PARLIAMENT VOTE #19 - Move VC Parliament To The VC Discord

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

NOTICE: To Register for Parliament, post a reply to the thread in this link: http://www.villagecraft-server.com/forum/index.php?topic=22.0

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Parliament Vote #19 - Move VC Parliament To The VC Discord

Should we add a "Parliament" channel to the server's Discord, and effectively move the Parliament there?

What would this do?
- Effectively, Parliament would be moving to Discord instead of the forum. All votes and discussions about plugins would occur there.
- However, discussions can still occur here as well. Voting would just take place on Discord.

What this would entail:
- Addition of a channel labelled "Parliament"
- Addition of a role titled "MP"
         -This allows for users with the "MP" tag to comment and post in the "Parliament" channel
-All votes would be posted with an @MP, and then pinned for easy access

This is a vote initiated by Community Minister TheLegend12369, and was nominated by players:
Yvette (Staff), CyphurTheFox, TheLegend12369, Seaborgium, TheoGreen

If "yes" is majority, a "Parliament" channel will be added to the Discord
If "no" is majority, the channel will not be added

All Members of Parliament may vote.
For the act to pass, a majority of voting MPs must vote in favor.

If you are indifferent, please abstain.

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

Momentary technical difficulties xD

[Akomine]

Poll added.


To be clear, would this effectively move the Parliament to the Discord? Votes would occur there? If so, we should word it to be more clear.

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

Poll added.


To be clear, would this effectively move the Parliament to the Discord? Votes would occur there? If so, we should word it to be more clear.

Edited for clarification. Sound better?

[CyphurTheFox]

Interesting, despite being an MP, I cannot vote. Can someone please fix this for me?

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

Interesting, despite being an MP, I cannot vote. Can someone please fix this for me?

He has votes locked right now, they should be unlocked shortly

[Akomine]

Edited and unlocked. Vote away!

[luisc99]

There wasn't a discussion thread, so I'm going to share my thought on this here. At first thoughts, I'm against this idea, mainly because I don't really see the benefit of it. What would we gain by moving everything to Discord? As it is on the forums, there's a permanent record of every vote, and it can be easy to find each vote in the past along with its discussion thread(s). I feel like this aspect of Parliament would be lost of it switched to Discord. Furthermore, how would voting work? Oh here we've got a well-established method of voting, using the polls in SMF it makes it voting clear, and we can ensure there's no funny business going on with them, whereas as far as I'm aware, Discord doesn't have a poll/vote feature, so I'm not sure how that would work. If it's richer votes we're after, I've made an add-on to the forums that provides votes with alternative voting methods, and more visual results, which I've been trying to test for a while. Overall though, I don't see what benefit switching would have.

As a side note, it's usually a good idea to have a discussion thread open for at least a few days before a vote, to let people discuss the idea and form an opinion before being asked to vote on something. I see at the moment 5 people are in favour of it and 1 against it, but I've not seen any comments about this saying why they voted as they did.

[Saxturian]

There wasn't a discussion thread, so I'm going to share my thought on this here. At first thoughts, I'm against this idea, mainly because I don't really see the benefit of it. What would we gain by moving everything to Discord? As it is on the forums, there's a permanent record of every vote, and it can be easy to find each vote in the past along with its discussion thread(s). I feel like this aspect of Parliament would be lost of it switched to Discord. Furthermore, how would voting work? Oh here we've got a well-established method of voting, using the polls in SMF it makes it voting clear, and we can ensure there's no funny business going on with them, whereas as far as I'm aware, Discord doesn't have a poll/vote feature, so I'm not sure how that would work. If it's richer votes we're after, I've made an add-on to the forums that provides votes with alternative voting methods, and more visual results, which I've been trying to test for a while. Overall though, I don't see what benefit switching would have.

As a side note, it's usually a good idea to have a discussion thread open for at least a few days before a vote, to let people discuss the idea and form an opinion before being asked to vote on something. I see at the moment 5 people are in favour of it and 1 against it, but I've not seen any comments about this saying why they voted as they did.

I have to agree with Luis, the voting system you described could be abused or messed with by people, and keeping track of everything parliament does in a chat rather than neatly organized threads would be chaos. Plus, look at the current groups in discord. They are all spammed with random shit. Sure, you can say it's against the rules in this new parliament chat but are we just going to revoke parliament memberships for that? How do we resolve that? I personally have never seen someone lose their status as a member or parliament, would we have to start? If someone wants to address these points I might change my mind, but I don't see these being plausible given discord's interface.

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

Discord does have voting, and you can pin votes so they're easy to find. I can understand the complaint about organization though.

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

Discord does have voting, and you can pin votes so they're easy to find. I can understand the complaint about organization though.

The reason I'm for it is because i feel as though we don't get a lot of activity on the forums anymore other than staff and a few other players. I've been trying for a while to get more people to join/use it and a lot of people don't seem to come. Almost every new player joins the discord though, and could easily apply for parliament and then participate there, instead of making a separate forums account. I believe it would increase participation and discussion.

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

Also, it could be organized, as any movement with enough support to begin discussion could get its own channel underneath the parliament tab, similar to how many other communities organize their community tabs (i would upload an example but it seems as though it won't let me attach a picture).

They also have a voting bot you can add, similar to the tunes bot, that allows for better voting and anonymous voting. Either way voting as possible though, it just wouldn't be anonymous

[OctoGamer]

I think that the Parliament should stay on the forums for the voting process as everyone has account on the forums that are easier to track.

adding maybe a parliaments section to discord could be cool, with announcements and updates and potentially a live poll count? I'm sure its possible with a bot.

[luisc99]

I believe it would increase participation and discussion.

I feel like it could increase conversation, not necessarily discussion. Discord is a (mostly) live chat, it's good for conversations that are currently happening, or broadcasts for everyone to see. A forum is a better place for a discussion, as it's a slower pace, and you can more easily reply to different points made earlier on in the thread, and have multiple back-and-forth discussions within the same topic. It's easier too to give longer, more detailed opinions, and discuss finer points of these in later replies. I think some good examples of this are the mob catcher thread, the hard mode thread, and more recently, the new world thread.

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Also, it could be organized, as any movement with enough support to begin discussion could get its own channel underneath the parliament tab, similar to how many other communities organize their community tabs

It's possible to organise a discord like that, but as I say, it's more for live chats. Organising channels like that will be for different communities that are in continuous chat, rather than for discussions that happen for a couple of weeks. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I feel like setting up a channel for each potential parliament vote would be introduce clutter

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(i would upload an example but it seems as though it won't let me attach a picture)

You can't upload attachments, but you can link them from Imgur (or alternatives). I know Imgur has a "copy to BB Code" option, which is the one to use here.

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Discord does have voting

They also have a voting bot you can add, similar to the tunes bot, that allows for better voting and anonymous voting. Either way voting as possible though, it just wouldn't be anonymous

By the sounds of it it is possible, but anonymity is pretty important to voting. On here, we know the votes are secure, but anonymous, which I feel might be hard to reproduce in discord.

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adding maybe a parliaments section to discord could be cool, with announcements and updates and potentially a live poll count? I'm sure its possible with a bot.

I think this is an idea to work on. I've been in favour of an announcements channel on the Discord, which staff and CMs can announce things on, but without a bunch of chat surrounding it. We could use that to alert people of parliament votes, as well as other important things. I'm sure a bot would be very easy to add (I'll add making on to my todo list actually)

Also, parliament votes are announced in-game via a tip and hourly notifications, as well as a direct link to the forums. New players don't have to check the forums for a vote/discussion, unless they see a notification in-game that they're interested in.

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instead of making a separate forums account

There are options to allow people to log into the forums with social media accounts. We've never used it, but we could theoretically allow people to use the forums using their discord account, rather than having to make a new account. Not sure how it would work, but that'd be something we could work out if demand was there. In general though, there is a steady stream of new accounts, and the ones I see I try and approve as soon as I can.

[Theologist_Green]

I think that the Parliament should stay on the forums for the voting process as everyone has account on the forums that are easier to track.

adding maybe a parliaments section to discord could be cool, with announcements and updates and potentially a live poll count? I'm sure its possible with a bot.

I am in favor of move to the discord. There are other methods that we can use to vote IE bots. And we can activate slow made to try and enforce more of a discussion like atmosphere.

Over all though having actual updates and stuff on the discord would be a great boon for the server something like an Annoucement channel were we can update everyone on news, events,, and the the like. And something for basically info about the server (A collection of links to all of the assets we have forums, status site, website, don't links), and have something where we have some sort of informal parliament things but have the discord as a secondary even if this doesn't pass. The discord does really need some revamping it capable of being more then just a IRC

[Brutalfive]

I think that the Parliament should stay on the forums for the voting process as everyone has account on the forums that are easier to track.

adding maybe a parliaments section to discord could be cool, with announcements and updates and potentially a live poll count? I'm sure its possible with a bot.

I am in favor of move to the discord. There are other methods that we can use to vote IE bots. And we can activate slow made to try and enforce more of a discussion like atmosphere.

Over all though having actual updates and stuff on the discord would be a great boon for the server something like an Annoucement channel were we can update everyone on news, events,, and the the like. And something for basically info about the server (A collection of links to all of the assets we have forums, status site, website, don't links), and have something where we have some sort of informal parliament things but have the discord as a secondary even if this doesn't pass. The discord does really need some revamping it capable of being more then just a IRC

So I am against it moving to Discord for basically all the reasons Luis has said, but also I don't see the benefits of it. However, the idea of having an updates and Announcement channel could be really beneficial for those who may not be always on the Forums, as they can see new discussions that are taking place, votes that are happening, and new decisions that have been passed via the Forums (including Parliament), and I strongly like the idea of having links at the end of each announcement linking to the Forum page it is directed at.

But I do believe personally that Parliament should remain on Forums.

[Yvette]

The benefit is plenty of people don't use the forums - many many more people are on the Discord. It wouldn't be difficult at all to implement voting on the Discord through official votes using reacts, using a bot as Theo suggested, or through other messages. Additionally I believe a Discord chat would provide a lot more discussion than the Forums, due to the advantage of instant messaging, as well as my next point.

As of right now, the Forum is, in many ways, exclusive to newer players - Many of the new players don't come to the Forums because, quite frankly, Forums are for boomers. Many votes are missed by players because there is no effective way to notify them, and oftentimes it's forgotten to add them onto the Server.

[Saxturian]

The benefit is plenty of people don't use the forums - many many more people are on the Discord. It wouldn't be difficult at all to implement voting on the Discord through official votes using reacts, using a bot as Theo suggested, or through other messages. Additionally I believe a Discord chat would provide a lot more discussion than the Forums, due to the advantage of instant messaging, as well as my next point.

As of right now, the Forum is, in many ways, exclusive to newer players - Many of the new players don't come to the Forums because, quite frankly, Forums are for boomers. Many votes are missed by players because there is no effective way to notify them, and oftentimes it's forgotten to add them onto the Server.

did you mean older players bb? also i do agree with yvette's second point, lots of newer player who are fairly active don't vote or participate in parliament on the forums but they do use discord.
however, i dont see why people cant just discuss parliament things in one of the 3 chats we already have. if someone wants to vote, tell them to get a forum account. if you want to discuss something without posting about it on the forums, youre allowed to in either vc, cheese, or server chat.
in addition to this, creating a forum account isn't hard. if you want to have a say in different decisions that have an effect on the server and the player base, why should there not be at least some effort required to do so? creating a forum account takes like a few minutes then just the time it takes for approval. i dont see how the current process is flawed whatsoever

[luisc99]

Many votes are missed by players because there is no effective way to notify them, and oftentimes it's forgotten to add them onto the Server.

I try and post announcements on the server for any ongoing parliament vote, but I will agree sometimes it's missed. That being said, it's something we can easily rectify by making sure we're more on top of our game

Also though, I don't see why we can't just announce the vote on discord? That way everyone on discord would see there is one, and if they want to vote, they can click the link and vote on here? It would be trivial to add a #announcements channel where we post things like this, that way everyone on the discord can see them.

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in addition to this, creating a forum account isn't hard. if you want to have a say in different decisions that have an effect on the server and the player base, why should there not be at least some effort required to do so? creating a forum account takes like a few minutes then just the time it takes for approval. i dont see how the current process is flawed whatsoever

I agree with this point. It's not too difficult to join the forums, and I know whenever I get an email saying someone's signed up I try and approve it as soon as I can. The point about requiring at least some effort to join in with server decisions is important. I'm all for getting as many people as possible to vote in stuff, but I don't think it should be a case of simply clicking a react on a chat message.

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

I think you guys missed that not everyone would be able to talk in the parliament channel if we made it, it would still only be players who applied to parliament.

And in the case that this doesn't pass, I do believe that there should be a channel dedicated toward parliament discussion and an announcements channel too

[Saxturian]

I think you guys missed that not everyone would be able to talk in the parliament channel if we made it, it would still only be players who applied to parliament.

remember, i love you, k? but to apply to parliament you have to have a forum account...lmao. so then the only thing preventing you from voting on the forums is 4 clicks. applying to parliament on the forums just to do everything parliament related on the discord? seems kinda pointless imo. unless you suggest a process of applying via discord, which I don't foresee being all that easy to log and keep track of.

And in the case that this doesn't pass, I do believe that there should be a channel dedicated toward parliament discussion and an announcements channel too

i also disagree with adding a parliament channel, however, we can cross that bridge when we come to it

[TheLegend12369 (OP)]

you could just message a staff member to apply instead, or just post an application in the VC chat to apply. Why are you against just adding a parliament discussion channel? None of the other ones are really geared toward that

[Saxturian]

you could just message a staff member to apply instead, or just post an application in the VC chat to apply. Why are you against just adding a parliament discussion channel? None of the other ones are really geared toward that

by changing the application to messaging a staff member that makes acceptance subjective. it would also mean other staff couldn't see this, and it would mean we would have to find some way to record the information (it is currently on a big ole thread). an application in the vc chat raises similar issues (everything minus the subjective thing).

as for the parliament discussion channel, there are already 3 channels you can talk about anything you want in. you can talk about politics, you can talk about different kinds of sharks, or about parliament votes and ideas. where did you get the nominations and plan out this vote? you didnt need a parliament channel. i think the addition of a parliament channel should the vote fail is just a foot in the door to moving parliament to discord.

i also stand by my point of there being some effort. going on the forums and registering for an account and as an mp proves that you are at least somewhat dedicated to the server and that the outcome of the vote will have some effect on you. messaging a staff member you're buddies with and saying yes or no in a chat doesnt really make this MP status have any significance or meaning whatsoever.

also apologies if im making less and less sense, ive been up all night

[Akomine]

I still don't know which way I stand on this, but just throwing ideas here...

The way Parliament works here on the forums is that anyone can participate, but only MPs can vote in polls. I like it this way. Discord has a decent permissions system and this would likely be possible there too (can someone confirm? @Jakrelia )

As for format... I'm torn. Forums and chat messaging are fairly different. Forum posts are thought out, and easy for anyone to go read if they need to get caught up. Chat messaging like Discord is pretty easy to get lost in. In a long conversation, with hundreds and hundreds of messages, it can become a tall order to expect everyone to sift through it all. But there are obviously some notable benefits to a live conversation.

I don't know what to think. But no matter what happens, I do like the idea of a Parliament chat on the discord. It would provide a good place to ping people when there's a vote occurring, even if it ultimately links back to the forums.

[Akomine]

I've extended voting on this to last another 24 hours as of this post, since there has been a lot of discussion, and since there was no original discussion thread. If anyone wants it extended further just say the word.