Voting Reform

I just want to bring one quick thing up that wasn't contested when I mentioned it in round 1. Remember this quote. "This is a debate over who should be eligible to vote in DDO Presidential elections." The voter harassment issues are for a different debate and I think those will be solved through a way more simple and easily enforceable method of just only allowing 1 vote and no unvotes or change of votes. FACTORS NOT CONSIDERED The only factor considered in my opponent's plan is how to make the most informed decision as to who the president is, and I'll undermine a lot of those premises for why his system achieves that in the next round. For now, I just want to say there are other things that need to be factored into this. One factor to consider is how the systems affect Juggle's (Owners of debate.org) bottom line. So I'll explain how this system does that. The reason this is important is because the more profitable this website is to Juggle the more they can allocate resources to it and make this place a better experience for all of us. THE STICKY FACTOR There are exceptions to every rule, but do me a favor and look around at the users who have stuck around for a while and those that are here for 6 months and move on. I don't think my opponent will contest this but the users that stick around are the ones who interact a ton, especially in the forum. The first thought that might come to your mind when hearing this is "Duh that's why they should be the only ones to vote" "They are the only ones to reap the reward or suffer the punishment of electing a bad/good president" It misses the point to say that though. It's in the site's best interest to encourage more members to become more engaged. Having a big sticky factor will increase regular users to the site which in turn creates a bigger user base with more fresh blood. This bigger user base increases profitability and in turn increases the amount of resources that can be allocated to this site. HOW IT INCREASES STICKY FACTOR I kinda went into why sticky factor is important without showing why my system increases sticky factor more but it was important to discuss things in this particular order. Not requiring forum posts give presidential candidates a bigger pool of potential voters to interact with. It's way easier to contact a voter while the voting is occurring than to do it a little before hand. Let me give you the 2 alternate scenarios for drumming up votes. Wylted's scenario, during the voting stage: PM to Noob: Hi I don't know if you realize this but my friend Mikal is running for site president and looking to make some great improvements to the site, do you mind voting for him in the following thread by bolding his name......? BSH1's scenario taing place prior to the election: PM to Noob: Hi I don't know if you realize this but my friend Mikal is running for site president and looking to make some great improvements to the site, do you mind making 100 forum posts and voting for him by bolding his name in a few weeks when the presidential voting thread is up? Believe it or not that first PM is going to get that noob to make his first forum post a lot better than the second one. Once that forum post is out the noob has already stuck his toe in the water and is more likely to engage in the forums more. Here is just a fraction of the people who got more involved with the forums after the previous election. Many of these people's first post was a vote for Mikal or Bladerunner. The voice of Truth: http://www.debate.org... Atheist Independent: http://www.debate.org... SeBuk: http://www.debate.org... Zyloarchy: http://www.debate.org... Geographia: http://www.debate.org... Kawai Krazy: http://www.debate.org... Kyle The Heretic: http://www.debate.org... Tabula Rasa: http://www.debate.org... Valkrin: http://www.debate.org... This guy got attatched so fast after the election that he even created a thread to announce a temporary departure something typically reserved for senior members. That's a list of people who wouldn't be participating at all or as much in the forums without being reached out to. This is a list of people who wouldn't be participating as much if it weren't for this election and the current voting rules (with possibly a couple of exceptions). MORE EFFORT During a close and heated election like the one that just occurred, there is going to be a tremendous effort to recruit qualified voters, more so than a few weeks before the election under my opponent's plan. Late in the voting when bladerunner was close but still behind there was a furious effort by his supporters to reach out to new voters. This type of effort is simply not going to take place prior to an election and outside of the heat of battle and if it did the turnout wouldn't be the same which would considerably effect sticky factor. If we reach out in future campaigns it will be even better. In this election Bladerunner's team was taken off guard by the dramatic amount of new barely qualified voters entering the pool and when his most loyal supporters caught onto the strategy Mikal's side was using, several of them adopted it. Unfortunately you'd have several members of their team contact the same person and it would annoy them pretty bad negatively affecting the voter turnout for them. They actually could've employed the same strategy late if they were more organized about it and won despite a later start with it. In future elections, voter recruitment will be more organized and less frantic for both sides, which will present a friendlier more warming outreach to people who rarely or never participate in the forums. The recruitment may start earlier by building friendly relationships with new users prior to requesting their vote. This friendliness will lead to experienced members (most likely recruiters), having more mentor relationships with new people, thus being able to show them the ropes. This new engagement is certain to create a bunch of new friendships and participation in the site significantly affecting the sticky factor and emotional attachment to the site. This bigger more engaged user base is good for Juggle's pocket books and likely to lead to more resources being dedicated to the site. PRESIDENT IS JUST A TITLE Before my opponent starts discussing the importance of the presidency let me address just how relative the presidency is in the words of some people who've been around debate.org a while. Quotes by Danielle: "The president (as far as I know) has little to no actual function. They don't have mod powers or do anything that a regular member cannot do." "While I understand the utility of having a member representative speak to Juggle on the community's behalf, any member(s) can do that if/when necessary. Similarly any member can implement every single initiative that both candidates have promised. If they truly care about the quality of the site and not a meaningless title, they shouldn't need to win the election in order to be active and quality members." http://www.debate.org... Quote by YYW: "Juggle is a corporation, and what interests them is making money. .......... Juggle, as a corporation, does not allocate resources based on who they like or don't like -and there is ample evidence to support that. Juggle allocates resources based on what it perceives is in its interest " http://www.debate.org... I agree with all these statements and believe that the presidency isn't important because of who's in office but because the process it's self brings DDO to life and it really brings us together in so many ways, particularly people who before the election didn't get to interact with us asmuch