Self Staff Votes

[Lilybitdun]

I have permission from KLOL506 and Qawsedf234 to make this thread

Staff Self Votes

Are staff members allowed to vote on their own CRT?

vsbattles.com

Staff Self Votes

Are staff members allowed to vote on their own CRT?

vsbattles.com

Currently staff members are capable of self-approving their own content revision threads per the discussion rules

Self-Approval of Content Revisions​

• It is understood that there may be instances where a staff member has expertise or knowledge of a particular series that allows them to confidently approve a revision on their own. It is possible for a staff member to initiate a content revision thread and have their vote counted.

I feel like I don't even need to point out how silly that is.

It's fine for a versus thread due it to being a match up that you afterwards come with a proposal with who you think wins. The OP's opinion is not self-evident in these types of discussions.

With Content Revisions you are coming forth with a proposal of your personal thoughts of what you think is factually right, agreeing with your own proposal is a prerequisite and self-evident. OP's vote shouldn't contribute.
This is like voting for yourself in an election. US presidential candidates are allowed to vote for themselves, this seems like this would make it fair for self staff votes but consider the fact the US voting pool is millions of people so the individual self-vote is not a huge contribution. CRTs usually have only a small sample pool of staff to vote on it due to several factors, this vastly increases the worth of a single vote. Using the US voting system is not a good example and is non-applicable.

Voting rights are based on that staff members will be unbiased, but proposing a CRT is inherently biased as it's your formulated thoughts on what you think is factually right. Proposing a CRT that the OP themselves does not agree with that means they do not find their own argument valid.

The concluding evaluations must be handled by Thread Moderators, Administrators, and Bureaucrats, who should make an effort to base their evaluations on valid arguments, not personal opinions.

The only way to remove bias from voting your own CRT would be a self neutral vote.

The rules themselves even brings up how minor revisions that need only one vote still need someone other than the OP to approve.

• However, in cases of minor revisions where only one vote is needed, it is necessary for at least one other staff member to approve the thread before it can be implemented. This serves to ensure that all content additions, even those suggested by staff members, are subject to supervision and oversight.

On a related note, several members have expressed concerns on the potential Demon Slayer downgrade CRT that will allegedly have 5 staff members and CGM behind it.

Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) - Breath of Discussion: 5th Form

Well, maybe because he wasn't trying to kill Sanemi instantly, because Muichiro literally kept up with Sanemi and Obanai at once in a sparring sess. Yes it wasn't an all out battle but Cmon, if Sanemi was ten times stronger he wouldn't jump Muichiro. He'd probably tell Obanai and Muichiro to...

vsbattles.com

You've got like 5 mods and CGM's on your asses now btw, expect the worst
expect it to go through too, ya'll goons best find some backup shit otherwise you're ******.

With threats of the downgrade CRT being made staff only

Gyutaro’s Destruction of the Entertainment District Calc Conflict Review

Gyutaro’s destruction of the entertainment district currently has two accepted calculations. This calculation which uses destruction values to calculate the feat based on the observed destroyed buildings, and this calculation which calculates the kinetic energy of one of the largest rising blood...

vsbattles.com

Was gonna make the DS downgrade a open CRT so everyone could comment but that shit is gonna be staff only now just for that.

This is not me criticizing Chariot190's words as that has already been discussed. I cannot judge the intentions of the staff members involved nor if their downgrade is valid/invalid. It is just concerning behavior that it's possible for a large group staff members to gang up to create and self approve their own CRT. I do not know a proposal on how to stop this possible behavior as there isn't a simple solution but I want to bring attention to this to help ease the community's concerns.

I have two possible proposals for relating on OP's self voting their CRTs.
1: Self votes do not count as agreeing with your own CRT is a prerequisite and self-evident.
2: Treat self votes the same they are for minor revisions, where you need the amount of votes necessary for the revision on top of your own vote.
I personally aiming for 1 but I'm willing to compromise for 2 if it's found more tolerable.

Remove self votes counting:
Agree:
Neutral:
Disagree: Agnaa, GrathOfLux, Damage3245, Dereck03, Qawsedf234, DontTalkDT, LephyrTheRevanchist

Apply the self voting rules for minor revisions to all revisions
Agree:
Neutral: Agnaa
Disagree: GrathOfLux, Damage3245, Dereck03, Qawsedf234, DontTalkDT, LephyrTheRevanchist

Let's have a civil discussion

 

[KLOL506]

@AKM sama @Antvasima @DontTalkDT @Mr. Bambu @Damage3245 @Qawsedf234 @Agnaa @GrathOfLux @DarkDragonMedeus @Celestial_Pegasus @Everything12 @Maverick_Zero_X @Crabwhale @Dereck03 @Planck69 @LephyrTheRevanchist @SamanPatou @Colonel_Krukov @Elizhaa @Starter_Pack @Firestorm808 @GyroNutz @Just_a_Random_Butler @Abstractions

 

[Qawsedf234]

Let's have a civil discussion

I'd remove everything to do with the Chariot thing. It's ultimately unrelated to the thread and is only bringing in unrelated drama into it. Mods assisting in the creation of CRT is a fine and doesn't impact their voting ability. It being a staff thread is also completely fine with prior approval.

For the thread itself in my view, a staff member proposing a thread is still required to remain unbiased. If it's thoroughly rejected or counterarguments are given, they are meant to adjust their stance. I don't really see a point in changing the rule.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

I'd remove everything to do with the Chariot thing. It's ultimately unrelated to the thread and is only bringing in unrelated drama into it. Mods assisting in the creation of CRT is a fine and doesn't impact their voting ability. It being a staff thread is also completely fine with prior approval.

For the thread itself in my view, a staff member proposing a thread is still required to remain unbiased. If it's thoroughly rejected or counterarguments are given, they are meant to adjust their stance. I don't really see a point in changing the rule.

Agreed

 

[Lilybitdun]

I'd remove everything to do with the Chariot thing. It's ultimately unrelated to the thread and is only bringing in unrelated drama into it. Mods assisting in the creation of CRT is a fine and doesn't impact their voting ability. It being a staff thread is also completely fine with prior approval.

I am not intending to bring any unrelated drama. The chariot thing is related due to it being an example of how staff self approvals effect the community.

For the thread itself in my view, a staff member proposing a thread is still required to remain unbiased. If it's thoroughly rejected or counterarguments are given, they are meant to adjust their stance. I don't really see a point in changing the rule.

Proposing a thread is inherently biased as I've already brought up as you have to believe that your proposal is a valid argument in the first place. Being able to adjust their stance does not change the fact CRTs are intrinsically biased. When OP's belief in the proposal changes, the proposal is also changed to fit what the OP now sees as a valid argument.

 

[Agnaa]

I feel like I don't even need to point out how silly that is.

I feel like you do.

It's fine for a versus thread due it to being a match up that you afterwards come with a proposal with who you think wins. The OP's opinion is not self-evident in these types of discussions.

With Content Revisions you are coming forth with a proposal of your personal thoughts of what you think is factually right, agreeing with your own proposal is a prerequisite and self-evident. OP's vote shouldn't contribute.
This is like voting for yourself in an election. US presidential candidates are allowed to vote for themselves, this seems like this would make it fair for self staff votes but consider the fact the US voting pool is millions of people so the individual self-vote is not a huge contribution. CRTs usually have only a small sample pool of staff to vote on it due to several factors, this vastly increases the worth of a single vote. Using the US voting system is not a good example and is non-applicable.

Voting rights are based on that staff members will be unbiased, but proposing a CRT is inherently biased as it's your formulated thoughts on what you think is factually right. Proposing a CRT that the OP themselves does not agree with that means they do not find their own argument valid.

The only way to remove bias from voting your own CRT would be a self neutral vote.

Yes, creating a thread is a vote of confidence in the ideas, but we should count that vote. They are a staff member who believes that the ideas proposed are good, so we should adequately register that opinion.

Plus, disregarding such votes can very easily get into silly territory. It's not exactly uncommon for new things to be proposed during a thread; if a staff member says "I think this scan you're using to propose Conceptual Manipulation should actually be Information Manipulation instead", should we not count their vote on that? They made that proposal themselves; why would that be any less biased than them making a new thread for that?

If we don't allow such things then we make it so that the optimal play is sometimes a really shitty dance. If you as a staff member want your vote counted on a matter, you'd have to hope that some other user comes up with that idea and proposes it first. That is a complete and utter waste of time. The optimal move should never be saying "I disagree with this, and I have a different proposal in mind, but I won't mention that so I can vote on it."

And really, I fundamentally don't see why creating a thread entails more bias than evaluating it. In both cases, a user is seeing evidence and coming to a conclusion from it. The only difference is that they're starting a conversation about it, and selecting the initial batch of evidence for presentation. "They formed thoughts on it" does not mean that they're biased, that's something that everyone who draws a conclusion does.

The rules themselves even brings up how minor revisions that need only one vote still need someone other than the OP to approve.

Yeah, that's the only mitigation we need for these situations.

On a related note, several members have expressed concerns on the potential Demon Slayer downgrade CRT that will allegedly have 5 staff members and CGM behind it.

Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) - Breath of Discussion: 5th Form

Well, maybe because he wasn't trying to kill Sanemi instantly, because Muichiro literally kept up with Sanemi and Obanai at once in a sparring sess. Yes it wasn't an all out battle but Cmon, if Sanemi was ten times stronger he wouldn't jump Muichiro. He'd probably tell Obanai and Muichiro to...

vsbattles.com

With threats of the downgrade CRT being made staff only

Gyutaro’s Destruction of the Entertainment District Calc Conflict Review

Gyutaro’s destruction of the entertainment district currently has two accepted calculations. This calculation which uses destruction values to calculate the feat based on the observed destroyed buildings, and this calculation which calculates the kinetic energy of one of the largest rising blood...

vsbattles.com

This is not me criticizing Chariot190's words as that has already been discussed. I cannot judge the intentions of the staff members involved nor if their downgrade is valid/invalid. It is just concerning behavior that it's possible for a large group staff members to gang up to create and self approve their own CRT. I do not know a proposal on how to stop this possible behavior as there isn't a simple solution but I want to bring attention to this to help ease the community's concerns.

If you don't count any of that group of people, then that also leads to a really shitty situation.

I can just DM every other staff member saying "btw here's a CRT I'm going to make" and then that implicitly makes them "involved in its creation", and nullifies their votes. That would be ridiculous. Even if you say it shouldn't just be viewing it, but contributing something material to the thread, there's a bunch of Discords that have staff members, in those servers you can ask questions and sometimes staff members will answer, providing directions on eventual CRTs. I don't think answering someone's question about whether a feat is frag or v. frag should mean that my view in the CRT upgrading a character based on that calc should be nullified.

I have two possible proposals for relating on OP's self voting their CRTs.
1: Self votes do not count as agreeing with your own CRT is a prerequisite and self-evident.
2: Treat self votes the same they are for minor revisions, where you need the amount of votes necessary for the revision on top of your own vote.
I personally aiming for 1 but I'm willing to compromise for 2 if it's found more tolerable.

Proposal 2 doesn't sound too bad, but we do perpetually have issues with threads being dragged out, struggling to get enough input for a conclusion. This would make that problem worse, for little gain.

And, as mentioned, it seems like you'd consider 5 staff members discussing a revision beforehand to all be "self votes" on that eventual CRT, which would significantly worsen this problem.

I disagree with Proposal 1, and would be neutral on Proposal 2 if it only covered the literal person making the thread (unless they're clearly making it on another person's behalf to skirt around this rule), disagreeing with it if it takes a broader view on what a self vote is.

Proposing a thread is inherently biased as I've already brought up as you have to believe that your proposal is a valid argument in the first place. Being able to adjust their stance does not change the fact CRTs are intrinsically biased. When OP's belief in the proposal changes, the proposal is also changed to fit what the OP now sees as a valid argument.

This isn't something that only applies to the OPs of threads, but to anyone who has a belief or draws a conclusion.

 

[Nierre]

cannot believe my post wasnt saved

anyway to keep it short(er), whether or not staff worked together on a thread or not it doesn't matter because if the OP is convincing, then it's convincing imo. If a staff member helped formulate the OP, or later joined the thread and dropped a post agreeing with the OP, as long as they're unbiased and evaluating fairly then there's no issue.

 

[Celestial_Pegasus]

I change my stance regularly based on information brought up in threads I create, but the idea that anything I say in a thread I create doesn't count kind of disincentivizes me from creating threads.

I mean right now I have several threads open, which other staff have barely shown any attention to. Not that I have really considered my own vote as being majorly relevant towards passing any threads I create, would be a whole lot easier if I only needed 1 other staff besides me, to pass CRTS for my obscure verses.

When it comes to popular verses, obviously more staff will give it more attention so the vote of the op probably doesn't matter as much, but probably shouldn't be discounted imo.

If several staff members crafted a CRT, as long as the arguments are valid, don't see the problem.

 

[Lilybitdun]

I feel like you do.

That's why I elaborated

Yes, creating a thread is a vote of confidence in the ideas, but we should count that vote. They are a staff member who believes that the ideas proposed are good, so we should adequately register that opinion.

Plus, disregarding such votes can very easily get into silly territory. It's not exactly uncommon for new things to be proposed during a thread; if a staff member says "I think this scan you're using to propose Conceptual Manipulation should actually be Information Manipulation instead", should we not count their vote on that? They made that proposal themselves; why would that be any less biased than them making a new thread for that?

If we don't allow such things then we make it so that the optimal play is sometimes a really shitty dance. If you as a staff member want your vote counted on a matter, you'd have to hope that some other user comes up with that idea and proposes it first. That is a complete and utter waste of time. The optimal move should never be saying "I disagree with this, and I have a different proposal in mind, but I won't mention that so I can vote on it."

And really, I fundamentally don't see why creating a thread entails more bias than evaluating it. In both cases, a user is seeing evidence and coming to a conclusion from it. The only difference is that they're starting a conversation about it, and selecting the initial batch of evidence for presentation. "They formed thoughts on it" does not mean that they're biased, that's something that everyone who draws a conclusion does.

The OP's opinion is already given by the very act of creating the proposal, counting their own vote just gives unneeded redundancy.

I am only suggesting for the OP's vote on their own thread to not count, the thoughts of what another staff member thinks would be completely unaffected. New proposals by other members can simply be added to the OP's original proposal.
I don't see how this invalidates people having different proposals. It's either brought up in the OP's CRT where both parties argue about it or the person makes their own CRT where other people's opinions are needed to evaluate it in the first place.

Evaluating a thread is minimum a two person ordeal; the OP and the evaluator. The person evaluating judges if the OP's proposal is a valid argument or not.
When someone votes on their own CRT that only involves evaluator, which is self-evident as they wouldn't have proposed it if they thought it was invalid. What OP proposes is inherently what the OP believes is a valid argument; the proposal changing only changes the specifics of the argument that OP thinks is valid.

I can just DM every other staff member saying "btw here's a CRT I'm going to make" and then that implicitly makes them "involved in its creation", and nullifies their votes. That would be ridiculous. Even if you say it shouldn't just be viewing it, but contributing something material to the thread, there's a bunch of Discords that have staff members, in those servers you can ask questions and sometimes staff members will answer, providing directions on eventual CRTs. I don't think answering someone's question about whether a feat is frag or v. frag should mean that my view in the CRT upgrading a character based on that calc should be nullified.

Why are you applying my two proposals to the chariot thing? I already said in the post that I don't know what the fix would be.

1 and 2 are only for when the OP themselves is voting their own CRT. I did not touch how those who contributed in the CRT's creation would be handled as I only wanted to bring it up as possible concerning behavior that felt necessary to bring up for discussion.

And, as mentioned, it seems like you'd consider 5 staff members discussing a revision beforehand to all be "self votes" on that eventual CRT, which would significantly worsen this problem.

I disagree with Proposal 1, and would be neutral on Proposal 2 if it only covered the literal person making the thread (unless they're clearly making it on another person's behalf to skirt around this rule), disagreeing with it if it takes a broader view on what a self vote is.

I never said those contributing to a revision prior to creation as counting for "self votes".

Both proposal cover only the person who made the thread.

If bringing up the chariot thing is causing confusion on what I'm proposing I'm willing to drop it for now for clarity if needed.

I change my stance regularly based on information brought up in threads I create, but the idea that anything I say in a thread I create doesn't count kind of disincentivizes me from creating threads.

Your opinion isn't invalidated. You still bring forth the suggested starting proposals, can change your CRT's proposal based on feedback, and give arguments for what you believe is a valid argument.

 

[Agnaa]

The OP's opinion is already given by the very act of creating the proposal, counting their own vote just gives unneeded redundancy.

I am only suggesting for the OP's vote on their own thread to not count, the thoughts of what another staff member thinks would be completely unaffected. New proposals by other members can simply be added to the OP's original proposal.
I don't see how this invalidates people having different proposals. It's either brought up in the OP's CRT where both parties argue about it or the person makes their own CRT where other people's opinions are needed to evaluate it in the first place.

That leads to a weird situation where arguing about tangents in the CRT is objectively better than making a new thread, as the person arguing it (if they're staff) has their vote count only if they bring it up as a tangent, but not if they make their own CRT.

Evaluating a thread is minimum a two person ordeal; the OP and the evaluator. The person evaluating judges if the OP's proposal is a valid argument or not.

Our own rules already enable that.

When someone votes on their own CRT that only involves evaluator, which is self-evident as they wouldn't have proposed it if they thought it was invalid. What OP proposes is inherently what the OP believes is a valid argument; the proposal changing only changes the specifics of the argument that OP thinks is valid.

Yeah, so why discredit their vote just because they were the one who bothered to make a thread about it?

 

[Vietthai96]

When a person reached to a conclusion to something, they are certainly having a certain bias toward said conclusion, it is their opinion afterall. You can't just say Thread's OP who happen to be a staff is bias while staff who vote in a thread isn't.

When a staff make an opinion on something, they believe it has basis, so their vote is counted, now it is just slightly different process but a staff believe something is right or wrong, and they decide to make a thread themselves; this is completely the same, as staff still believe their takes has basis and want to address it, it's just happen to be the thread's op are staff themselves, now you going to invalidate their vote simply because they happen to be the one make the thread?, do you see how backward and contradictory your logic is?, staff who vote in the thread isn't bias but staff who make the thread is bias?, despite in both cases is the same with staff having a take, conclusion to something?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I'm unsure whether or not we should allow staff members to vote on their own thread's proposal, though similar to Vs threads, it is commonly frowned upon and shows signs of favoritism. That being said, OPs voting on their own thread isn't technically a violation of the rules but it is commonly viewed as a bad influence similar to how kudosing your own posts is a bad influence.

Though, Wiki wide revisions that revise giant wiki wide policies and may cause basically all pages to be effected does require Bureaucrat majority approval; likewise Super Moderators also have like half the voting rights as Bureaucrats I recall Antvasima mentioning to me in DMs. So I think if staff made threads proposing those, they can still vote. But I am unsure about verse specific content revisions about if Thread Mods or above happen to be the OP if they're allowed to count staff vote. Though based on what is consistent, my view would probably be "It is allowed, but might not be considered a good look and thus the OP might want to consider thinking twice before they do." Likewise, I have seen staff members shift and disagree with their own content revision proposals before.

 

[Dereck03]

When a person reached to a conclusion to something, they are certainly having a certain bias toward said conclusion, it is their opinion afterall. You can't just say Thread's OP who happen to be a staff is bias while staff who vote in a thread isn't.

When a staff make an opinion on something, they believe it has basis, so their vote is counted, now it is just slightly different process but a staff believe something is right or wrong, and they decide to make a thread themselves; this is completely the same, as staff still believe their takes has basis and want to address it, it's just happen to be the thread's op are staff themselves, now you going to invalidate their vote simply because they happen to be the one make the thread?, do you see how backward and contradictory your logic is?, staff who vote in the thread isn't bias but staff who make the thread is bias?, despite in both cases is the same with staff having a take, conclusion to something?

This is pretty much my opinion on the matter, creating the thread or not doing so shouldn't invalidate the staff vote itself.

 

[Lilybitdun]

That leads to a weird situation where arguing about tangents in the CRT is objectively better than making a new thread, as the person arguing it (if they're staff) has their vote count only if they bring it up as a tangent, but not if they make their own CRT.

We already have rules discouraging off topic discussion in a thread that would prevent something like this.
My argument isn't saying only staff shouldn't have their self votes count, self votes in general should be not be counted. Bringing up regular member self voting doesn't matter as they don't hold as much voting power as a staff members, so my focus is on staff.

Our own rules already enable that.

Well, yeah? That's the whole reason I brought it up as an example. What's your point here?

Yeah, so why discredit their vote just because they were the one who bothered to make a thread about it?

DarkDragonMedeus brought it up nicely. The idea of self voting is frowned upon already and shows signs of favoritism. The OP's opinion on the CRT is already known due to them making the CRT in the first place, it is self-evident that they believe in what they are saying. The proposals being changed still means the OP agrees with them, if they didn't they can literally just remove the proposal instead of editing the original premise.

When a person reached to a conclusion to something, they are certainly having a certain bias toward said conclusion, it is their opinion afterall. You can't just say Thread's OP who happen to be a staff is bias while staff who vote in a thread isn't.

When a staff make an opinion on something, they believe it has basis, so their vote is counted, now it is just slightly different process but a staff believe something is right or wrong, and they decide to make a thread themselves; this is completely the same, as staff still believe their takes has basis and want to address it, it's just happen to be the thread's op are staff themselves, now you going to invalidate their vote simply because they happen to be the one make the thread?, do you see how backward and contradictory your logic is?, staff who vote in the thread isn't bias but staff who make the thread is bias?, despite in both cases is the same with staff having a take, conclusion to something?

One is agreeing with their own conclusions while the other is agreeing with conclusions made by another. The latter has an outside perspective on if an argument is valid which inherently less biased then just agreeing with your own logic. Saying that both scenarios are the same isn't true.
It's impossible for something to be truly devoid of bias, yet we try to be as non-biased as possible to chase that ideal. When we refer to something as "non-biased" we are not literally saying that is devoid of bias but that it has as little bias as possible that we believe that is fair.
There is no contradiction in what I have said.

 

[Dalesean027]

When a person reached to a conclusion to something, they are certainly having a certain bias toward said conclusion, it is their opinion afterall. You can't just say Thread's OP who happen to be a staff is bias while staff who vote in a thread isn't.

When a staff make an opinion on something, they believe it has basis, so their vote is counted, now it is just slightly different process but a staff believe something is right or wrong, and they decide to make a thread themselves; this is completely the same, as staff still believe their takes has basis and want to address it, it's just happen to be the thread's op are staff themselves, now you going to invalidate their vote simply because they happen to be the one make the thread?, do you see how backward and contradictory your logic is?, staff who vote in the thread isn't bias but staff who make the thread is bias?, despite in both cases is the same with staff having a take, conclusion to something?

I too share this opinion, there isn't anything wrong with people collaborating to make CRTs then giving their agreements after the work has been completed be it staff or not, if the proposals are just and the work is good then there shouldn't be any issue.

On a related note, several members have expressed concerns on the potential Demon Slayer downgrade CRT that will allegedly have 5 staff members and CGM behind it.

Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) - Breath of Discussion: 5th Form

Well, maybe because he wasn't trying to kill Sanemi instantly, because Muichiro literally kept up with Sanemi and Obanai at once in a sparring sess. Yes it wasn't an all out battle but Cmon, if Sanemi was ten times stronger he wouldn't jump Muichiro. He'd probably tell Obanai and Muichiro to...

vsbattles.com

With threats of the downgrade CRT being made staff only

Gyutaro’s Destruction of the Entertainment District Calc Conflict Review

Gyutaro’s destruction of the entertainment district currently has two accepted calculations. This calculation which uses destruction values to calculate the feat based on the observed destroyed buildings, and this calculation which calculates the kinetic energy of one of the largest rising blood...

vsbattles.com

This is not me criticizing Chariot190's words as that has already been discussed. I cannot judge the intentions of the staff members involved nor if their downgrade is valid/invalid. It is just concerning behavior that it's possible for a large group staff members to gang up to create and self approve their own CRT. I do not know a proposal on how to stop this possible behavior as there isn't a simple solution but I want to bring attention to this to help ease the community's concerns.

To begin with you shouldn't be assuming people have agendas in either direction just because they are working together or have opinions that differ from your own. Chariots words themself aren't a threat anyways and if 5 staff members see that a verse is in dire straights and work together to fix what issues they noticed why would that be perceived as a bad thing to begin with. If shit has problems that need to be fixed and people are collaborating to fix it that's a good thing, at the end of the day this is an indexing wiki and the primary goal is not big numbers and highest possible interpretations. Its striving to accurately index and represent the verses we have here as best as possible and maintain consistency in works we represent here and if that means 1, 2, 5, or even 10 staff members or X amount of users collaborate to work on something here then that should not inherently be treated as a bad thing. This seems to me a really pointless negative sentiment and stirs an unnecessary pot

 

[Agnaa]

We already have rules discouraging off topic discussion in a thread that would prevent something like this.

Doesn't prevent it, just narrows its scope somewhat.

DarkDragonMedeus brought it up nicely. The idea of self voting is frowned upon already and shows signs of favoritism. The OP's opinion on the CRT is already known due to them making the CRT in the first place, it is self-evident that they believe in what they are saying. The proposals being changed still means the OP agrees with them, if they didn't they can literally just remove the proposal instead of editing the original premise.

I think it's silly to frown on it, and I think it's strange to call it favoritism.

Their belief is known, and that belief should be reflected in the votes of the thread. Yes, we could consider them to automatically be placing a vote, and we should count that vote.

The core is that I don't see a meaningful difference between the person posting a thread making a conclusion based on the evidence, and a person replying to a thread making a conclusion based on the evidence, such that we should dismiss the former and not the latter.

 

[GrathOfLux]

I disagree with the proposals in the OP.

On a side-note, I don't think it is necessarily the case that anyone making a thread must agree with the conclusions within. The majority of the time, yes, this is why people make a thread - but I have seen threads here and there where the OP has made it specifically to incite discussion on a worthwhile topic, where the topic just needs a push in the right direction to get things going. It's not common, but devil's advocates do exist.

More importantly: the crux of the matter here, the way I see it, is that it is a bad thing if staff members are able to rig a vote in accordance with their bias regarding a verse. I think that's unambiguously true, but I disagree with the sentiment that allowing staff to vote on their own CRTs is inherently biased as suggested; so too do I not really think it's a productive avenue for discussion.

Bias is not merely having a side on an issue, but having an agenda for an issue that circumvents objectivity. If a news reporter correctly reports that a culprit for a crime was arrested, they are not biased against the culprit - they're just stating the facts of the matter as they presently know them. If they, however, chose specifically to occlude details from the story that makes the culprit more sympathetic because, for example, the culprit was an immigrant and they were a part of a nationalistic group, then we can start talking about how their reporting is biased.

When we speak about members of the wiki having a 'bias' on a certain matter, we aren't simply saying they have taken a stance on what they think is true. We're saying that their weighing up of the evidence is not objective because they have some extraenous intention behind their actions. It is not inherently biased for a staff member to agree with a proposal that they make - that's manifestly just the result of their own reasoning and conclusions, the same as any other staff member evaluating the thread. It becomes concerning when, for example, the member in question is screwing around with the evidence to get an upgrade/downgrade for a verse they like/dislike respectively.

But we already generally expect from staff members that this form of bias will be minimised, and we have an HR group to investigate those circumstances where they seemingly are not. In practice, I see very little difference between a staff member finding evidence and making a thread to propose changes in accordance with it instead of finding someone else's thread on the topic and evaluating the evidence in much the same way. It's not 'biased' in either case, and pulling down restrictions to prevent hypothetical biased self-votes would be throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

 

[Lilybitdun]

To begin with you shouldn't be assuming people have agendas in either direction just because they are working together or have opinions that differ from your own.

I already said how I'm not making any assumptions on those involved.

This is not me criticizing Chariot190's words as that has already been discussed. I cannot judge the intentions of the staff members involved nor if their downgrade is valid/invalid.

I've had other members here message me addressing concerns about staff being able to self approve threads and fears that they can't do anything about it. If their concerns are irrational or not is the point. I just wanted to bring up possible contention that's being made between regular members and staff members so a discussion could be had to ease the community.

I'll try to reply to everyone's responses in a moment

 

[Lilybitdun]

I think it's silly to frown on it, and I think it's strange to call it favoritism.

If a CEO made a bill to increase their own salary, voted on it, and due to their vote it got passed, what would you call that? Saying it's silly and strange for someone to look staff voting their own proposal and think negatively about it is dismissive. Most people find self-voting to be in bad faith to do.

On a side-note, I don't think it is necessarily the case that anyone making a thread must agree with the conclusions within. The majority of the time, yes, this is why people make a thread - but I have seen threads here and there where the OP has made it specifically to incite discussion on a worthwhile topic, where the topic just needs a push in the right direction to get things going. It's not common, but devil's advocates do exist.

Should we really be encouraging people to play devil's advocates? If everyone just agrees without thinking it's actually a valid argument the whole system falls apart. We need belief that people actually believe in what they are voting for otherwise the voting system is for nothing.

CRTs that are made to incite discussion aren't the OP playing devil's advocates either, all CRTS are meant to have discussion about the proposals in the first place. That's just an OP starting off with a neutral vote on their own proposals, which will inherently change once something is decided with the OP editing the premise with the new proposals / making a new CRT. Generally these CRTs come a few suggested proposals as well which OP would think are all possible valid arguments (like with this one)

I'm not sure why a CRT would be made solely for the main purpose of discussion in the first place when we have discussion threads for that exact purpose. That just causes threads to become clogged and staff to take longer to evaluate.

 

[Agnaa]

If a CEO made a bill to increase their own salary, voted on it, and due to their vote it got passed, what would you call that? Saying it's silly and strange for someone to look staff voting their own proposal and think negatively about it is dismissive. Most people find self-voting to be in bad faith to do.

The concern with that would be that they're inherently biased because they would personally benefit from it. They have a conflict of interest.

I don't know anyone who would think it's strange for lawmakers to vote on their own bills, or who would want to require them to abstain from bills they bring forth.

To go with the CEO example, if one suggested the company expand to five more locations, I wouldn't expect them to abstain from it just because they brought it up.

 

[Damage3245]

I disagree with these proposals.

 

[Lilybitdun]

The concern with that would be that they're inherently biased because they would personally benefit from it. They have a conflict of interest.

I don't know anyone who would think it's strange for lawmakers to vote on their own bills, or who would want to require them to abstain from bills they bring forth.

To go with the CEO example, if one suggested the company expand to five more locations, I wouldn't expect them to abstain from it just because they brought it up.

Alright that might've been a bad example. I still think that self-voting generally being seen as bad isn't something that should be glossed over though.

 

[Lilybitdun]

BTW would staff members leaving a like on the proposal post mean I should list them as agreeing?

 

[Agnaa]

Alright that might've been a bad example. I still think that self-voting generally being seen as bad isn't something that should be glossed over though.

I think the root of that thought is in the idea that many people pursue changes, not due to truth-seeking, but due to wanting that series to be at a certain level of strength for personal reasons. And that these actions are perpetrated by staff members too.

But I think this just generally isn't the case, and is better dealt with through other means (since them accepting/rejecting a thread made by someone else due to this bias would be just as damaging).

So I don't view that perception as justifying this sort of action.

BTW would staff members leaving a like on the proposal post mean I should list them as agreeing?

No, people do that for many reasons.

Plus, the only thread mod who did is Nierre, whose post in this thread explains that they disagree with your proposal.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I agree with that it seems unwise and too onesided to let staff members vote in favour of content revision suggestions that they themselves posted or wrote the posted content for, but it seems unrealistic to not let them vote for revisions that they have just provided helpful input for and helped to research.

 

[Lilybitdun]

Well, I agree with that it seems unwise and too onesided to let staff members vote in favour of content revision suggestions that they themselves posted or wrote the posted content for, but it seems unrealistic to not let them vote for revisions that they have just provided helpful input for and helped to research.

Could you clarify what your vote is? I'm confused if this is a neutral or disagree

 

[Antvasima]

Partial agree in the manner that I described, depending on the area, or so I think.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Sounds like he basically agrees with my interpretation where in theory, I agree that letting staff vote on their own thread seems self righteous and therefore frowned upon. But in practice, like what the rest of the staff say, it's not something we can realistically make a rule against. Agnaa has also pointed out that divided staff voting and there needing to be some vote counts. Likewise, there are cases where despite being the OP, staff can shift to vote against their own proposal.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Personally, I see absolutely zero issue in valuing the vote of the person who made the thread. We are checking whether the argument has merit by having staff members evaluate it. Making the thread doesn't change the fact that the argument was evaluated to be valid by a staff member. The only difference is that if it wasn't evaluated as valid the thread would likely not even exist.
One could talk about bias, but there is no more bias here then generally when a staff member evaluates a verse which they support. So as long as we allow that (and it would in no world be practical not to) it makes sense to allow this. We select staff members with voting right primarily for the reason that we trust them to be able to handle a verse they like and are knowledgeable on objectively.

To that comes that excluding it would just be completely impractical, as for fairness you would then also make a rule that a staff member can't vote on threads they participated in gathering information for, which is just super troublesome to constantly investigate.

Edit: The minor revisions proposal makes no sense to me either. The purpose of not letting staff members pass their own ideas without oversight is already met. That would just unnecessarily add workload and have all the same practicality problems of not counting the vote.

 

[Antvasima]

But we don't allow calc group members to evaluate their own calculations, for safety verification reasons. How is this markedly different?

 

[Damage3245]

But we don't allow calc group members to evaluate their own calculations, for safety verification reasons. How is this markedly different?

The 1-to-1 comparison for that would be a staff member approving their own thread and applying it without any other staff input, which we already do not allow.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, calculation blogs have a one calc group member requirement, and simply allowing it just because a calc group member approved their own blog is definitely biased. So that would be the difference. Though there could be a different story if there is confliction between calc group members and it required extra calc group members to look at.

 

[Dereck03]

But we don't allow calc group members to evaluate their own calculations, for safety verification reasons. How is this markedly different?

The rule clearly states that a staff cannot simply create a thread and pass it with only their opinion, it is necessary that they seek the opinion of another staff in order to pass the thread, so what you pointed here is invalid.

However, in cases of minor revisions where only one vote is needed, it is necessary for at least one other staff member to approve the thread before it can be implemented.

 

[Antvasima]

My point is that it would still require a lesser amount of verifications.

 

[Dereck03]

I mean, this wasn't even a valid concerning until, now? Literally the OP has not proved a single instance where this has brought any problems, in all the threads I've seen we staffs if we create a thread always wait for 2 or 3 other staffs to comment to even approve the threads, I don't think they would even consider their own vote on the matter other than being the OP

The argument that approving our own thread is bias is bs, as it would then be laying the groundwork for no staff to create any single thread to simply override this, so this simply brought many more complications to a system that is/was running efficiently until now.

 

[KLOL506]

I am inclined to agree with Dereck and DontTalkDT.

 

[KLOL506]

Also, Lephyr, DontTalk, Dereck and Qawsedf's disagreements are missing from the vote count.

 

[Lilybitdun]

Also, Lephyr, DontTalk, Dereck and Qawsedf's disagreements are missing from the vote count.

Sorry it's hard to tell what people's votes are sometimes, added them

 

[KLOL506]

My vote doesn't count here BTW, only admins and bureaucrats

 

[KLOL506]

I change my stance regularly based on information brought up in threads I create, but the idea that anything I say in a thread I create doesn't count kind of disincentivizes me from creating threads.

I mean right now I have several threads open, which other staff have barely shown any attention to. Not that I have really considered my own vote as being majorly relevant towards passing any threads I create, would be a whole lot easier if I only needed 1 other staff besides me, to pass CRTS for my obscure verses.

When it comes to popular verses, obviously more staff will give it more attention so the vote of the op probably doesn't matter as much, but probably shouldn't be discounted imo.

If several staff members crafted a CRT, as long as the arguments are valid, don't see the problem.

@Celestial_Pegasus Does that mean you disagree with OP's proposals then? Just to clarify.