Suggestions voting system?

[JWPlatt]

every complex proposal will require compromises. People need to look at the whole package - with its advantages and disadvantages - because if people try to pick and choose which "simple suggestions" they like and don't like, we'll likely find we cannot create a working model that satisfies all of those suggestions. ... gravity ...

How about 'indicates' rather than 'says?'

[realXCV]

I suggest that all my suggestions are automatically approved.

[ZeroCool]

HEY ALL! ZeroCool here- aka Jahmen.
My Myst Online Roll Call List was a test format for the Uru Communities level of activity. What I learned from it.

First: Explorers posted their MOUL name, bevin, guild or Org. The List was to keep the topic public to others.

Second: If I had just left it as I had began with, just Name and Bevin, it wouldn't have been derailed as it was from the main purpose. See what explorers were active and what bevin had strong ties left.

Third: I realized having a running list generating responses of data, one could set it all up with a sort for data and create a open voting and results format transparent to all. Giving at least those active and bold enough to post a sense of power and accomplishment in getting to see they got heard.

Note: A List can track explorers and record their common threads of what they want and like. The running listed visible results are validated by the Posts and explorers might be even more inclined to post when other wise not.

I am posting here because I have the same goal for a better organized Uru Community and want to develope a better maens for gathering topics that seem to always stall out unresolved or never get implimented. I have seen so many great thread topics with excellent ideas just fade away to nothingness and those ideas become lost. Even resurrected, they usually follow the same fate again and even again. I do respect the Guilds, honestly I really do and they have accomplished some great things and progress. I would never deride them. But the politics and ego's seem to keep them all fragmented to some degree and not as much that could or should get done ever seems to be done. To much stagnation and stalls out and lost idea's and abilities with them.

The problem I have with polls. They often don't frame the questions so great. Few want to vote. But more importantly, their is no explorer faces to them! No transparency! Yes I know this opens up argument of voter ananimiity(spelling I know) But Open posts of running result being seen and heard inreal time could be something exciting to encourage being listed and counted. People posted their names and bevin, etc... but they also posted more after that. Rule and guide line could be implimented in the front of the List Poll. Well that wa my idea at least.

P.S. I am considering another topic to further test this format in Myst Online over the what do we call Open Source Uru, Moose or many other names. Knowing Cyan will ultimately decide it will be. It still presents the community with a say of what they liked best.

[JWPlatt]

I have the same goal for a better organized Uru Community and want to develope a better maens for gathering topics that seem to always stall out unresolved or never get implimented. I have seen so many great thread topics with excellent ideas just fade away to nothingness and those ideas become lost.

Ths is exactly what is being encouraged here, turning talk into tangible, by providing the resources to help do it. Part of what open source means is finally giving people the ability to walk the talk. I'm looking forward to seeing the results; who is motivated; who is not; what they do.

[Mac_Fife]

The problem I have with polls. They often don't frame the questions so great. Few want to vote. But more importantly, their is no explorer faces to them! No transparency!

Forum polls have their place, but they are quite limited and cannot substitute for a properly constructed survey questionnaire. Polls as OK for getting a quick "overview" where the objective can be encapsulated by a single question with multiple choice answers. The forum poll mechanism helps to prevent people voting several times, and in some cases the anonymity will encourage people to vote, especially if they think their response is controversial. Polls break down if the question is poorly formed, or the creator tries to adjust the question part-way through when they see results they didn't expect (or didn't want ) or if the answers offered don't cover all the options or if users find that more than one option applies. There's no free-form text response other than in the body of a reply post, which means that it is disassociated with the vote and it very easily overlooked by people who just look at the poll summary.

Having a proper on-line survey form can get you the results in a database that you can sort, pose multiple questions with various response types (check boxes, text fields, etc.), but has the problem of perhaps putting people off responding, because it takes time to fill out (even though it may take less than a minute). I've run a few on-line surveys over the last couple of years, and getting it right takes time and planning.

Would we use a balloting or survey tool often enough on OpenURU.org to warrant setting up our own tool? I don't know - probably not right now, but maybe if there were enough project proposal being touted around in the future.

Both http://www.phpform.org/ and http://phpformgen.sourceforge.net/ will allow you to build a survey form on-line and then download it for transfer onto your own website. The snag, I think, with both of these is that you need to build your own analysis tool (older versions of phpFormGenerator run entirely on your own site and did generate admin/analysis php code, but it was buggy and inadequate - I still use the older version to "shell out" my forms, but I write my own form processing and data extraction php and heavily edit the form html too).

[JWPlatt]

Thanks, Mac_Fife. As he says, if projects here need a tool on the domain, we'll be eager to do something for you.

[there are] no explorer faces to them!

Except for Mac_Fife's!