The exact voting system is not known for sure. I think it's a safe bet that it will be the Schulze method. CCP Veritas will be coding the new voting system. CCP Veritas has mentioned being in favour of the Schulze method on multiple occasions. Since Veritas is the one doing the work, CCP Xhagen will likely defer to whatever it is he wants to do. I don't say this as a complaint, simply as rationale for my belief that we'll likely be getting the Schulze method this spring.
(If on the off chance it's not Schulze, then likely a straight-forward single transferable vote [STV] model. Either way, the voting process is similar, if not the results entirely.)
What's interesting is that, under the previous first-past-the-post system, a large group like Goonswarm had the capability of getting two to three candidates elected. (Although, during CSM7, they chose to utilize all their voting power towards a single candidate.)
What's interesting in a Schulze or STV system is that Goonswarm will have influence over every single candidate, not simply the one or three candidates they want elected. How they tell their members to rank candidates will have a strong influence on the overall results. Goonswarm was 1/6th of the voting electorate during CSM7. Consider also that the CFC was approximately 1/5th of the voting electorate last year, that they've grown in the interim, and that they'll mostly follow the Goonswarm voting trend.
Consider further Test Alliance and the HBC. Although their voting strategy will likely differ from that of Goonswarm and the CFC, the differences are not likely to be stark. The entirety of the CFC and the HBC is approaching nearly half of the voting electorate. That's an incredible amount of influence.
Consider, that if we're looking at a more complex voting system, we're likely going to see a lower overall turnout than we did for CSM7. I'm predicting 45K-50K votes, down from 60K votes last year. CFC and HBC voting will likely not suffer the same percentage decline.
I don't point this out because I think it's a bad thing. I've never been unhappy with any candidate that Goonswarm has chosen to support. I simply point it out, because if the goal was to limit the influence of the large powerblocs, it seems to me that changing the voting system will give these nullsec blocs increased power in creating a CSM to their liking. How they vote will likely determine nearly all fourteen members sitting on the council, and the order in which they sit.
Now I'm not suggesting that Goonswarm is going to stack the council with a tonne of null candidates, they can't really do that, the system is not that gameable. They're smarter than that, anyhow. They'll look at who is running and decide who they want to serve with. If they don't want Mike Azariah on the council, then Mike Azariah will not be on the council. Mynnna will be ranked first, obviously. Then I would imagine Ripard Teg, Marc Scaurus, Malcanis, Unforgiven Storm, whichever wormhole candidate they prefer, and maybe even James 315 will all be on the ranked voting list that Goons will supply to their members.
Come election time, I'd love to see the suggested rankings that Goonswarm sends out to its membership. I'd love to compare that list to the final election results. I think there's going to be a lot of similarity between how the CFC/HBC voted and the final tally.
And yes, I know the character from Hogan's Heroes was spelled SCHULTZ.
ReplyDeletePersonally I'm hoping that there's going to be a lot more candidates announcing themselves soon because I really really don't want any of those ones below the line on the CSM, tbh.
ReplyDeleteThe ellipsis is a placeholder for future candidates announcing.
Delete"I am placing Xenuria ahead of every single wormhole candidate/clone. Why? Because Xenuria had the common courtesy to only run once."
ReplyDeleteIts funny because its true.
Won't be voting for James 315. He was an articulate presenter in the recent Xander interviewbut I strongly disagree with his proposals for the wholesale castration of highsec. Many of us play EVE for everything it has to offer - null/low/highsec - and any type of neutering of one part of that will immediately alienate a good proportion of the active player population of EVE.
ReplyDeleteSo you're all for increasing voter turnout, up until the point where CCP proposes a system that you agree could likely reduce voter turnout.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, its cool cause Goons are great!
STV/Schulze is better than first-past-the-post. I'll do everything I can to keep voter turnout high ... but my efforts aren't going to be all that effective.
DeleteIf CCP wants more voter turnout, then they'll have to do most of that job. I'm assuming/predicting that they aren't going to do much more than they have in the past.
Oddly you put Ripard at #1, followed by James at #2, when their positions on highsec are almost completely opposite to each other. Ripard has stated (and I think many rational people would agree with him) that highsec's risk/reward is nearly balanced, slightly leaning on the favour of the gankers and thus should be tweaked ever so slightly in favour of the miners and left alone.
ReplyDeleteJames advocates decimating highsec risk vs reward via an eloquent but ultimately fallacious serious of arguments.
Ripard asserts (correctly) that you cannot coax people out of highsec if they do not want to leave it and therefore trying to force people to play in parts of the game that do not interest them will only result in fewer subscribers.
James asserts (again fallaciously) that players should be moved along by severe nerfing of highsec to re-establish a "in the olden days" style PvP foodchain.
Given that both these candidates have utterly different opinions on what should be done in highsec, why do you have their preferences so close together?
That's fine. I lie somewhere in the middle of the two. I do think that a voice like James 315's ... it should be heard by CCP. They need to be presented with a viewpoint similar to James', if only to keep them thinking of what the game was versus what they want it to become.
DeleteThe only problem being that the game never was like the nostalgic vision presented by James 315. It wasn't nonstop excitement out in null, and empty dullery in highsec. That's just not how it was. And in any case, if you wanted to recreate that nostalgic vision (which again, is not based on reality in the first place) you wouldn't find it instantly created by neutering highsec. You'd still be left with the same problems that already exist in null, i.e. the fact that it is no longer an undiscovered frontier, and that if you want to take part in it, you have to bow down to some big alliance or another.
DeleteFirst anon here. Thanks Poe, was just curious as to how you came up with your preferences.
DeleteI removed the section on how I'd vote were the election happening today ... because it was detracting from the meat of the post.
ReplyDeleteI've seen it alleged (and have no idea how true it is) that a substantial part of Mittens's 10k votes were from 51 day alts.
ReplyDeleteYou probably know, Poe, how that used to work. Instead of plexing your account you could send yourself a buddy key, plex the alt and get 30 days free on your main as a reward.
That has now been fixed - you only get rewarded if real money is used on the buddy account. So it may be that Goons get significantly less that a sixth of the vote.
It's also probably true that Goons were politicised quicker than most of Eve and saw the CSM quite early as an important part of the metagame while the rest of us were thinking "Student Union, lol".
People allege all sorts of things about Goons.
DeleteStabs, you used to be able to
DeleteBuddy > PLEX to Sub > Gain PLEX
Now you can only
Buddy > PLEX to Sub > Gain 30d of Gametime
OR
Buddy > $$ to Sub > Gain PLEX or 30d Gametime
You still get the reward because real money is used on the buddy account (how do *you* think PLEX are created?), but you no longer can get the exact same thing you put in (which makes sense).
"because if the goal was to limit the influence of the large powerblocs"
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard%E2%80%93Satterthwaite_theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duggan%E2%80%93Schwartz_theorem
(and related topics for reference)
I think (hope) that Veritas is familiar enough with Voting theory to know that there is absolutely no way to limit the influence that organizing a large percentage of the voting population can have on an election without dramatically wrecking a number of the properties generally held to be desirable in a voting system.
It's also a kind of weird sentiment to express when talking about voting. "Let's limit the ability of voters to elect who they want."
Anyway, if somebody had figured out a voting system that could eliminate the effects of political parties (i.e. Tactical voting) without being an otherwise unacceptable voting system, they'd probably win a Nobel Prize.
I really don't see how a new voting system would have any meaningful negative impact on voter turnout.
ReplyDeleteEven if you are a low-information voter, what is the difference between making an X and making one candidate your no. 1 (you don't have to rank all candidates, if you want, you can stick with one). In that case, it feels no different from first-past-the-post as far as the voters are concerned.
Considering the player base seems to have grown some... I fully expect there to be more voters this year than last. If anything will negatively impact voter turnout it's the decreased visibility of the CSM during the last cycle.
I'm not reading all this, you know nothing, NOTHING!
ReplyDeleteIf it's single transferable, that won't give the Goons any more power over the electorate unless they're hyper organised. Because they'll vote for their candidate, he'll get elected and then the system stops taking into account their other preferences. To give them more control they'd have to split their base up into 4+ more parts and rely on the transferring to make sure they don't lose out on candidates (which is risky)
ReplyDeleteThe Schulze method is a lot more exploitable and could lead to what you suggest. Although if all the Goons give a high up preference to a non-Goon candidate then it will weaken Mynna's position. Potentially, if the choose a non-Goon in a high up preference, that other people vote for, it could lead to that person beating out Mynna.
The best thing for them to do would probably create a lot of second tier Goon candidates and rank all those highly, which would hurt the rankings of all the non-Goon candidates
That's not how STV works. The overvotes go to the next guy.
DeleteYou're thinking of the CSM's abortion of a "Fuck Goons" STV idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
"An STV election proceeds according to the following steps:
1. Any candidate who has reached or exceeded the quota is declared elected.
2. If a candidate has more votes than the quota, that candidate's surplus votes are transferred to other candidates. Votes that would have gone to the winner instead go to the next preference listed on their ballot.
3. If no one new meets the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred.
4. This process repeats until either a winner is found for every seat or there are as many seats as remaining candidates."
I think Schulze would be a terrible method to use. It's weak to burying, and when the big alliances can basically field as many candidates as they choose, there is absolutely no way that Goons (and Test if Test are smart enough) won't deliberately bury every other candidate.
ReplyDeleteIf you get 10 000 goons giving second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eight etc preference to Goon candidates then no wormhole candidate is going to be able to compete. It may work in real life, but in real life the system doesn't have an organised majority group who will manipulate the system.
If it works, it will only work because Mittens decided that making the CSM a Goon puppet would hurt their goals in the long run
Vee haf vays to make you tok!
ReplyDeleteThe CCP version of this should be "Vee haf vays to not have to hear you talk"
Delete