Unfair Voting in Elections
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:48 pm
It has come to our attention that 'Vote Stuffing', or the act of logging shelved alts to vote for an election candidate either of their own volition or by the OOC urgings of that party has been a serial issue over the last few months.
The Team does not consider it very fair to log onto a character who does not have an active stake in the settlement's RP. This can turn elections into OOC popularity contests. We ask that you use your common sense and ask yourself before voting, "Does my character have a reason to have an opinion about this?" "Am I voting to support my OOC friend?" "Have I been RPing in this settlement at all the last election term? Do they even know the candidates?"
We have, and will continue to remove Stuffed Votes.
The team goes through an extensive process to double count an election:
First we gather all the names and CD keys of those who have voted
Second, we identify each voter, and any ties they have in the Current RP
-We ask ourselves and the logs to ascertain if this character is one that is 'shelfed' (inactive for months at a time) or an 'alt' 'shelfed' (inactive for months at a time) or an 'alt' (an alternate character to a Player's 'main' character whom plays frequently in accordance to the play time patterns noted from this player)
-We investigate the RP to see if there are any instances of talking about the election, the candidates, or being approached to vote in the past few months.
Third, we make a decision whether or not the vote is 'stuffed' using clues from the logs and context.
We are incredibly thorough, and typically approach 'Stuffers' for a discussion about the vote following the log investigation to understand their perspective on the situation. In most cases, we use our common sense and best judgement to make these calls, but we ask you help us by being responsible with your time, and your IC votes.
Thank you for following the announcements.
-Arelith DM Staff
The Team does not consider it very fair to log onto a character who does not have an active stake in the settlement's RP. This can turn elections into OOC popularity contests. We ask that you use your common sense and ask yourself before voting, "Does my character have a reason to have an opinion about this?" "Am I voting to support my OOC friend?" "Have I been RPing in this settlement at all the last election term? Do they even know the candidates?"
We have, and will continue to remove Stuffed Votes.
The team goes through an extensive process to double count an election:
First we gather all the names and CD keys of those who have voted
Second, we identify each voter, and any ties they have in the Current RP
-We ask ourselves and the logs to ascertain if this character is one that is 'shelfed' (inactive for months at a time) or an 'alt' 'shelfed' (inactive for months at a time) or an 'alt' (an alternate character to a Player's 'main' character whom plays frequently in accordance to the play time patterns noted from this player)
-We investigate the RP to see if there are any instances of talking about the election, the candidates, or being approached to vote in the past few months.
Third, we make a decision whether or not the vote is 'stuffed' using clues from the logs and context.
We are incredibly thorough, and typically approach 'Stuffers' for a discussion about the vote following the log investigation to understand their perspective on the situation. In most cases, we use our common sense and best judgement to make these calls, but we ask you help us by being responsible with your time, and your IC votes.
Thank you for following the announcements.
-Arelith DM Staff