Feature Voting has MAJOR flaws

I am against the current implementation of the SL Feature Voting system. I love the idea of it and how LL plans to implement per votes, however I believe the implementation has major flaws.

1. Ballot stacking with alts.
We already have people abusing 1st land, griefing, and avoiding banishments using alts. This would be another way alts would give undue power.

2. Controversial issues are misrepresented.
What if 51% of the SL community feels an issue is good, and 49% hate it? The proposal would get a lot of votes, however there lacks any way for people to vote negatively.

3. Suggestions should not be limited.
Make proposals free. There also needs to be a duplicate checker and a search tool, as well as a moderator who consolodates duplicates. I personally have suggested dozens of things for SL, and would hate to think I am capped to 10, ever.

I would suggest the alternative:

- Add a ranking system 1-5, and let people vote as much as they want.
- Let votes be tied to credit cards, not by accounts.
- Make proposals free.
- Add a search tool for users to easily find suggestions.
- Moderate suggestions for duplicates.

Otherwise, I like the idea and I like the mechanism of LL responding with whether it can be done and whether it will be worked on - this has been something that I and others have asked for and are glad to have.

Point system:

I disagree that the 10 point system is a bad idea, in fact for what it is I think it is much better than a rate each proposal system.

The reason is in development you need to prioritize what you are going to do. What this system dose is allow the clients (us) prioritize what needs to be done is second life. This is because I'm going to give a high number of my 10 votes to things I want NOW, and a low score or none to ideas I like, but are not as important.

Thus when the current set of features I'm pushing for are either accepted, (and thus presumably will be added) or denied (will not be added) and I get my votes back I can now vote for the next items of importance.

On the other hand if I just rated every proposal we could end up with two very popular ones, but one people don't care for as much instantly, even though overall it is more popular than the item with a more pressing desire.

Simply put you should think of this system as a way of specifying what you want in SL now, not what you would eventually one day like to see. (comment about the latter in the forms)


Now as for your other comments, searches and duplicate removal is of course very important.

Proposals in the current system should have the current requirement, since it will be easy to add when you have a vote (they don't actually cost anything, they just need at least one vote to exist, and that is why you need the vote to create it)

Finally alts or no alts? I don't have an opinion as of yet, since the people with alts DID pay for another account. I think the fix is 9.95 lifers get 5 votes, while premium members get 10, and every tier level (512, 1024, 2048...) you get 1 extra vote and make some max of 20 per account. Thus they can get votes more accordingly to their income. But I'd wait a while before deciding any changes on this portion of the system. I'm really not sure what is best for the community or LL. (anyway isn't LL limiting the number of alts attached to a single credit card?)

Now problems I believe an open form MUST be attached to EVERY post. And as you mentioned some type of negative vote. (I like the idea of "slaps" as in I slap the poster... but I don't think that name would go over well ) In the current system I believe every account should get the same number of these votes as the positive ones, with the same return/re-evaluation feature. (ie I get 10, I can apply them to the post, and remove them when I find a post I hate more) On the main view show how many +, and - votes the item currently has, no reason to show the net because I want to know the interest (positive or negative) in the proposal.

The search tool is already there. The stats screen categorizes the proposals better but I think there are just to many proposals out there. It's pushing 150 now.

A big neeeaaaaayyyyyy to negative votes Mr Ed.

The beauty about me suggesting negative voting is that people who vote negatively against my idea are voting for my idea, as well.

What Legith said. All of it.

Btw, as far as alts, landowners etc, what I think is:

Linden has access to data such as: credit cards, tiers, account type, land owned and so on. This means that it's pretty easy for them to generate multiple weekly reports for their internal use, weighted by things like:

1. total monthly payment to Linden
   
2. total land owned
   
3. normalized by credit card account
   
4. no weighting
   
5. ...
   

This means they can play with different weightings without changing the front-end system presented to us.

As others have pointed out, the system is just another way of obtaining feedback from the community, so Linden are free to choose to use the information as they see best.

Azelda

Can they ever please everyone? Its a good system. Let them be.

Care to elaborate? I gave some pretty specific reasons why it was flawed. Can you at least come close to addressing them? All you're doing is essentially begging the question.

I actually (independently) came to some of the same conclusions, but decided to use the system against itself (if you see what I mean) - check Prop: 96



Jonathan

Hiro, very well stated thread and if you refere to Az's post about it being posted you can see where I illicited exactly some of these concerns yesteday.

Additionally, while its a decent method to control voting.
I still feel that your proposal may need some fine tuning.
However, I cannot put my finger on it quite yet.

Give me some time to think about it and I will get back with you.

Shadow

Yeah, I saw Az's post. Mine's still first, though

I absolutely agree with Hiro's suggestions. Alt should never give more votes. It's a common tactic of land barons to have multiple alts. That doesn't mean these people have any better sense than the rest of us, so why should they get more votes? The same thing applies to tier. Why should somebody who is rich in RL get more votes than a less prosperous person? It doesn't mean their opinion is more valuable.

FYI Robin and Uncle's response:
/invalid_link.html

Voting should be even with everyone.
A paying member is a paying member. We all play in the same world. If the votes were to allow the 9.95 lifers to get all or most of the features that the monthly members get, then I'd be for giving more votes to those who subscribe monthly.

Let Linden Labs (or push LL to....) implement the account info check system. That seems the only way to really filter out alt votes from legit votes and give a prop a fair and balanced chance.

'Checks and balances' in a more literal sense.
I do think one vote per prop, and unlimited prop voting as opposed to 'recycling' and 'pulling' votes, is a way to go.

Just my opinion. Not that it means much.

Something I poseted in hotline to lindens. Uncle L pointed me to this discussion.

I'm not concerned about alt voting. Lindens can see how many votes are alt votes.

I like the current voting system and don't want con voting. Though I do expect to see the more difficult features cost more points. Perhaps we need 20 points to spend if difficult proposals can cost 3 or 4 points.

I'd also like to see a Linden moderator to help cull dupe proposals, etc.

But voting on bugs to fix is just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

How can it be a good system, when the first item that is accepted, prioritising bugfixing over new features, is IMMEDIATELY and DEMONSTRABLY NOT implemented, by the very fact that they threw it back at us, and forced us to consider bugs and features in the same voting system???

The illogicality of this move just beggars belief. The community speaks - put bugfixes first - the company accepts the proposal, and removes it from the list, and the first thing they do is to take steps to ensure that they can't implement it...by asking us to vote on specific bugfixes as part of the voting system, on a level playing field with feature suggestions.

I care deeply about the bugs affecting building, but I don't want to spend precious SL time trawling through endless feature proposals to see if the bug I was to prioritise is already in the list. Frankly, my SL isn't long enough.

I hate the deceitful nature of it: either they take the bloody decisions and therefore the voting system is a farce, or we do and they aren't managing their system properly. They can't have it both ways. On current evidence, I favour the farce theory.
Cali