[VOTE] Should voting for Councilors require you to purchase the game?

[kiddan]

My answer is pretty much what Skylord said:

To do my part,as I also believe this is the right choice..

As you (anyone reading this here) may be aware.. the next council elections are getting near.
So it has become even more important that we solve this important question before the next applications arrive.
To avoid cheating during voting process,where users would create a number of alternate accounts,and using proxy accounts to provide votes to themselves or to their favourites.

Devs and moderators can try to do a lot on "our" side to prevent cheating,but even so.. it cant be always avoided..unless..

to prevent these problems
In order to participate in voting where we will choose someone to represent the community,
players/forum members must have purchased the game before the official voting starts.

which would mean they now support the game,and that they are serious about participating in something that can contribute..not only to the forums and the community as a whole,but to the game itself.

If people are voting for councilors because they are to represent the community, those people should at least purchase the game for the right to vote as to who they think would represent the community the best.

 

[Megacrafter127]

While Duke's system seems nice and well-thought, I think it would be more practical to just let the ones who purchased the game to vote. Way easier to implement.

After all, there are no plans given by the devs to add any kind of advantage that the people who purchased the game would have over the ones who do it for free. This could be one, as it does not impact directly on any way the gameplay at the servers. Would give one more purpose than just having a little nice badge.

While true, Xenoforo has a preimplemented point and level system.
Assuming a freshly registered user is lvl 0, one could set it up, that only people of lvl 1 or higher can vote. Having certain actions automatically add or remove points from the leveling system is easy(the badges already do, but the levels and points are hidden right now).

 

[Imagination01]

Besides, these kinda remind me of "Voter ID" laws that will be primarily aimed at disadvantaging odium users

I was going to say the same thing, but I would be called "biased"

Especially considering Lecic has made suggestions in the past that the only purpose of them being to put us at disadvantage, just like this one.

 

[Groovrider]

The council represents all players, paid and unpaid, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Nauvran]

I was going to say the same thing, but I would be called "biased"

Especially considering Lecic has made suggestions in the past that the only purpose of them being to put us at disadvantage, just like this one.

How is this putting you at a disadvantage?
It's just to make sure that no one cheats with alternative accounts and you Odium peo00lpe would nev.. oh I see.

 

[Heillos]

I was going to say the same thing, but I would be called "biased"

Especially considering Lecic has made suggestions in the past that the only purpose of them being to put us at disadvantage, just like this one.

Please explain how this is targeted precisely at Odium. Do you mean to say that many Odium players have not purchased the game, and that because of this a significant and active group of players would be denied their vote?

The intent of this suggestion is to make it harder for large numbers of alt accounts to sway the Council vote, although Lecic's proposed method would unfortunately disadvantage players who have not purchased the game, but are still invested in it. From that point, it is understandable that you dislike the suggestion, but that does not explain why you think it is targeted at you.

What's your opinion of Duke's proposed point-based system? This would likely not prohibit Odium players, unless any of them use TOR; in this context, the concern with TOR is that it enables alts which could sway the vote. Fortunately, old enough/active enough accounts would reach the point threshold regardless of the TOR penalty.

 

[Imagination01]

Please explain how this is targeted precisely at Odium. Do you mean to say that many Odium players have not purchased the game, and that because of this a significant and active group of players would be denied their vote?

The intent of this suggestion is to make it harder for large numbers of alt accounts to sway the Council vote, although Lecic's proposed method would unfortunately disadvantage players who have not purchased the game, but are still invested in it. From that point, it is understandable that you dislike the suggestion, but that does not explain why you think it is targeted at you.

What's your opinion of Duke's proposed point-based system? This would likely not prohibit Odium players, unless any of them use TOR; in this context, the concern with TOR is that it enables alt which could sway the vote. Fortunately, old enough/active enough accounts would reach the point threshold regardless of the TOR penalty.

Lecic has made "suggestions" that were targeted at putting Odium as disadvantage before, he even has admitted some of them were made for this purpose at some points.

Also worth mentioning Lecic accused HolyCookie of getting into the council by utilising Odium alts to vote for him.

 

[Nauvran]

Lecic has made "suggestions" that were targeted at putting Odium as disadvantage before, he even has admitted some of them were made for this purpose at some points.

Also worth mentioning Lecic accused HolyCookie of getting into the council by utilising Odium alts to vote for him.

But this has nothing to do with that.

 

[Imagination01]

But this has nothing to do with that.

It has everything to do with this, this whole suggestion is so that Thryn can stop Odium guys getting into council and start putting Thryn guys into council.

Just because people have not spent money on an early access game, does not mean they should not be able to have a say in who represents them.

Council Voting should be an Equal suffrage, not a censitary suffrage

 

[Nauvran]

It has everything to do with this, this whole suggestion is so that Thryn can stop Odium guys getting into council and start putting Thryn guys into council.

Just because people have not spent money on an early access game, does not mean they should not be able to have a say in who represents them.

Council Voting should be an Equal suffrage, not a censitary suffrage

This whole suggestion about getting more thought through votes. This is not about your silly factions, seriously no one cares about any of it.
"hurr durr I dont want to invest money for the future of the game but I want to make decisions for the future of the game."
make sense I guess?
Besides a lot of faction people (and other people) have a lot of alt accounts which could in theory be used to help "Unwanted" people to the council where they do not belong. it is in fact a good idea to have some wall of sorts that prevents newcommers and one day people come in and throw votes around for something they know nothing about.

 

[Heillos]

Lecic has made "suggestions" that were targeted at putting Odium as disadvantage before, he even has admitted some of them were made for this purpose at some points.

Also worth mentioning Lecic accused HolyCookie of getting into the council by utilising Odium alts to vote for him.

Claims of other occurrences are unfamiliar to me, but I'm out of touch. Provide examples, if you wish.

The allegations that Holycookie was voted in by Odium alts, however, are familiar to me. I'll not pass comment on their veracity, given that evidence does not exist. The point of this suggestion is to prevent alts voting in councilors in the alleged fashion. On what grounds do you oppose such an idea?

To oppose it on the grounds that Lecic is doing it to disadvantage you because he thinks Holycookie was voted in by alts is, as far as I can understand, tantamount to an admission of guilt in that case; if the allegation that Holycookie was voted in by alts is false, it shouldn't be relevant, because this suggestion is only targeted at the possibility of councilors being voted in by alts; regardless of initial reasoning (potentially that allegation is the starting point of this idea), the goal is positive, and to oppose it because it would stop councilors being voted in by alts is. . .suspect.

On the other hand, it's quite reasonable to oppose this on pretty much any other ground besides the one wherein you directly imply that the allegation is true, by reacting as though it were true.

EDIT: small tweaks to first paragraph, for clarity and consistency.

 

[jstenholt]

Since the Council represents all Starmade players, not just those who have bought the game, surely there is a way to prevent voter fraud that doesn't disenfranchise any players?

Voting could at the very least be made more difficult by restricting votes by IP address, or phone number, or something to that end.

 

[Heillos]

I think that Duke's proposition is a quite reasonable one, and personally am not opposed to that being tested in the upcoming elections. The poll so far shows significant support for purchase of Starmade being a requirement to vote, but I imagine that many of these voters would welcome any increase in filtering designed to prevent alt-voting.

 

[Ithirahad]

Gods. Faction politics... nobody really cares, Imagination. But quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Odium did do something like that, given their past shenanigans.

Voting could at the very least be made more difficult by restricting votes by IP address,

IP address can be changed using a proxy service. Or TOR.

or phone number,

Lol, requiring phone numbers to vote for something on an internet forum... Plus it's not hard to use a friend's, or get Skype and use that phone number.

 

[Winterhome]

Duke's suggestion would only be viable if the conditions to meet the required amount of points were impossible to fulfill before the voting process ends.

Right now, though, with over six months between the previous applications opening and the actual election? I don't see it helping in that kind of scenario.

 

[Imagination01]

To oppose it on the grounds that Lecic is doing it to disadvantage you because he thinks Holycookie was voted in by alts is, as far as I can understand, tantamount to an admission of guilt in that case; if the allegation that Holycookie was voted in by alts is false, it shouldn't be relevant, because this suggestion is only targeted at the possibility of councilors being voted in by alts; regardless of initial reasoning (potentially that allegation is the starting point of this idea), the goal is positive, and to oppose it because it would stop councilors being voted in by alts is. . .suspect.

He accused HolyCookie of this because he was salty, could not accept not as many people wanted him in council as people wanted HolyCookie

The HolyCookie was voted in by alts stuff is relevent because it brings to light about how Lecic clearly does not like the fact that people do not like him as much as Cookie, and when you combine that with the fact that almost every suggestion Lecic makes on the forums is there to nerf Odium, it brings to light how Lecic will do anything to gain an edge over us, regardless of how low he has to stoop.

 

[Megacrafter127]

restricting votes by IP address, or phone number, or something to that end.

IP addresses aren't fix, to my knowledge a large chunk of the IP-addresses of most end-users are dynamic, meaning they reset in regular intervals(usually 24h). This can usually also be caused manually by restarting the end-user's router.
As for phone numbers, what about people, who have none? Sure it is rare to find someone, who has an internet connection, but no telephone, but it exists nontheless(I am a living example).
As for other means, the only one that would not fall into the same category as a phone-number, would be checking the MAC-addresses of the connecting user, however, MAC-Addresses can also easily be changed with a bit of know-how.

 

[Imagination01]

Schine is pretty good at finding alts as is, there is no reason to blanket ban people who *may* be alts because "they are clearly alts, they use an anonymizer service to keep themselves safe on the internet"
[DOUBLEPOST=1461676157,1461675925][/DOUBLEPOST]

As for other means, the only one that would not fall into the same category as a phone-number, would be checking the MAC-addresses of the connecting user, however, MAC-Addresses can also easily be changed with a bit of know-how.

I am pretty sure (correct me if I am wrong) that the only way to get the MAC-Address of a user connecting to a server would be to have access to the users computer to find the address, I am pretty sure a MAC-Address does not get send with any kind of UDP/TCP/HTTP/etc request, the only foreseeable way to do this would be to have users download something to scan the users pc and send the mac-address to the remote host, however I would not use a program like this because knowing most businesses, they will sneak in a bit of extra information about your PC as well, and I care about my privacy.

 

[Megacrafter127]

I am pretty sure (correct me if I am wrong) that the only way to get the MAC-Address of a user connecting to a server would be to have access to the users computer to find the address, I am pretty sure a MAC-Address does not get send with any kind of UDP/TCP/HTTP/etc request, the only foreseeable way to do this would be to have users download something to scan the users pc and send the mac-address to the remote host, however I would not use a program like this because knowing most businesses, they will sneak in a bit of extra information about your PC as well, and I care about my privacy.

The MAC-Address is used in ethernet packets [below TCP, UDP and IP]. I am not sure what protocols below TCP, UDP and IP are used on the internet, but the fact, that my router has a WAN-MAC-Address means it is not impossible for it to be used by a protocol, which is below TCP, UDP and IP.

 

[FlyingDebris]

He accused HolyCookie of this because he was salty, could not accept not as many people wanted him in council as people wanted HolyCookie

The HolyCookie was voted in by alts stuff is relevent because it brings to light about how Lecic clearly does not like the fact that people do not like him as much as Cookie, and when you combine that with the fact that almost every suggestion Lecic makes on the forums is there to nerf Odium, it brings to light how Lecic will do anything to gain an edge over us, regardless of how low he has to stoop.

So, instead of providing a legitimate counter-argument to Heillos' point, you instead turn to flaming at the thread OP because of a personal grudge. Brilliant, outstanding work.