Elections?

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Wynna
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Re: Elections?

Post by Wynna »

Please stop. All of you. You are reviving an 'us against them' environment, and I don't mean kid vs. admin. I mean people who abuse each other vs. the rest of ALFA who came here to play.

If I can help in any way, I would be happy to, in a private mediating chat room. There is merit to both sides, and I would like to return to a time a few days ago when I had a player who is integral to my campaign and an admin integral to my ability to put that campaign before players. And a community that all are part of, and to which I came back last year in the hopes of building a story.
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Re: Elections?

Post by Duck One »

Wynna wrote:Please stop. All of you. You are reviving an 'us against them' environment, and I don't mean kid vs. admin. I mean people who abuse each other vs. the rest of ALFA who came here to play.

If I can help in any way, I would be happy to, in a private mediating chat room. There is merit to both sides, and I would like to return to a time a few days ago when I had a player who is integral to my campaign and an admin integral to my ability to put that campaign before players. And a community that all are part of, and to which I came back last year in the hopes of building a story.
I would listen to the Wynna. She is going to get her way sooner or later, and you all know it, so might as well be sooner. Besides, she is kind of making some sense.
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Ithildur
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Re: Elections?

Post by Ithildur »

There's been an underlying sense of 'us vs them' as described above in recent weeks/months in various conversations I've had. It's destructive to a community if left unchecked; at some point a meeting to clear the air/raise concerns/reassure may be healthy.

I'm sure folks might say it's nothing new in ALFA; the difference is, with a smaller community things like this have more obvious/immediate impact if not dealt with.
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Re: Elections?

Post by FoamBats4All »

We're all still part of the same community. The sky is not falling. Kid is grumpy. He'll calm down. I doubt a private chat will help him any, though I'm available to join one if Wynna thinks it will help.

My absence in Wynna's campaign has come from oversleeping and (for this weekend) Father's Day. I still look forward to playing with Kid's smelly orc bastard when I can.

I'm not sure what people mean by the "us vs them" mentality. Sure, ALFA has had its cliques, but we more or less come together and play. Will Kid and I disagree? If the past years have been any indication, yes, yes we will. Do Kid and I play together? At times.
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Re: Elections?

Post by Zelknolf »

I don't think the "us vs. them" in this thread is about cliques.
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kid
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Re: Elections?

Post by kid »

Wynna wrote:Please stop. All of you. You are reviving an 'us against them' environment, and I don't mean kid vs. admin. I mean people who abuse each other vs. the rest of ALFA who came here to play.

If I can help in any way, I would be happy to, in a private mediating chat room. There is merit to both sides, and I would like to return to a time a few days ago when I had a player who is integral to my campaign and an admin integral to my ability to put that campaign before players. And a community that all are part of, and to which I came back last year in the hopes of building a story.
Thanks Wynna, I find that sweet and mature and ... whatever, all kinda other stuff that I am not.

I feel my admins are cheating (or came damn near close to it), and I feel they have zero willingness to acknowledge it or take responsibility for it, or even care enough to alleviate suspicious.

I think what was done here was a one of a kind event that should not take place, and I find it hard... (maybe i'm a righteous bastard, I don't know...) to ignore it and play a game when I can't respect the people running it.

Yeah, it sucks, I don't want to drag other people into it and ruin their fun.
You're all free to look the other way and hope/pretend/believe/actually think that nothing wrong happened.

And Zelk, thanks for the attempts to reply, they are appreciated.
I still only want simple things:
Conformation that you can change a vote (not by some gut feeling, but actual)
Conformation that IA can do it if he feels like it (And ask conformation later - something that from experience you refuse to do when it comes to trivial things, let alone when it comes to given your buddies election wins)
Conformation that a vote was ever changed for reasons that are not technical.

Just give me one of these, anything, to allow me to believe this was not just blunt cheating. Even an: "I know it looks bad, but I really thought I was allowed to do it... Sorry!" would have helped. Because honestly I have no issues with the result of the elections. The people willing and capable to do the work are doing it, which is great.
However continuing to claim this is justified just means I can't trust current ALFA officials. If I cannot do that it influences my desire to be a part of this community.
// so I guess i'm being selfish here. I need to find a reason to trust you guys in order to enjoy ALFA and you are not really helping me out.
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Re: Elections?

Post by FoamBats4All »

kid wrote:I still only want simple things:
Conformation that you can change a vote (not by some gut feeling, but actual)
This is vague. According to HEEGZ, yes, you can change a vote.
kid wrote:Conformation that IA can do it if he feels like it (And ask conformation later - something that from experience you refuse to do when it comes to trivial things, let alone when it comes to given your buddies election wins)
Well, the IA has direct database access. This is a website. So, yes. I am physically capable of altering the database.

Should I? No. If I ever do it other than to solve a tech issue (such as Rumple not being able to change his vote), if I abuse the power, I deserve to be banned. Good thing I've better things to do than reshape elections, give myself free XP/GP, read PMs, shadowban you, etc., and I have no interest in cheating. I am capable of editing your post to say "I am a pretty pony". That doesn't mean that I have, should, or will.
kid wrote:Conformation that a vote was ever changed for reasons that are not technical.
Depends on what you mean? HEEGZ lets people change votes. People can change votes. It's logical, seems solid moral ground, and has precedent. I consider it technical (well, in our naming scheme, infrastructure). Rumple and I exchanged a handful of communications before the vote was actually changed.

You still operate on the assumption/accusation that I'm cheating, despite multiple sources directly involved trying to reassure you. I'm not cheating. I acknowledge that I changed Rumple's vote, because I tried a couple of times to let him change it himself without much success. I did so at his request. I am no more guilty of cheating than I am if I clean up some posts (like, actual cleaning up -- not what Boom did with deleting posts he didn't like).

I hope whatever is above helps you in some way.
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Re: Elections?

Post by Zelknolf »

kid wrote:allow me to believe this was not just blunt cheating.
A couple points to consider--
-- If you just want thoughts on this one, admin are not actually a clique. It's a nice fiction, because believing that there's a powerful cabal running everything is believing that the world is controlled and purposeful, and that means it can be granularly controlled, if only our own pals could get the power! But that's just not reality. Passionate and active people rarely agree with each other, and current admin are no exception-- I fundamentally disagree with shad0wfax about what it means to govern and what the primary goals of community leadership should be. I'd be lying if I posted some nonsense about the candidates being equally good; also a pleasant fiction, but why would I vote at all if I thought that? I voted for Cloud, and felt-- feel-- strongly about it. If getting the candidate I wanted was as simple as pointing out a bad vote count, I'd have done it by now.

I might even be more general-- I am currently admin; how many ex-friends have I attacked over much-less-severe foul play? I don't make permanent connections; anyone can become an ally when we share a cause; anyone can become an enemy for ethical offense. It can't be difficult to find examples of this. If a cheat could be spotted here, I'd be talking about it, loudly.

-- The person overseeing the election has to approve anything that happens in it-- whatever timeline or order of operations we assert, it would take literally one word to require a redo. There isn't even anything requiring special evidence there-- on point 1, I would be relying on our rules about censure and recall to take action; here it's just someone saying "I don't like that" and ordering a redo. It's even relatively easy to do that and refuse to run the redo, if you're grumpy and lazy. It is, after all, what happens if you do nothing.


I know you disagree on process; I'm not sure the mechanism by which letting people change their votes gets us an election result other than "what the most people asked for by the deadline." Runoff elections even rely on the notion that votes change by context and time; it's how we ensure that we get a majority for a candidate before giving them an admin seat.
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causk
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Re: Elections?

Post by causk »

General election musings:
Changing votes usually obviously not a good feature of a voting mechanism. Theres a reason rl popular elections have votes that are semi simultaneous, blind(depending on how much you beleive in polling) and final . But if you look at what happens generally in most parlamentary chambers, votes get tested and assembled beforehand. If theres parties involved, pressures will be applied, backrooms deals made, consultants or bureocracts will "educated" parlamentarians before anythign is ever officially debated or voted upon. And there are still suprises. Not really sound system, but overall it works alot better than the alternative.
If Alfa's aim is to have each voting member have the same influence on the outcome, a much bigger problem is being able to see where the vote currently stands. The people voting later have a much higher probability to swing the decisions than those going first. Being able to change your vote actually evens things a little out.
TLDR as long as we dont have hidden tally, being able to change votes is probably sound considering the equal vote weight aim.
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Re: Elections?

Post by Zelknolf »

Well, the votes are private, except in cases where a person just tells you. It's harder to pressure people if you don't know who to pressure.

I suppose you can guess, but you can do that anyway. And I guess the technical folk could use their power to learn who voted, but that's going to be possible in almost every system, and we have to rely on our usual systems of admin oversight and recall to counter the behavior (except, of course, the ones that can't be audited-- in which case we need a mechanism of election oversight other than audits... and I don't know how we'd do that).

Though I somehow missed that we get cases like Rumple's (spamming refresh in the middle of the night until there's a tie, and then asking to change his vote). Which, yeah. We were screwed as soon as he asked.
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Re: Elections?

Post by shad0wfax »

kid wrote:I still only want simple things:
Amendments to the Charter are far from simple: only the LA can initiate them and the LA must get 2/3 of the Administrators to approve (which means 3/4 or 4/5). The LA must then get 2/3 of all Administrative vote eligible staff, HDMs, and DMs to approve the changes as well. Only then, can the LA change the Charter. Furthermore, you made a loaded statement.
kid wrote:Conformation that you can change a vote (not by some gut feeling, but actual)
  • HEEGZ wrote:[...]Sometimes people change their votes mid election and the IA [sic. LA] has always taken that into account. As far as I can tell, the election happened fairly and properly. [...]
  • ALFA Charter wrote:Lead Administrator (LA) — Oversight of Administration, Veto & Referral Authority, Election Oversight, and Public Relations. Also responsible for resolving disputes over domain classification of any particular issue.
The LA was acting within the domain of Election Oversight and has confirmed it for you. Confirmed, in this specific election result by HEEGZ, within the domain of LA; he also addressed past elections.
kid wrote:Conformation that IA can do it if he feels like it (And ask conformation later - something that from experience you refuse to do when it comes to trivial things, let alone when it comes to given your buddies election wins)
  • ALFA Charter wrote:Infrastructure Administrator (IA) — Vault, IRC, FTP, & Website.
A user on the website requested to change his vote on the website. The IA unlocked the thread so that the user could change his vote, but the vote did not get changed, so the IA did so manually. The IA then opened it so that all users could change their votes as well. No other users changed their votes. Confirmed: this is clearly in the IA domain to do. However, certifying the results of this is clearly in the LA domain.
  • HEEGZ wrote:As far as I can tell, the election happened fairly and properly.
Also confirmed: The LA was within both the Election Oversight domain and Admin Oversight domains.

kid wrote:Conformation that a vote was ever changed for reasons that are not technical.
  • HEEGZ wrote:So, for the amount of time it would take to find proof for you of past precedent, the end result would still be the same. I think most people would agree to trust the memory of current admin and have us focus on providing more DM coverage and tech support than digging through old forum posts to provide actual proof to back it up.
Unconfirmed: It is ambiguous whether past votes were allowed for reasons other than mis-clicks. (I frankly don't care to audit past elections for historical evidence either.)

kid wrote:Just give me one of these, anything, to allow me to believe this was not just blunt cheating. Even an: "I know it looks bad, but I really thought I was allowed to do it... Sorry!" would have helped.
I gave you two out of three via Admin quotes while acting appropriately within their domains.

Your following statement implying that you know this looks bad and so should Admin is another loaded statement. I disagree with it fundamentally, because the vote change request and the vote change were handled publicly, with a very high degree of transparency and integrity. A more suspicious appearing scenario would have been to delete Rumple_C's request to change his vote, then to change his vote in the database, and not inform the public but to inform the LA; no one would know unless someone had been mashing refresh and watching the results change and that could look bad. An even more suspicious response would have been to change votes as I outlined and not inform the LA, instead hoping that no one, including the LA would ever know. The IA does have the power to do this, as does the TA.

We place a great deal of trust in our Hosts, DMs, HDMs, and Admin, especially in our TA and IA in terms of the potential for abuse. We also place a great deal of trust in our LA to oversee the Admin. Additionally, we have recall and censure clauses that hold all Admin, including the LA accountable for their actions. We have a very robust system with multiple checks and balances. However, at some point you have to place your trust in people if you ever want anything to be accomplished; I find it far easier to trust someone who behaves in a publicly transparent manner and with a great deal of integrity than to trust someone who obfuscates their actions.
kid wrote:Because honestly I have no issues with the result of the elections.
Then why do you have 25+ posts spanning two threads on the matter? (And yes, I mean spanning, not spamming.)
kid wrote:However continuing to claim this is justified just means I can't trust current ALFA officials. If I cannot do that it influences my desire to be a part of this community.
  • Rumple C wrote:I thought CD would be better in the role, its true. I also think its a shitty job I wouldn't wish on my friend.[...]
The only justification for any of the actions comes from Rumple_C himself, as it should be. Whether you like his justification or not, that is his personal justification for his actions. Every other action by both Admin was to follow the will of the voters, Rumple_C included, and to oversee the administration of their domains with integrity and transparency.
kid wrote:// so I guess i'm being selfish here. I need to find a reason to trust you guys in order to enjoy ALFA and you are not really helping me out.
You are not the victim here. The victims are those who have had to (or have decided to) devote their time to responding to you. What you need to do, is find a way to read the Charter from a legal perspective and separate your own opinion from that of what was actually written. As for trust, I have already provided ample evidence to suggest that there is no grounds for distrust of anyone in this matter. I suggest that you reflect upon your own actions, statements, and opinions and find a way to reconcile them with the statements that the elected Admin have made to you and the letter of the Charter; if that does not satisfy you, then do not vote for the candidates whom you disagree with in future elections, myself included.
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Re: Elections?

Post by shad0wfax »

Zelknolf wrote:Though I somehow missed that we get cases like Rumple's (spamming refresh in the middle of the night until there's a tie, and then asking to change his vote). Which, yeah. We were screwed as soon as he asked.
This is why I am suggesting that when we migrate to the new forums, we investigate the ability to keep the current election results of an in-progress election hidden from all but the IA/LA and then toggle them to be anonymously viewable as a raw total of votes after the poll closes. I hope that we have that capability. However, we have no provision against this behavior at present and unless it becomes a recurring problem, I'm not certain that it's something we need to address in the Charter.
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Re: Elections?

Post by kid »

Wow SF, you managed to undo the bit of good the previous posts did.
Bolding and copy pasting real nice don't change the facts.
I skimmed through past elections to the best of my ability, I found no vote changes.
I found a few changes in polls but none in elections.

Claiming that changing the vote is IA domain is like claiming that changing PC's attributes is TA domain.
Yes, both fall under the techy powers, but both need approval from the appropriate people to be allowed.
And no, that approval should not come after the fact.
More so when the change changes the result of an election,
More so when the IA is the best friend of the person winning the election.
Because I know neither of you are stupid, I can only assume that you think the rest of us are, to believe that pretense and coy response.
No, this was not allowed, and no, this does look bad, even if the LA approved it after the fact.
Yes, it would have looked even worst (or would have been even a greater offence) not telling the LA at all.
That doesn't change the fact that not getting the LA's approval before hand, makes this decision an offence, regardless if he agreed with it afterwards.

You say vote changes are trivially allowed. I found no evidence to support that other than people thinking they remember it happened. I found some vote changes in polls but those were not elections, and had clear reasons that effected the polls integrity, not someone changing his mind (new information arising, etc).

Anyways, writing Comfirmed on something doesn't make it real unless there's actual facts the help the claim, and there are none.

Now, just to be clear, I have no problem with the results, I have a problem with how we got to the result.
I was following the "score" when I saw rumple's request and thought to myself...
"Huh, if only, maybe we'll manage to get the better candidate in the end"
Because I assumed that if he wanted to change his vote it was to give it to the losing party, and not further advance the winner. That was my assumption as any reasonable person would assume. In a way I was half hoping he'll be allowed to, but knew that he can't.
Now when the IA saw this I can only assume he was thinking something along those lines, the deference is he had less integrity and greater ability to manipulate the forum.
And so he made a decision that he was not allowed to make - decided that vote changes are always allowed, regardless of reasons - something no LA (who are in charge of elections let me remind you) ever decided before him... And he gave you the win.
That makes me uncomfortable. And the fact that you continue to claim that is the most natural thing in the world... Well, that makes me only more uncomfortable.

Believe it or not, I'm not "out to get you". I merely hoped that you'll be willing to operate on a trust worthy level, without cutting corners just because you can.
Clearly all that my attempts got me is a lot of self justifications and bold letters, and zero accountability. A shame.

Anyways, enjoy believing this was wonderfully and perfectly handled on all parties...
and that the decisions made in this elections were all crystally flawless.
I'll continue shaking my head with disapproval and disbelief that you either pretend to actually think that, or that you do actually think that (I don't know which is worse).
And now i'm really done.
shad0wfax wrote:What you need to do, is find a way to read the Charter from a legal perspective...
Oh, and... would you like letters of recommendation? I have a few outstanding ones.
Most legal interpretations would give little to no wiggle room in this situation.
I was trying to appeal to common sense (here, it's bold so now it's ture!) and not start a legal debate, if you really want to do that I'll be happy to refer you to a few academic studies that explain just how wrong you are, in every possible way.
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Ithildur
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Re: Elections?

Post by Ithildur »

This is all Rumple's fault. :mad:
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Re: Elections?

Post by Swift »

Ithildur wrote:This is all Rumple's fault. :mad:
As always!
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