But for a big change I want 2 things:
1.) A majority for an overhaul determined by a poll.
2.) After that: A concrete plan to what the new system should be. As I don't know how which desired attributes a new system should have and what exact flaws shall be corrected - here the persons wanting a change shall help me out. I want concrete ideas!
Okay, sorry I haven't gotten round to this up to now, I've been very busy with my course, and getting up early every day has meant that whenever I've not been busy, I've been too tired to really do anything
I'll start with some thoughts, and then move on to concrete proposals.
The biggest problem with the current system is
far too many voting rounds.
The most recent contest vote required
eleven rounds to pick out a winner from twelve levels. That requires a lot of unnecessary effort from both the organiser and voters; and it means voters are not participating equally, unless they visit the forum every few days and have enough time to look at which levels are up for voting and make a vote. That makes the results far less meaningful, since the winner is heavily dependent on the luck of who was able to participate. And this will be
more of a problem with the current proposal to shorten the time for each round.
So, how can we reduce the number of rounds without moving to a completely different voting system?
Firstly,
no tiebreakers before the semi-final round. For example, in the last contest, the Rule 2 vote was intended to pick three of five levels. Two clearly made it through; another two tied for the third slot. What's the harm in letting both of those two go through? They had less support than the two clear winners, so they're not going to beat them in the final either.
Secondly,
reduce the survival rate. In the last contest, the survival rates from each rule ranged from 50% to 66%. Do we really expect that a level that placed third of five has any chance in the final? And if it somehow
did win the final, would that be a fair result, when the first poll shows it was liked less than two other levels? I propose that survival rates should be roughly equal to current
attrition rates, i.e. rules with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 levels should go down to 1, 1, 2, 2, 2 survivors.
Thirdly,
have at most three rounds in the mixed group. My second proposal would reduce the mixed group to at most 6 levels, so it shouldn't need more than three rounds in any case. (I'm tempted to propose reducing it to
two, but it's nice to know the third-place winner and to have a dramatic showdown between only two finalists.)
I think that with these changes (
instead of reducing the length of each round, not in addition), the voting process would be a lot smoother and more enjoyable, and voting in each round would feel a lot more meaningful.