting isn't the point, but we DO need people like... oh, I don't know... an Admission's Head. And there you are, picking the one piece of the statement, separating it from the portion that speaks of voting, and then refuting it like it's an independent thought.

Of course you shouldn't disregard the requirements of the elections, but I think that's pretty much implied in the first part:

These people are being put into these positions for the contributions they can make in these offices. If they can vote or cannot vote is not a concern of mine.

Whether they can or cannot vote sounds like a concern for the CC, which is in the Lead's Domain. PA just needs people to do the job. You are silly for suggesting otherwise. SILLY, I SAY!





You are a weird.