The Create-A-Pokemon Project has evolved significantly in how it has polled since its inception back in 2007. CAP polls actually started as click polls, where you would come in and click on which option(s) you preferred. We've evolved since them to require posts; it required users to put a bit of "skin in the game" to make a post, and it prevented some of the bitter and toxic arguments that used to show up in polls.
While post voting has its definite advantages (I would abhor to go back to click polls), there are a few downsides. Namely, it is much more apparent when there is cheating going on in the polls. If you've ever wondered, "Why aren't the results up yet for this CAP stage?" the answer is likely that the CAP moderators are checking for poll manipulation. Furthermore, public polls allows patient contributors to actually count votes, meaning they can determine who is currently winning (or losing) and change their votes accordingly. I hope you can see why this is a negative thing -- it allows a single user to influence the course of a poll; it is also a waste of their time to do manual counting.
Thankfully, I recently discovered that Xenforo has the capability to set up blind voting, similar to what Blind Voting does for our official tiering decisions. Let me detail to you what blind CAP polling would look like:
As you can see, this changes very little about the CAP process, except for one crucial detail: you can no longer see how other users are voting. This has a landslide of positive impacts, from benefiting artists against rallying for/against their designs, to requiring users to have an actual, individual opinion on all polls. We don't lose any of the visibility that you have (all votes are revealed at the end), and it makes the moderators' job infinitely easier to tally votes.
If you have any objections to this, I need you to post them now. If you read this and approve, then simply write 'approve' or like this post. If you don't care either way, simply reply 'read' to this post; no harm in doing so. We are in a time crunch, because we'd like to roll this change out before Art Poll 1 for CAP27. If you have an objection, please state it now. Otherwise, I will be making a 'test' poll in 48 hours to get the CAP community used to this new system; I'll make a poll that just asks you to rank a few options for fun, just to sort out any bugs before Art Poll 1. But I've tested this before, I've seen how it works in Blind Voting, and I am confident that this will work.
If you have any questions or thoughts, go ahead and shoot me a PM. If you are not part of the CAP Policy Review Committee, but would like to post your thoughts, please send me a PM with them, and I will post them unbiased on your behalf. Thank you for your time, and let's keep on rollin'!
While post voting has its definite advantages (I would abhor to go back to click polls), there are a few downsides. Namely, it is much more apparent when there is cheating going on in the polls. If you've ever wondered, "Why aren't the results up yet for this CAP stage?" the answer is likely that the CAP moderators are checking for poll manipulation. Furthermore, public polls allows patient contributors to actually count votes, meaning they can determine who is currently winning (or losing) and change their votes accordingly. I hope you can see why this is a negative thing -- it allows a single user to influence the course of a poll; it is also a waste of their time to do manual counting.
Thankfully, I recently discovered that Xenforo has the capability to set up blind voting, similar to what Blind Voting does for our official tiering decisions. Let me detail to you what blind CAP polling would look like:
1) All voting threads would still be stickied at the top of the main CAP forum, specifically as a redirect to the CAP voting subforum.
2) Absolutely nothing would change about how polling is conducted. It'd still take place over the current amount of rounds we have, with winners being decided at the same benchmarks.
3) You vote using bold votes. You can see your vote. The CAP moderators can see your votes. Senior Staff can see your votes. No one else can see your votes.
4) Moderators can vote, but their posts need to be deleted manually so that regular users do not see them.
5) Once the poll has concluded, the CAP moderators tally the results. They check for any cheating (nothing different than what we currently do).
6) Results of the poll are revealed, alongside all votes (including CAP moderators' votes). At this point, you can see every vote from every individual. This reveal is permanent, and polls will be logged in CAP Process Archives as usual.
As you can see, this changes very little about the CAP process, except for one crucial detail: you can no longer see how other users are voting. This has a landslide of positive impacts, from benefiting artists against rallying for/against their designs, to requiring users to have an actual, individual opinion on all polls. We don't lose any of the visibility that you have (all votes are revealed at the end), and it makes the moderators' job infinitely easier to tally votes.
If you have any objections to this, I need you to post them now. If you read this and approve, then simply write 'approve' or like this post. If you don't care either way, simply reply 'read' to this post; no harm in doing so. We are in a time crunch, because we'd like to roll this change out before Art Poll 1 for CAP27. If you have an objection, please state it now. Otherwise, I will be making a 'test' poll in 48 hours to get the CAP community used to this new system; I'll make a poll that just asks you to rank a few options for fun, just to sort out any bugs before Art Poll 1. But I've tested this before, I've seen how it works in Blind Voting, and I am confident that this will work.
If you have any questions or thoughts, go ahead and shoot me a PM. If you are not part of the CAP Policy Review Committee, but would like to post your thoughts, please send me a PM with them, and I will post them unbiased on your behalf. Thank you for your time, and let's keep on rollin'!
