Where is the voting booth?

I'm in Neualtenburg looking for the voting booth but I can't find it. Where is it please?

I'm not sure :/ The voting page is not updated too.

Folks, apologies for the delay.

I had friends in town for a week, while simultaneously catching a cold. After returning from the doctor's, I've been prescribed some rest and plan to take the rest of the day off (I don't think I could do anything even without the prescription).

I've already called in and told my coworkers that I'll be home ill tomorrow. Because I'll be home, I will set up the voting booth and web page tomorrow (it takes about 10 minutes tops) and I'll post here as soon as it's ready. (I predict 11:00 am PDT depending on when I get out of bed.)

Again, sorry for the delay.

In the future I'll eliminate the single-point failure by giving other members of the group copies of the voting booth and access to the code (both the source and the ability to log in and make modifications).

I'm going to head to bed now. :/

~Ulrika~

Thank you for the heads up Ulrika, and sorry you are sick!

Hope you feel better soon! *hugs*

Get well soon, Ulrika.

Get well soon!

The booth and server have both been updated. You can now vote! Head to the town square. You can't miss the voting booth. Just touch it to get started or read the complete instructions here.

If I have omitted anyone from a faction list or if someone would like to declare a faction affiliation before they vote, send me an email. It takes just a second to add someone to the list.

If there is someone who would like to run for office who is not on the list, this is a bit more problematic (although not unsolvable). If this is the case, please contact me ASAP.

~Ulrika~

P.S. - I have a "Surviving the First Two Weeks" baby class this evening. I'll be out most the evening but will check email when I get back.

Note! All old Neualtenburger's must clear out their cookies before they attempt to vote, otherwise the system will say that you've already voted. The cookies for the last election were set to expire 2 days after the election ended but because of a possible browser bug (MSIE) they did not.

I'll watch this bug closely, as it could affect the next election as well. Feel free to post debugging information, if you have time (browser type and version).

Also, I found one hash in the voting results that was a duplicate, meaning that someone was able to vote twice. I invalidated the second vote, so it won't affect the outcome of the election. I've very carefully looked over the code and I can't see how it's possible for someone to vote twice (it should be impossible). If you were the person who was able to vote twice, could you describe what you did to allow the second vote?

Thanks.

~Ulrika~

Ulrika,

Could you give us a running count on how many votes have been received. Like the Log-A-Thon the other night, it would be nice to know how many more are still to vote. How much we've got to stand in the Platz yelling "Vote! Vote! Vote!"

Thanks.

Sudane

We've received 13 votes so far, of which 10 are valid. Of the 3 invalid votes, 1 was a duplicate and 2 were from noncitizens.

Given that we have 17 citizens, we are waiting for 7 more votes. Of the 7 pending votes, 3 will be absentee and 1 is not in contact. Thus we're waiting for 3 more in-world votes and 3 more absentee votes. I can't easily tell who is remaining (identity is concealed in a hash).


Answers to questions with some fun facts sprinkled in:

1. The duplicate vote is due to an unknown (and seemingly impossible) bug but was easily caught by looking for matching hashes.
   
2. The two noncitizen votes were found by generating a list of hashes from the known citizen list and comparing it to the received votes. (I left the voting open to the world this time to try and generate interest in our project from visitors.)
   
3. I'll email out PIN numbers for absentee voters tonight.
   
4. Many members of the MPP seem to be tactical voters ranking the SDF below the ficticious Costume Party. (More on the ramifications of this after the polls close.)
   
5. Only 3 votes from citizens without a faction affiliation have come in.
   

~Ulrika~

If the Costume Party is fictitious, Ulrika, then why was it made available for voting? As it stood it appeared a perfectly genuine faction.

The Monster Raving Loony Party attracted votes in RL from perfectly sensible people. If some of us did the same here then that is their privilege.

It is acceptable for you to say how many votes remain to be counted but is not acceptable for you to comment on how people have voted. I shall take the first opportunity after the elections to help ensure that future elections are governed independently of faction members.

It's because you're all my little guinea pigs.

I didn't spend 80 hours with my husband coding SL's first web-based voting system for a representative government complete with Borda counts using the Sainte-Laguë method for my health. By nature I'm a social scientist and statistician. By adding this extra group it allows a deeper layer of analysis that would otherwise not be possible. It also helps me see how well the voting system is working before we do have our inevitable third party.

You'll see when I do a summary of the voting results like I did in January. Read the old results. They're quite fascinating (as these will certainly be).

The inclusion of a third party in voting has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election if there were only two parties.

Of course it's fine! Tactical and destructive voting are an inevitable part of democracy. I have no problem with it, although as you can see by following the above link, tactical voting in a system with a Borda count and Sainte-Laguë method for tallying votes can sometimes lead to counterintuitive results.

All voting in this sim is 100% transparent with two exceptions specified in the constitution:

1. All votes are private.
   
2. Faction ranks are secret.

Provided this information is not revealed, all other data can be released. This includes correlations between party and propensity to vote tactically, which party independent voters favor, whether or not faction members voted against their own party, and so on. Remember, transparency is a good thing. That's why everyone has true voting receipts that can allow the election to be verified by a third party and all voter identities are obscured from even me by means of a hash.

When removing transparency from a system, one has to ask whether or not it is being done to protect all citizens from retribution or if it's being done to allow a small group of folks to get away with something.

~Ulrika~

Come come this is disingenuous as well as patronising. I have to ask whether it was ever your intention that these elections should have validity. If you really were planning on setting people up then the sooner you leave Neualtenburg the better.

Allowing a small number of people to get away with something? Hmm, pot, kettle, black.

Well, when I say guinea pig, I mean that in the best possible way, as I'm including my own vote in the experiment as well. Remember, this is only the second time this voting system has been employed and it needs to be exercised to guarantee accuracy and scalability. Besides, as all the city old-timers know, the Costume Party is a city institution that exists to remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. Hint hint.

As for your statement concerning validity, let me expand upon that. In order to have a robust voting system we need to verify and validate the system and the results.

1. Validation - Confirmation by examination and provisions of objective evidence that the particular requirements for a specific intended use are fulfilled.
   
2. Verification - Confirmation by examination and provisions of objective evidence that specified requirements have been fulfilled.

The use of a third faction to test the voting system is a critical part of both validation and verification process. Thus, its presence in the vote is actually serving to ensure the validity and verity of current and future votes.

Your argument is invalid because the roles are asymmetric.

As a Master in the Guild, a team led by me created the hybrid in-world-web-based voting system. It is a complex program with 1500 lines of code for the interface and 700 lines of code for the vote-tallying software. (At market prices it is worth about US$12k in development hours alone.) It is my responsibility to verify and validate the system. Further as a member of the Scientific Council, I am responsible for overseeing that elections are carried out in a fair and transparent way.

Thus my role as the person who creates, vets, validates, verifies, and oversees the voting process is not the same as a group which seeks to obfuscate organized tactical voting by reducing the transparency of the system.

~Ulrika~

Firstly, there was nothing tactical about my vote; as a Discordian I quite naturally would vote for a group with the listed platform.

I must say that I dont agree with your "approach" (I guess that's the kindest word I could use), to this election at all.

I will reserve judement until it's all over of course, but so far this election seems a sham to me, and not valid at all. From questionable instructions on the voting page and the missing voting booths to your apparent unilateral handling of votes deemed extraneous or "mistaken," the (apparently) extended voting period, changed procedures etc., ...
I mean it all just seems like one big screw-up to me.

I am not sure that whatever result we finally get could even be considered legal by the very rules we have set up and agreed to.

I for one, have completely lost confidence in the process. I was not aware that you personally would have such a large role to play and had I known it, I would neither have moved to Neualtenburg nor participated in the vote. Not because of any personal animosityor because of any agenda I wish to overlay on things, but because I am just not interested in playing the guinea pig role.

If, as you seem to be saying now, this is all just a game for you, then perhaps you should have just told us from the start. Transparency is not just about information being discoverable, sometimes its about imparting that information to a necessary target. Perhaps the older members knew about your intentions in that regard, but I did not. I was under the impression that what was in the offing was a "real" election (or as close to one as one could simulate in Second Life), and I find it dissapointing to now see that it is not quite that at all.

I am not a social scientist, but I do know that such experimentation on human populations without their knowledge is generally considered "bad form" nowadays, (if not out and out illegal in many cases), and in that light I can see now why you have perhaps turned to virtual worlds for your guinea pigs. What I *can't* see however, is how you can really call any "data" you get from such an experiment to be representative of anything, or mean anything.

If it's a social experiment, it seems to me that now that you have come out of your metaphorical duck blind and told the participants that you were just playing with them, the experiment is effectively over. At the very least, It might have been smarter to wait until the election was complete, before talking about results and revealing your true intentions.

If all of this is in error, I apologise. It could be that you simply assumed that newer members like myself would be so facinated as to read up on all your past "exploits" and thereby discover that the last election was also just an elaborate game, and that your general approach was more one of a scientist to a cage of rats, than that of a potential leader to their community. If that was your assumption, then of course we would no longer be uninformed as to your intent, there is no "duck blind," and everythign makes more sense.

All I can say is that I didn't know that that was your intent.
I am surprised and greatly dissapointed with the whole election as it currently stands.

.

Do you have any solutions to offer? I don't really know what to do with a list of complaints like the above.

Further, I should remind you that I'm not your servant. I created most of the vast infrastructure that is Neualtenburg (web page, voting system, constitution, forum, homes, contests, city plan, roads, signs, vendor) with the goal that everyone would join me in expanding it. I never realized that everyone would take the entire infrastructure for granted and spend their time complaining about it. I'm not your waitress. I'm just another citizen like you whose trying to balance RL and SL.

1. Instead of griping about how confusing things are, why don't you write a tutorial or hold a class on how to operate the voting system?
   
2. Instead of complaining about the length of the vote, why don't you propose legislation that would set an official time limit for the vote?
   
3. Instead of expecting that all your infrastructure will be provided to you perfectly and for free, why don't you instead work on a system of paid contracts that will deliver fully verified and validated systems to the city for a real US$ fee?
   
4. If you feel you're being experimented upon, why don't you seek clarification instead of manufacturing my intent?

~Ulrika~

I finally have a little more time to go back and answer some of the issues raised in greater detail now that I'm home and have finished cleaning up the house.

I'm a little surprised that you didn't know that I'd have such a big role in the elections. Here's a short list of the things I've done in the city lately:

I created the entire website on which the elections runs. I coded the voting booth. I created the entire vendor website which provides reporting on sales and casino transactions. I wrote the vendor code. I built all the seven variations of the fachwerks myself. I placed most buildings by hand and laid most streets by hand. I created all the address, street, and business signs. I built a bridge. I created a dynamic page that keeps track of who owns what parcel of land. I wrote up the formal constitution. I started and am one of the moderators for our group forum (here). I created the original idea of a nonprofit land cooperative. I wrote the original proposal for Neualtenburg when it was in the sim of Anzere. I built and tore down a partial museum twice. I created the city map and layout. I named the streets. I built the casino and found a very talented player to fill it up with retro games. I drafted the original deeds and covenants and linked them to citizenship. (Plus I've been carrying a baby for 9 of the 10 months I've been working on this project.)


I have a question for you. How did you not know I'd have large role in the election process?

As for verification, that can be done by a third party after the elections are over. Everyone must simply send their voting-receipt URL to the third party and they can verify the results.

~Ulrika~

There's nothing wrong with voting tactically or destructively. It's part of the democratic process. Really!

It can be bad for a faction if it's in second place and the party that's being used for tactical voting steals one of that party's seats. For instance, if the MPP were to come in second, because its members voted heavily for the CP, the CP would likely take a seat from the MPP. Thus it can be a dangerous thing to do, if you're not sure you'll win the election.

It can also be bad for the city as a whole, as the faction being used for tactical voting might receive more seats than the public truly wants and pull the government in a direction unrepresentative of the population's true desire. However, due to our method of voting (Borda count with the Saint-Laguë method) this would seldom happen.

Note that tactical voting tends to diminish when there are more than two viable parties (meaning the third party is a true alternative). In this case it was clearly a farcical party but in the future I'd expect to see a "Green Faction" (or similar) seriously seeking votes.

~Ulrika~

I believe that you are assuming way too much here, and I'm not going to answer a lot of questions based on an innacurate inference of my position or my intent, or justify statements that are being put into my mouth by someone else.

I went out of my way to use a lot of conditional language in my statements and highlight the fact that I was still thinking about issues and open to other interpretations of what I am myself inferring from your statements.

I am pretty sure I also said or directly implied that I did not have all my facts and so forth. For instance I was assuming that there *was* a time limit on the vote or that the election had a specific duration (a reasonable assumptions since every RL election I ever heard of has one), and if there isn't ... well first how incredibly odd that is, and secondly it would alter a great deal of my concerns about the validity of the vote.

In terms of having lost faith in the process, I am just trying to be honest. That feeling is probably the central thing that caused me to make the post in the first place. In fact I tried to dance around it for the hour or so it took me to make the post, but I eventually just thought I should probably say it.

In truth I was quite pissed off and spent a long long time thinking about why that was and whether I was giving you the benefit of the doubt in as many ways as I could. I tried to reason out what you may or may not have been thinking, or what your motivations were, and I read as much of all those old threads as I could make my brain understand.

You are indeed not my servant or my waitress (the sharp eyed will notice I never said you were), but you are not my boss either. I thought Neualtenburg was a real city with a real government, in short I believed what you advertise as your dream or your goal. I thought in fact we had thesame dream or goal in that respect. If that is all true then I think I have every right to say the rather mild criticisms I have in the very (I think) non perjorative way in which I have said them.

Also the reason I thought that I was being "experimented on" was likely because you referred to us as "guinea pigs" that were part of "an experiment".

You sorta took it back in a later post: ... but that has to be in the hall of fame for wackiest quotes ever.

I know its hard to read emotion in a post and a lot of inferrence is necessary, but your taking me wrong here. I dont wish to argue about it and I am not on an anti-Ulrika bent, or wanting a flame war, or to challenge you, or denigrate your massive contribution etc. etc..

I just think what I think. Take it or leave it I guess.
tired, going to bed...

.

Okay just saw this after I posted the last thing...

I knew all that stuff above, I did not know that you would personally be in charge of the election machinery to the degree that you are. ie - adding factions to the list, being in charge of the voting booth, of tabulating the votes, of deciding which votes were real or false, and announcing partial results during the course of the election.

In RL an impartial third party does that (well most of that). I think it was reasonable to expect the same here, but I did not really think of it at the time.

I have a lot of other things on my mind both RL and SL besides Neualtenburg and the elections. I dont follow everythign about the place or about you. It is one of several important projects that I have on the go or that I am in support of.

nite.

The duration of the vote is listed on the voting page.

I honestly don't know why you're upset nor why your faith in the voting system should be shaken. Granted that the voting system is still beta (it's only been used twice), it nonetheless gives a verifiable receipt. Me calling folks guinea pigs was a fun way of saying I'm using you to test out the voting system. This applies to both exercising the code and seeing what choices people make when given a farcical third party to use for tactical voting.

I really can't figure out why people are so uptight about this election. It's a Borda count using the Saint-Laguë method for allocating the RA seats. With two parties the only solution is a 50-50 split of seats with one extra seat going to the faction that has a slightly higher ranking. So if there are five seats, it will be split 3 to 2. That's it.


In the future, if you have concerns about the voting or city, state them clearly without bringing me personally into the discussion. I want SL to be a fun place for me while it lasts.

~Ulrika~

You honestly can't see what is wrong with treating real people like this? I pity you, and I pity the other members of the SDP who deserve better than to be tarnished with this disgrace.

Let me first start by saying thank you to Ulrika for getting the voting booth and website up and running again. I know you have been ill as well as pregnant, and I'm sure it was no easy task! I appretiate the work you put into this project a great deal!

I also want to state that I can understand the concerns that some others have voiced here. Personally I understand the use of the "ficticious" 3rd party for the voting, and I remember why it was good to have it listed now and the first time tested this voting system. However, I think a lot of unease and feelings of possible distrust could have been avoided if newer members to the project knew this information *before* they started voting rather than after. The fact this information was not mentioned before hand is just as much my fault and anyone else who was around for the first time of voting. Any one of us could have mentioned this, so I apologize also for not being around as much recently, as well as for not posting more before the voting started.

For those concerned that we are just pretending here and not trying to create a real working government, I would like to say that you are wrong, and try to help ease some concerns. One thing to remember is that we are trying to create a government that works for an *online* world. What that means is that issues like what happened during this election are going to come up, and we are going to have work the resolutions of these issues into the government. Be they constitutional amendments, new bills, etc. This is a work in progress and we are no where near perfect yet. So personally I would like to see some active work on this issue by our upcoming newly elected. Put it on the plate! hehe..

As for trust and feelings about Ulrika. I have known Ulrika through this project longer than some. Others here know her even much better than I do. And though we stand on different platforms, I have always felt that Ulrika truely does want this project to be a "real working government". Even if that means that one day it grows beyond just what her personal political viewpoints should be. I don't think Ulrika would ever sabatoge or stand in the way of laws, etc. put forth by the government other than in her own ability (like everyone) to use the government to try and change those things she does not like.

I totally trust Ulrika with handling the voting code. I also totally trust Sudane with the ownership of the island. And think about the trust Ulrika and all of us have to give to that issue! There is just a certain amount of trust we have to give to certain people in this project due to the mechanics we have to work with in Second Life.

The day that a single person would have the ability to over-rule the government we have put in place, would be the day I left the project. Since I don't feel that such a person currently exists in the project, I say again that we should use this opportunity to get our government to understand the concerns of this current issue, and work within our governmental structure to find some resolutions.

Hi Pen,

Thanks for the clarification and the positive message. I completely agree with your seeing this (if I understand you correctly), as somewhat of a communication problem, one that I think was exacerbated by probably a poor choice of words in one post. If I mis-interpreted those words, I know I was not the only one, but we are all human after all.

I want to apologise to the Neualtenburg commuity as a whole in regards to whatever degree my statements may have impacted us as a group in the eyes of others. I have no evidence that the election was anything other than above board etc. and I tried my damndest to not make any of my comments personal at all but perhaps I did not suceed as much as I hoped. I know that some will not believe that, but it's true. You should see what was in the original post before I cooled down!

As I said in the earlier post, I was dissapointed in the election and I expected better if only because of the exacting professionalism that usualy marks Neualtenburg and also Ulrikas works (that's personal but it's a positive Ulrika), but I would probably not have posted my comments on the forum if I was not also mad at the time (possibly mad in both senses of the word). Apon reflection it was probably the Guinea Pig comment that triggered it for me, and again, although I possibly took that comment it in a sense that it was not intended, I have to say that I am certain that I was not alone in doing so. Just foolish enough to post all about it in the forums.

Ulrika being sick and also pregnant no doubt contributed to a lot of little glitches that IMO, lent an appearance of a sort of "comedy of errors" to the election. At least that is how I saw it at the time and that is what led me to question the process. In that context, my view of the election is not a lot different from other folks. We all know it has had its bumps and glitches and Ulrika has said the same if perhaps to a lesser degree.
It is a Beta after all.

I would agree that any further discussions about the elections process and possible glitches or failings or ways in which it could be "gamed," if that is the right term, (or even of how absolutely fantastic the whole thing is), should of course not be carried out in the forums but in Neualtenburg itself, amoungst our own populace and government.

I look forward with excitement to seeing who is eventually elected, and even more so to what happens after that as we move forward with what is one of the most exciting and original projects in Second Life. If anyone is wondering, I am not moving anywhere and will keep both my house and my interest in Neualtenburg.

Anyway, apologies for getting mad and being unreasonable etc.

This is especailly shocking as possibly it is the first time someone has gotten mad and posted rash thoughts on the Internet! Up until now it was all sweetness and light, and I had to ruin it.

Had to happen sometime I guess.