NationStates Jolt Archive

Hello,

I've put in a request before suggesting that a forum moderator "sticky" one of the threads in order to *hopefully* encourage most UN members to post their opinions on the current UN resolution on the floor in a single thread.

I also have a second suggestion. The current thread title is a bit leading:

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7487962

I've always felt a more neutral title for the main thread discussion would be:

[Resolution Name] at vote on UN floor.

Or something like that. Anyway, I'd like to formally ask that the moderation team consider stickying the thread for the next 5 days and maybe discuss if you feel that perhaps in fairness to the author that the "official" thread that you'll be directing nations too should have a "neutral" title.

Thanks,
10kMichael

You can't tell a player what to title his/her thread, as long as its not breaking any rules, they can call it whatever they want to.

You can't tell a player what to title his/her thread, as long as its not breaking any rules, they can call it whatever they want to.

*IF* the moderators are going to choose to funnel and direct all posts on a resolution into a single thread, then that thread should have a neutral title. Otherwise there is a potential for bias on the part of the moderators -- or worse, it will encourage squatting (I can explain in more detail if you need).

*IF* moderators are going to allow as many threads as players deem fit, then there is no need to change titles.

*IF* the moderators are going to choose to funnel and direct all posts on a resolution into a single thread, then that thread should have a neutral title.

Yes, I quite agree with you, if the moderator's create the thread and then Sticky it, but this isn't the case. The past way of it being done, minus the Sticky, is that the moderators would lock the additional threads created minus the main debate one. So, if they Sticky that topic, then, it can't be bias, because they didn't create it specifically for that purpose.

So, are you proposing the Moderators make a thread themselves, Sticky it for a debate?

I don't think that'll happen.

In the past the Unfree People has taken multiple threads discussing a single resolution the UN floor and combined them *and* renamed the title.

It was IMHO an appropriate action and when I suggested sticking that thread at the time, I don't recall what the opinion of moderators was. I could dig up the thread, because it wasn't too long ago, but I've likely removed it from my subscription list ...

Now the decision of which thread to "combine" posts in is a moderator decision. That decision, no matter how it is done, may impact the tone of the debate.

If the moderator decides that the "combined" thread is the "This resolution sucks, vote it down" thread, it will make no voters more comfortable in expressing their opinion. If however the moderator decides that the "combined" thread should start with the thread titled, "Don't be a war-monger, instead be level-headed and vote yes" the tone of the debate will be one that anybody who supports the no position is not level-headed and instead is a war-monger.

Moderation requires finding the balance between the two.



So next you'll say, well the moderator should use the FIRST post. I disagree. The resolutions tend to appear on the UN floor sometime between midnight and 6 am in the US West Coast. This means that you are asking that a player in the PST or even MST time zone needs to either find an ally who will put up the first "positive" worded thread in order to "squat" on a title, or just deal with the fact that somebody else can run a thread that encourages votes against their hard work.

The problem here is that *if* we suggest that it be on a first-come first-served basis, we are putting some time zones at a disavantage and also encouraging "squatting". If we just leave it up to moderator choice, then they have a chance to favour players they like or topics they like (or the opposite if they so wish).

I realize that moderators are choose for their ability to show they are capable of balanced decisions, so what I'm suggesting ... a neutral title change, isn't that much of a step beyond what a good moderator will look for when deciding how to consolidate posts in the first place.

The alternative would be to allow as many threads on a resolution, and to not involve any moderation decision.

Ah, okay, I see where you're coming from now. I was under the previous impression that you meant just taking one thread, stickying it, and that be the end of it, not combining more than one... I got it now... moving on, nothing to see here.

Hmmm, the sever or my connection is slow today ... otherwise I'd add this in my previous post.

It should be stated that there have been real world studies conducted on the impact of "names" on ballots and they've found that swing voters tend to vote for the names on the top of a ballot.

In California, before every election the Secretary of State draws a letter at random ... let's say it is "G". And then another letter, "U". Next perhaps, "R". And so on.

All names on the ballot are then sorted by last names. In my example G would come before U, and U before R.

A person named Gundark would appear before a person named Greyskull. Similarily, Underwoods come before Rodgers.

The names are then rotated or redrawn for each California State Assembly District. But the end result is the law is designed to remove the unfair advantage of associating "first" (or in my example "title") with "official".

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/statewide_special_random_alpha.htm


This procedure was established by legislation passed in 1975 in response to court rulings declaring that standard alphabetical order or incumbent-first was unconstitutional since there is a 5% positional bias among undecided voters.


While I think most nations that post in the thread have their mind made up earlier, some of us actually asked for the threads to be combined not for clutter purposes but for archiving purposes. An archive that encourages a sort of bias (not the vote ... but the debate), is less useful.

OK, the Unfree People has started locking threads and politely redirecting post traffic to a single resolution thread. (Which many members have been doing ...)

But the title of that particular thread seems "leading" and biased. To discourage future "squatting" on resolution titled threads and spamming, I'd suggest that the title be reworked and the thread sticked from now until mid-day Saturday.