Plaza Election 4 and a half: A Very Special Election

[Narv]

Hi all, thanks for bearing with me and sending me a lot of great feedback over the past week.

The consensus among many respondents was that while just using last election's results would be easiest, it would also be kinda weird, given that we had 6 nominees and thus picking the 4th- and 5th-placed individuals would be tantamount to just spilling the whole ranking - which while not the worst thing in the world IMO, is also not what those nominees signed up for. There is also no guarantee that last rounds' nominees are still interested in the position.

So with that said, what most folks recommended (and I came to the same conclusion based on everyone's input) is that one more election to fill the 2 vacancies for the remainder of the term is the way to go. Winddancer and I will continue to hold the fort until this lil special-election wraps up, at which point the 2 winners of this election will join Winddy until June.

So I suppose we'd better get to it then -- based on the feedback I read about elections in the recent survey thread, I'm going to also use this opportunity to trial a maybe-slightly-improved election process. It'll have 2 stages:

1) Please use this form to sign up to vote / submit nominations / let me know whether you would/wouldn't accept a nomination.

2) Next weekend, I'll put together a ballot via SurveyMonkey, which supports anonymous-ballot type surveys. Everyone who requested a ballot will get a link emailed to them that they can use to make their ranked-choice vote (and anyone who didn't submit the above form can ask to have one sent to them at that time). The nice thing about this method is that no one (myself included) will see who voted for whom, which hopefully removes a little bit of the just-trust-Narv element of the process.


(One final note on polls - I know that forum polls were also proposed as a method for anonymity and transparency, and I do like the simplicity of that option, but as currently designed they aren't great for this kind of thing I don't think -- most critically because they reveal results before voting is done, giving late-voters potentially more information than early-voters which doesn't sit great with me. If this experiment I'm trying this round is a total bust though, I might consider something like that next time around).

Please let me know any questions you have -- the regular election email lotrplazaelection [at] gmail [dot] com is still open for business and happy to receive any comments/suggestions/questions that come its way.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

So we are going to see a ballet/ballot performance with this election? That is new to me. Looking forward! My reply wil follow still when I have figured out where to put my yes or no to nomination.

[Fuin Elda]

A few questions that I don't mind being publicly answered
1. Next weekend being the 26/27 or 5/6?
2. If I don't know who I want to nominate yet/I want to think on it is the form editable? Or should I submit a second form or should I hold off until I've thought that through entirely?

[Narv]

@Aikári Salmarinian sounds good - if you click the link in my post it will take you to a Google Form, where you can put your Yes/No to a potential nomination.

@Fuin Elda
1) Next weekend meant 26/27... today's a stat so I subconsciously thought of today as still part of 'this weekend'... that said as usual, if it seems like folks need more time to send in nominations I'll extend it
2) From a quick test it looks like the form is not editable, but it can be re-submitted so if I get duplicates from anyone I'll just go with whatever the last entry was (though if you could make a note in the second entry that it should replace your earlier one, that'll make it easier on me).

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Narv: Okay, but what has a ballet/ballot (performance) to do with it? Is that something odd from the American states? I see ballet dancers when reading about ballots. It is a word we don't use really on the European continent. Or perhaps in England? But I never heard it there.

Good question on the coming weekend, I'll get right to it!

What you mean is an election list you have to be on for nomination and where the voter or constinuent can choose from the people on the voting list. The rest of the process is clear and got my full support!

Edit: Sent!

[Winddancer]

Aiks:

Ballot: a system of voting secretly and in writing on a particular issue. In dutch its stembiljet. In this case a poll and an email link that gives you the right to vote on that poll.

The voting will be an open poll, open as in we can see who has been voted for, not who voted.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Winddancer: Thanks! Lot of outlandish words for me, used in different contexts lol. Polls are here the indicators ahead of an election, or a prognosis when the vote stations/offices are just closed, before the official results come the next day, or a few days after. Linguistic, everything attached to 'vote' starts here with 'stem' and then the object behind it, always sealed together without space. Dutch is easier in this case.

- Stem biljet (biljet)
- Stem hokje (booth)
- Stem lijst (list)
- Stem potlood (pencil)
- Stem bureau (office/station)

Use of total other words unrelated to vote.. is not my suit. But the whole process, aye I know it for years. And in two weeks I got city council voting once again, which happens all across the country, once every four years. But more I'll not elaborate about it here. Never mind further, I got a little expension on my English dictionary lol.

[Winddancer]

In this case the poll will be something close to this: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=855 Where you can see the names you can vote for and how many votes each person has, but you wont be able to see who voted.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Winddancer: I know! Thanks. Reaction is sent.

[Nessa Saelind]

Filled out the form and sent it. Hopefully, I didn't mess up anything as I was typing things/pressing buttons.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Winddancer: Thanks! Lot of outlandish words for me, used in different contexts lol. Polls are here the indicators ahead of an election, or a prognosis when the vote stations/offices are just closed, before the official results come the next day, or a few days after. Linguistic, everything attached to 'vote' starts here with 'stem' and then the object behind it, always sealed together without space. Dutch is easier in this case.

- Stem biljet (biljet)
- Stem hokje (booth)
- Stem lijst (list)
- Stem potlood (pencil)
- Stem bureau (office/station)

Use of total other words unrelated to vote.. is not my suit. But the whole process, aye I know it for years. And in two weeks I got city council voting once again, which happens all across the country, once every four years. But more I'll not elaborate about it here. Never mind further, I got a little expension on my English dictionary lol.

Apologies Admins for following Aiks off topic, but ballot is an odd word when you think on it. Googling says it is from the Italian:

mid 16th century (originally denoting a small colored ball placed in a container to register a vote): from Italian ballotta, diminutive of balla (see ball1).

Curiously, ballet seems to have a similar root:

mid 17th century: from French, from Italian balletto, diminutive of ballo ‘a dance’, from late Latin ballare ‘to dance’ (see ball2).

But, through older English, bollox has the same root:

mid 18th century: plural of bollock, variant of earlier ballock, of Germanic origin; related to ball1.

Aiks - its all about balls, one way or another.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Chrys: Thank you as well for expanding my poor linguistic knowledge. Word of Latin origin... no wonder really for me. And my association with ballet in the first place is not that weird either from your second quote.

[Narv]

Thanks everyone for your participation thus far, be it electoral or etymological or otherwise! We had a few nominees who didn't put in a form or didn't specify a Would-Accept/Won't-Accept on it, so I'm just reaching out to those individuals to see if they'd like to participate, and then we'll get going with the votes. If anyone would still like to put in a nomination form in the meantime, by all means go for it. So I'll see you all in hopefully a couple days for Phase 2.