IC Forum Section for Elections

[TheCactus]

Hello,

as weazel news (@Herrman_Wolff) showed some weeks ago and as I have noticed, important information and elections that affect the whole server are not common knowledge.

I had no clue there is such a thing until recently and I can say the same thing about most of the people I know. We have have been playing for many years and spend most of their time here but the creation of the Law Review Committee didn't receive the spotlight it should've.

I think SASG LRC should start using google forms which have been developed in a way that allows any kind of purpose or idea, one of those being voting. Only a small % of the players know how to efficiently use the government website and BBCode.

SASG news, voting booths and elections should have hyperlinks on Eclipse Forums just like LSC, Bayview, etc. I believe it's the only way to drastically increase the visibility and make the public aware that San Andreas is more democratic than we all think, since we can vote just like in real life.

Edited August 24, 2023 by TheCactus

[AtlasOLimbo]

I agree completely. Elections have been alienated to a group of people that are already familiar with the gov site and how to use it, which in turn can definitely lean votes towards a certain demographic of the server. There needs to be more in game viability for these elections, whether it's a script or a Google form.

[Pazz]

A Google Form should be sufficient to cater to the vast majority of the player base, to be fair. If it still requires a picture of /license and then a picture of the game panel and all characters, the voter fraud and "one vote for all characters" rule can be enforced all the same. 

16 hours ago, TheCactus said:

SASG news, voting booths and elections should have hyperlinks on Eclipse Forums just like LSC, Bayview, etc. I believe it's the only way to drastically increase the visibility and make the public aware that San Andreas is more democratic than we all think, since we can vote just like in real life.

I believe that it may be beneficial to, outside of the GOV forums, create a subforum in the in-character section of the main forums that allows all factions, such as SAGOV, LSEMS, LSPD, LSSD, SADOC, JB, etc. to repost their press releases. Basically, it can be posted on the GOV forums, and then a picture can be taken or the text can be copied and posted on the main forum's in-character press section. Relevant news, eg. SAGOV appointments, JB precedents, LRC changes or elections, LSPD firearms regulations, and SADOC changes that affect inmates, can reach a far wider audience. 

[Herrman_Wolff]

Hell yeah! Vote Herrman Wolff! 

 

Oh wait, this thread is something else. Okay.

I think some of these cuts IC and OOC. It would be nice to have a little more approachable means to how the elections are done since, like you said, it's a bit buried on the GOV site, and It's maybe not the most assessable of formats for people to vote in. I do get a lot of people in game asking how they can vote, and I am genuinely not opposed to the matter of Google forms, but it's probably better to get some feedback from the individuals actually running them as they have the domain knowledge. 

I do like the thought of having a hyperlink to the required section when elections are running to give it more prominence to the player base. It is unfortunate Life Invader is not around anymore as it could have ended up being utilized for elections, bringing more people, back onto it!

There really is a clear lack of understanding for a large number of people that the LRC can have pretty tidal wave sized changes to the server, but I debate with myself if that's something that actually should be bolstered or championed via much more OOC discussion. I think it would be awesome if elections got the server event type treatment where they are highlighted a lot more OOC but when I think about it, it's an IC conception that really only effects IC implements like the penal code, so I always come back to myself and say "It sounds IC to me". 

The ideas suggested on this thread sound awesome, though, and at the very least are a great start to helping the LRC and its elections along more. 

[aTrapInTime]

Hello everyone,

For those that don't know, I am Emily Whitehorse of the San Andreas State Government and am the Director that oversees the day to day functioning of the LRC alongside my Deputy Director Andy. Firstly, I want to appoligize on the delayed response. As most people know, I don't frequent the Eclipse forums as ill be frank, I don't enjoy when people shout at each other in reports. That being said, when the original system was created for the December 2022 election (our first), we had a lot of concerns about voter fraud both IC and OOC as well as questions just on how to properly run an election where it had never been done before. Myself not being administration staff, I don't have the same access say Lewis might to individually check and confirm each vote nor have access to see the surveillance done on possible linked accounts.

While i dream having it be done scriptly in game, the truth is that while we can have a large impact on things, the LRC remains small enough that I doubt the developers even know we exist. I am certainly open to the adoption of a google forum as i think the accessibility alone is reason enough to implement it. It should be noted that with the changes the SAAA tried to implement, server administration is not keen on the collection of emails. Thus using those emails alongside an IP address (as can be done on the GOV website) for verification by LFM of who voted is much more difficult. At the very least, I can certainly see us making the GOV website link more visible by changing the link name & color during elections, or finding other ways to make it more pronounced. Additionally, with the reopening of lifeinvader, we will be able to make it more widely known in an IC context and I think that will be extremely beneficial.

With what TheCactus, Pazz, & Herrman_Wolff said about making "forum.eclipse-rp.net" have more IC information presented to better reach everyone, I fully agree with the concept and would be happy to discuss it with the relevant staff if this was going to be implemented.

Finally, if anyone has more IC/OOC comments about the LRC in general that they wish to share, I encourage them to reach out to me (IC via GOV email, OOC via discord or forum PM) as I am always am open to hearing and discussing what I can do to improve the system that is in place.

also if anyone is curious, Herrman said it was a good idea to respond to a 2 month old post blame him!

[Cup]

 whitehorse