[CONSULTATION] The future of RMB Voting

[Aggie]

Hey people!

Our RMB Voting option hasn't been used for 90 days, which means I'd like to explore the future of the voting system. As of current, it has gone mostly unused, and encouraging people to participate offsite would esure that we can communicate with said nations to integrate them into the World Assembly community, and further into the region.

If RMB voting are closed down completely, we could easily allow non-citizen WA residents to vote by allowing them to vote on the forums provided they supply their resident WA nation.

However, it can also provide a barrier to access to people who have to sign up to the forums to be able to vote.

I've thought of a few solutions, and I've put them up in a poll here and I'll put them up gameside too! Until then, I'm happy to hear any alternative solutions or any other opinions on what we should do next!

[Dya/Peaches]

I think the second option is the best as long as it’s made clear that gameside voting is an option but forum voting gets pushed as the preferred way to do it

[Fauxia]

I think gameside has proven not to be very useful, but I do think the channels should be open if any non-citizens wish to vote. Non-citizens who are endorsing the Delegate deserve to have their voices heard. Additionally, I would hope perhaps such a system would serve as a funnel since there would be forum registration at that point.

[Deadeye Jack]

I'll copy what I wrote on discord the other day. I voted for option 3.

Deadeye Jack — Yesterday at 9:12 PM
Ultimately I think Gameside voting has proven to be a failure considering it has gone mostly unused. I probably would have never made it an option in the first place, but people wanted to try something out so whatever
I'll admit I have no idea how hard it has been pushed though
If people are just expected to find that other voting region on their own then I wouldn't be shocked at it never being used
but I think we have a better net gain of using WA discussion/voting as a form of recruitment to our offsite community

[BowShot118]

I think the second option is the best as long as it’s made clear that gameside voting is an option but forum voting gets pushed as the preferred way to do it

This entirely ^^^

Gameside voting is not pushed, the Ping Program mentions it in passing but most of the WA discussion is concentrated offsite, so people don't hear or know about it. When it was first introduced it was used successfully, but very likely a lack of promotion or reasoning to vote let to it dying off when the active users either left the region (ene) or lost interest in NS.
I'll get full fleshed out thoughts here in the morning though when I can spell check and type with some reasonable speed

[Guy]

How active was gameside voting (other than by citizens) when it was first started? How much effort would it take to bring it back to that point? Is the gain proportional to the effort?

Option #3 has the advantage of giving people a clear reason to sign up to the forums, even without pursuing citizenship. So I think it might be the better irrespective of whether or not we can ‘resurrect’ gameside voting.

[BowShot118]

Gameside voting has never been amazingly active and has fizzled out over the past few months due to, well, obviously, a lack of participation.

I believe that this lack of participation is due to a lack of promotion, it was clearly not a priority for the previous World Assembly Officer (Chip not Sarah, Sarah didn't have enough time to do anything regardless of whether she wanted to or not).

Arguing exclusively as a point of principle, I think that Gameside World Assembly Voting is a wonderful excercise in democracy, and working to ensure that WA Players who live gameside can get their vote on how the region's Delegate Votes. The current restrictions are set up in such a way that no one banned from the region's offsite platforms can vote, and that WA members have to have endorsed the Delegate for a decent amount of times, limiting how far it can be abused by people using their vote in bad faith. So, naturally, I think that regardless of the decision made, Non Citizen WA Members (who meet the existing criteria) should be allowed to vote on the forums.

As for Onsite Voting, I believe it's a little on the nose to assume that people will sign up to the forums for that. People who've played NS for a while, are active in other regions or are used to using forums have a decent likelihood of signing up to the forums to vote, but they're also the demographic most likely to sign up for citizenship regardless. Those aren't the individuals we need to push onto the forums, it's the people who live near exclusively gameside we need to encourage to join us offsite, and I don't believe that a WA vote is enticing enough to convince them to make that jump, when Citizenship is arguably a much more appealing prospect when it comes to getting involved.

We are all citizens who made the jump to the forums and citizenship, and who are all (I'm assuming) comfortable using them. As such, it's probably hard for us to theorize why people don't join the forums and don't apply for citizenship etc, but I believe that the best incentive to get people to join us offsite is to give them idea of what life is like for a citizen first, in part by promoting gameside voting in the World Assembly, as it works somewhat similarly to how bills are passed in the Assembly, with people voting For/Against, providing thoughts and sometimes even discussing the merits of a resolution. Of course, this debate occurs on the forums, but with the current system the vote could occur onsite and help highlight our region's emphasis on democracy.

To see an increase in participation though the World Assembly Officer (or whoever holds the portfolio that governs the WA) would need to do a significant amount of promotion, more than just posting ping program notifications on the RMB as they clearly aren't having much of an effect on the gameside community. I'm not entirely sure what form this promotion would come in, it would likely be most effective with region wide tgs to the WA Members, however lots of people dislike lots of telegrams, but it could easily be slid into or bumped up a preexisting plan for a region wide tg. It could also be mentioned as a benefit of endorsing the Delegate in NNEs, and in the campaigns Outreach sometimes runs, or even on the WFE. Simply mentioning it more, instead of it just being a passing part of the odd Ping Program post on the RMB could go miles. At the same time, it may not work at all, but Gameside Voting hasn't really seen much promotion, particularly since Jamie left Office, so we've never really seen what impact it can have besides on it's launch interest by a couple of citizens, and a WA resident.

[Warzone Codger]

Get rid of gameside voting and only allow citizens to vote on the forums


I think the best promotion is rubbing it in to the gameside that they won't be counted or recognised at all until they rise above rejectdom and become a Citizen.

Our lack of promotion is not showing in our pings and posts: 'YOU ARE WORTHLESS, REJECT. REDEEM YOURSELF AND BE A CITIZEN TO COUNT'.

[Grea Kriopia]

Bow's post mirrors a lot of my thoughts. I see no harm in letting it remain an option, but I also think we could do more to promote it and drive usage up in turn. It's not surprising to me that activity is nonexistent because not much effort has gone into it, so we should give it some love and see where it goes

I would echo the comments on promotion (why not put it in the WFE?) and probably further development of the onsite region as well. The region itself has been neglected without many frequent updates and could use some polish to make it a true resource. We could link our discord, WA guide, and other helpful links in the WFE and generally make it look more organized for clarity. WFE space is limited, so an instructional dispatch would be incredibly helpful (plus easy to plug in a region-wide TG or on the RMB) and we might as well pin WA recommendations there while we're at it.

It's also possible we could do all of this and activity remains low, but I think it's worth a shot and could provide even more connection to our gameside community.

[Guy]

To me it mostly depends on whether there is the drive to make it work. If this is prioritised and the WA office puts in the required effort, I don’t have any strong objections. If we’re all going to say what a great idea it is but it’ll remain inactive, that’s not particularly helpful.

Ultimately the goals of strengthening relations with gameside-only players, and getting those players on the forum, should go hand-in-hand. If we decide to undertake the effort to make gameside voting active, it should be continually re-evaluated to make sure we get those results.