Seeing the differences among position drafts

[David Hilvert]

Michael and David M., 

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:46:03 -0400
Michael Allan <mike at zelea.com> wrote:

> davidm wrote:
> > ... Finding ways to import vote-able discussions seems very
> > worthwhile and innovative. But I think people would be inclined to
> > try to resolve things in a simpler fashion with polls.  If there is
> > a straightforward way to setting up and using Votorola in this
> > context I'd give it a try.

There are things for which usual multiple-choice polls are too strict (imagine,
for example, cases where 'none of the above' would be commonly selected); for
these, something like Votorola might be useful in allowing a more refined
decision-making process, which goes beyond a technical ability to separate
polls from related texts.  (But this is mostly redundant with what Michael says
below.)

> I'm not sure about "vote-able discussions".  We don't vote on
> discussions.  It's more like "discuss-able votes".  Is that what you
> mean?
> 
> By a simpler fashion of voting, do you mean like conventional
> elections or referenda, where there are fewer choices?

One thing that conventional polls do well that I have not seen expressed very
clearly in descriptions of Votorola is the ability for a single individual to
propose a variety of options, one of which is to be selected.

As an example, if a design decision is to be made (e.g., in a Free Software
project), this might normally occur via discussion, but each participant need
not express only a single course of action; rather, multiple possible courses
could be outlined.  One way to agree with such an expression would be to select
a single one of these; another would be to agree with all or with some subset. 

Indeed, if a voting system is to be able to express agreement with a variety of
kinds of proposals or assessments, then it should probably take into account
the case that a proposal is not yet fully refined.  I believe that this should
be possible within a system like Votorola, and may be one area where Votorola
could offer significant advantages over conventional Web polls.