User:Jdtendo/Settling a proposal

Step by step

Follow these steps to know whether a proposal should be settled or extended:

1. If all options have less than four votes, then the proposal must be extended (or listed as "NO QUORUM" if the proposal has already been extended three times before).
2. If the proposal ends up in a tie (i.e., two or more options share the highest vote count), then the proposal must be extended.
3. Find the first place option, i.e. the option with the highest number of votes.
4. Calculate the vote margin as the difference in vote count between the first and second place options.
5. List all voters to determine the number of voters.
   • Keep in mind that each voter can vote for more than one option. Make sure to not count a voter more than once.
6. Check whether the vote count of the first place option is:
   • more than 0.5 × [number of voters], if the vote margin is at least three;
   • at least 0.6 × [number of voters], if the vote margin is one or two.
7. If this is the case, then the first place option wins. Otherwise, the proposal must be extended.

You can also use the {{proposal check}} template.

Proposals can only be extended up to three times. If a consensus has not been reached by the fourth deadline, the proposal must be listed as "failed to reach consensus" (unless it meets the criteria for "NO QUORUM").

First example

Let's say these are the votes by the deadline of a proposal.

• Option 1: Alice, Bob, Claude, Dominic, Eugene
• Option 2: Felicia, Gaetan, Hortense
• Option 3: Alice, Irma

Option 1 is the first place option (5 votes). There are 9 voters in total (there are 10 votes, but Alice voted twice). The second most voted option has 3 votes, so the vote margin is 5 − 3 = 2; therefore, the first place option can only win if its vote count is at least 0.6 × 9 = 5.4, which is not the case (5 < 5.4). In conclusion, the proposal does not pass even though one option has more votes than the others.

Second example

Let's say these are the votes by the deadline of another proposal.

• Option 1: Alice, Bob, Claude, Dominic, Eugene
• Option 2: Bob, Felicia, Gaetan
• Option 3: Alice, Hortense

Option 1 is the first place option (5 votes). There are 8 voters in total (there are 10 votes, but Alice and Bob voted twice). The second most voted option has 3 votes, so the vote margin is 5 − 3 = 2; therefore, the first place option can only win if its vote count is at least 0.6 × 8 = 4.8, which is the case (5 ≥ 4.8). In conclusion, the proposal passes and Option 1 wins.

What is the point of majority support?

We mandate that all proposals must have majority support, i.e., the vote count of the winning option must be more than half the number of voters. The point of this rule is to ensure that most voters agree with the winning option. While we could use a plurality system in which the first place option is automatically the winning option, it would not be fair because the first place option is not necessarily the option that would be accepted by vost voters.

For example, let's say that a proposal about giving an object a conjectural name is conducted with 41 voters and all of them choose to vote for only one option each. These are the vote counts of each proposed name by the deadline of the proposal:

• "Magazine (Paper Mario)": 13 votes
• "Magazine (object)": 12 votes
• "Pee-pee-poo-poo": 16 votes

The first place option is "Pee-pee-poo-poo", which gathered only 39% of voters (16 voters out of 41) and does not have majority support.

If we considered that the first place option is automatically the winning option, then the object would be named "Pee-pee-poo-poo", even though 61% of voters wanted to name the object "Magazine" with an identifier. Because the "Magazine" vote was split over two options, it lost to the unpopular but unified "Pee-pee-poo-poo" vote, which is not fair.

But since we mandate majority support, then the "Pee-pee-poo-poo" option would not win and the proposal would have to be extended.