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I wanted to get feedback on how the community feels about our current name vote. There have been some concerns that we've had relatively small percentage (~10 percent) of members register to vote, and wanted to see if there was something more fundamental going on. As it is currently setup, here's how things are
- You had to be registered by April 12th to have been included in the name vote; if you received a ballot for submission, you should have gotten ranking ballot
- We haven't retroactively added in additional users, though it hasn't been clear that there was a hard cutoff
- The submission phase went until the 19th, and the vote for the name will continue until the 27th
- The current system is email only (but we are looking at getting something integrated into the website implemented for future votes)
I want to hear your feedback below from everyone. Based on what we get back, we'll roll improvements into future votes, or if need be, reset the vote and do it again; I know a lot of you are active here or at least more involved, so the relatively low turnout is a warning canary for me. Leave your comments below, and expect another story in a few days to see how we're using your comments.
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-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Finkus on Wednesday April 23 2014, @10:12PM
The system set up for voting is ridiculous, which is part of the problem I think. Email is fine for name submission, but the actual voting should probably just be done on the site. I'm not a web developer, but it seems like it'd be pretty easy to just set up a poll that only displays for those with voting enabled. I'd argue that it'd be easier than parsing text from an email that needs to negotiate spam filters.
I appreciate that the admins have been working hard bringing the site up and modernizing the codebase, but I think they're overthinking the voting process.
If I'm wrong, I'd love to hear it. Maybe I'm missing something.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by xlefay on Wednesday April 23 2014, @10:17PM
It's no secret I'm not fond of the voting process as is. You're spot on, although, if I had it my way, the name submission would have gone via a web form too, it's just so much easier and people can add/retract domains until the actual vote would have started without intervention from our side.
Creating a small poll application, independent of Slash (hey.. we've got an independent e-mail vote, so why not?) is extremely simple but everyone who could have done it was busy with other things, or they weren't on time (as in, it was already decided), so that was that.
So no, you're not missing anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23 2014, @10:23PM
And not everyone willing to vote is willing to share a functional e-mail address. It seems like a ridiculous exercise in geek ivory towerism the way this process was designed.
Almost as if it were designed to fail, designed to turn away potential voters. "Jump through Hoop A, then Hoop B, and do it by this date, and use this block of code in your e-mail message, and get zero confirmation, and we don't trust you so we're basing it all on as arcane a theory and practice as possible. And we like the name we've got."
But we got ridiculed for suggesting that a week or two ago.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday April 23 2014, @10:45PM
By the same token, I see no possible way to accept votes from a random collection of ACs.
Since anyone post as AC without logging in, its just ripe for ballot box stuffing. I have this picture in my mind of Dice employees up all night furiously voting in some Suit-bate name.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Wednesday April 23 2014, @10:55PM
Who says you can't limit votes to registered users, or only users with higher karma, or that have joined after a certain cut off date?
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 25 2014, @02:18PM
What are you talking about? Who said anything about letting ACs vote? As an AC I wouldn't mind, but I certainly understand trying to avoid ballot stuffing by at least requiring a log in... WHICH IS WHAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT. LOGGING IN TO THIS WEB SITE AND CASTING A SIMPLE VOTE.
The design-by-committee failed SPECTACULARLY here.
(Sorry for the caps.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 24 2014, @05:32AM
I second this. The voting process is strangely complicated and archaic for a site catering to tech savvy readers. Additionally, it's ironic that what is theoretically an exercise in community building and participation is so siloed and non-collaborative. The approach has a late 90's Internet feel instead of modern, inviting and intuitive.
I signed up for the vote but did not exercise it once the initial email arrived due to eyes glazing over from boredom while reading all the rules and procedures. The current name is neither good nor bad enough to rouse me onto exerting effort.
At least it's easy to remember.