yes.
That’s how campaigning in democratic voting works
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tbh I didn’t really expect these contests to be this divisive.
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And, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s a highly controversial aspect of democracy that many people disagree with. I reserve the right to disagree with it here, especially when the votes being solicited seem to be people who otherwise have no investment in these contests, and whose votes are–seemingly, though I could be wrong–being asked for merely to facilitate controversy.
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How long will it take people to vote?
Keep in mind, this poll was made for the Bionicle community. Making it so they have to spend an hour or two with an account just to vote seems absurd, considering that many people in the Bionicle community might simply want to vote and be done with it. This may be a TTV poll, but it affects the entire community.
I understand getting rid of duplicate accounts, but as it stands, if someone makes an account legitimately, I’d say that should be good enough. They shouldn’t be beholden to the site, considering that the poll affects something beyond the site entirely.
@Toa_Heatwave To be fair, that happens in reality all the time. Presidential campaigns promise voters rewards in terms of public funding, changes to laws, etc, and even then, part of campaigns is oftentimes monetary donations expected to be paid back, or favors repayed with favors. It may seem rather against the spirit of the contest (and personally I am against it), but so is voting for whatever beats something rather than voting for what you want, or arguing for the contestant or even entire poll to be taken down and changed.
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Both of which I am also against.
I understand this likely can’t change, and accept that it probably won’t. I just wanted to make my feelings known.
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In order to access the sub-forum to vote, you’ll need to be Trust Level 1 (Villager). And in order to get there, this is what you will need to do:
We feel 35 minutes is reasonable in that it allows any new member to look around the Boards and get a better understanding for them. It’s also not prohibitively long. If someone is interested in participating, it will take a little longer to do, but it’s do-able.
We’re open to hearing perspectives for different times, but this is what we settled on for the time being.
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Purely for curiosities sake, why 35 over 30?
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No specific reason. I’m willing to lower it to an even 30.
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Im rather neutral on this whole debacle besides observing who will prevail, but I haven’t seen enough interesting topics myself on these boards in many years after I first joined in 2014. Would it be fair if these prequisites for voting are made well available and informed - perhaps in an automated private message - for any new users who are solely interested in contributing to their favorite toyline rather than the community surrounding it?
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Yeah, I understand. Sadly, nothing we can do about it. But I still do not feel that this should elicit limits on voting, as these limits, in my eyes, transcend the issue entirely, and furthermore were not in place in the beginning of the contest, let alone the beginning of this specific phase.
@Eljay That seems rather extreme. Even discourse’s own Trust Level 1 has it reached by entering 5 topics, reading 30 posts, and spending 10 minutes on the site. Even then, I must disagree as to those changes.
Duplicate account voting is obviously a problem, and should be discouraged, but there is a large amount of people in the Bionicle community. Many of those people, I am certain, do not really care for TTV, or even dislike it. Yet they are still part of the community, even if they just are apathetic to the site.
I could understand such changes put in place for a vote that affected TTV. After all, outsiders shouldn’t meddle with TTV if they do not have a stake in it. But this vote is to establish actual canon for the entire community. For many people, they just want to make an account and vote, and be done with it. In my eyes, this seems wrong, as it limits voters into waiting 35 minutes and jumping through hoops in order to vote. These limits also were not in place at the start of the contest or this phase of the contest. That’s rather unfair to those who already have lost their positions.
The contest should just go on as planned, without changes. This all seems rather extreme, and although I myself support the reform of the voting system, I do not support changes made in the middle of a contest simply due to the controversy of a contestant.
Edit: I’d also like to add that I understand this is a difficult time, and you and the other moderators have enough on your metaphorical plate already. I am of course appreciative as to your efforts. I simply must state my view on this subject.
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These perquisites are publicly available and the Trust Levels topic has been around since around the Boards were started. That being said, we do have a bot that sends a message to new users upon account creation that links to helpful topics to get them accustomed to the boards. What I can do is check to make sure the proper links are sent out, because one of them appears to be to the Discourse general information on Trust Levels.
We’re willing to move it down to 30 minutes, but your largest issue seems to be waiting. This is not uncommon with websites that hosts contests such as this, as it has been in the past with prior canon contests.
This is the compromise. Anyone can vote for any reason they want, but they’re going to need to put some effort in before they can do it. This isn’t unordinary and we’re not going to remove it as a stipulation. But we are open to altering it.
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I am mainly against it because it was not present before. In my eyes, changing contest criteria and regulations mid contest is not very fair to those who came before, nor to prospective voters.
However, if it stays, then I feel that waiting should be all that is needed. Reading at least 50 posts is somewhat reasonable, I suppose, as someone could simply read the poll thread, which would also let them get a bearing as to what’s going on. But entering 10 topics seems rather far fetched, unless I am interpreting it wrong. Why include that as well? A person should have to familiarize themselves with rules, sure, and the post reading limit makes sense as it lets them understand what exactly is going on in the specific poll replies, but why should a prospective voter have to scour the site for 10 different topics? If a limit is being enforced, than so be it, but this is the main part I would like changed.
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Alright, hopefully just got two things changed.
- Time has been brought down to 30 minutes.
- The bot that messages you upon making an account should link you to the staff list, Trust Levels topic, and the badges.
We will not be making any further changes at this time.
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Fair enough, though I still ask that the 10 topics limit be lifted. Good to see that a bot will message new voters, though. Should make it easy to understand.
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sounds fair, though does the trust topic clearly state that it is required for voting on the contest? I worry for new users who are not necessarily tech savvy/familiar with the workings of messageboards or are otherwise able to miss important details.
1 Like
We will not lift the topic limit. If you read every one of the rule topics, you’ll have all 10 topics accounted for.
It does. Should be under what you get unlocked for reaching Trust Level 1.
In all fairness, this should have been done from the get go. We’re trying to solve different issues where we can, and this was a quick and reasonable way to solve a major concern people had while keeping in true to our stance on entry campaigning and vote brigading.
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@Godzilla I totally agree. I’m a huge Bionicle fan and wanted to vote on this, but I am not a big TTV fan nor do I care to use this forum all the time. I just wanna vote in contests.
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It seems the changes are here to stay. Frankly I am against the changes, especially because the contest did not start with them, but nothing can be done about it.
I just hope prospective voters aren’t put off by the changes.
@Eljay Will the bot be linking to every one of the rule topics? Or just the Rules list and FAQ?
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I’m just putting it out there that this doesn’t seem fair to fans who don’t care for the forum. This contest is to determine the canon appearance and it doesn’t seem like anything but interferance for people not from here. Especially it’s being done this late in the race when it’s neck and neck like this. You just shut off the rest of the community from voting with this move, more or less. I know there was an issue with one individual trying to sway votes, but people simply wanting to vote can’t even find the poll right now, man.
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This is the first contest. They weren’t going to get everything right. So while it may not be best to implement now, it is good for those who are generally discouraged by work to spam votes for a joke because some nerds on another site said to vote for the joke entry for the lulz.
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