UNITED PEOPLE Virtual World Government
Qualifying Questions Rules
Summary: A simple process by which registered members are able to enable an “Informed” vote.
Body of Rules
1. How Authorized
With the interest of reaching the highest achievable degree of integrity in the voting process, a pre-vote may be initiated prior to a Final Vote in order to decide on the need for qualifying questions. The implementation of the Qualifying Questions’ mechanism is determined in the pre-vote by the Issue Participants. The pre-vote is incorporated into the Reduction Rating period. If the implementation of the Qualifying Questions’ mechanism is not authorized by the Issue Participants, the Final Vote will be scheduled without them. index
2. Choice of Method
A. Pre-vote Results
If the result of the pre-vote is that Qualifying Quest ions are required, the Issue Participants need to make two additional decisions:
i. Choice
Either a restrictive or permissive method will be implemented:
a. Restrictive
If the Pre-vote requires the Qualifying Questions to be restrictive, the registered member will have to answer all Qualifying Questions correctly before he or she will be allowed to vote.
b. Permissive
If the Pre-vote requires the Qualifying Questions to be permissive with fractional value, the number of questions answered correctly will determine the value of the vote: 1/10, 2/10,3/10, etc. index
3. Submission
A. When to Submit
Issue Participants may submit their proposed issue-specific or proposition-specific Qualifying Questions anytime during the ‘submit qualifying questions’ period. This period will vary depending on the priority level of the issue. In anticipation of qualifying questions being required in the final vote, Issue Participants may submit issue specific qualifying questions anytime from the beginning of the discussion period onward. If qualifying questions are required, the Webmaster will issue the prescribed notice for a close date for submitted qualifying questions immediately upon the conclusion of the proposition rating phase. The ‘qualifying questions submission’ phase is immediately followed by the ‘qualifying questions rating’ phase.
B. Number of Qualifying Questions
The number of qualifying questions is determined by the Issue Participants who enter their ratings in the proposition rating phase. The maximum number of qualifying questions that may be asked during a final vote is limited by the settings referred to as the "QQ Maximum Limit." This setting is determined by the total registered members in the settings section of the site.
C. Design
Qualifying questions may be based upon actual propositions or readily available materials external to the site. The Qualifying Questions must require either a true or false answer or a multiple-choice answer. Registered members decide on the maximum word limit for qualifying questions. Registered members enter their notices concerning this value in the settings section of the site.
D. Answer Location Requirement
Qualifying questions submissions shall also be accompanied by the specific location of the answer that will assist members in determining the correct answers. index
4. Choice of Questions
A. When
The “Qualifying Questions Rating phase” shall begin immediately upon the close of Qualification Questions submissions phase. The duration of the qualifying questions rating phase is determined by the setting known as the “QQ rating duration“ (either the regular setting or urgent priority setting) set by the total registered members in the settings section of the site.
B. Selection
The qualifying question(s) that simply receive the highest number of votes will be selected as the ones to be asked and answered in the Final Vote of the associated issue.
C. Publishing
The results of the qualifying question rating will not appear in the sites verification section. All registered members may view the list of all the submitted qualifying questions, without the choice of answers included, in the qualifying questions archive after the QQ rating phase is completed. The full question with its complete list of possible answers will appear only in the Final Vote. index
5. Implementation
A. When
Qualifying Questions are to be asked and answered on the Final Vote Page prior to submission of the Final Vote.
B. How Presented
QQ’s and their complete list of potential answers will be randomly computer generated so that each voter potentially receives them in different sequences.
C. Number of Attempts Allowed
Issue Participants may make as many attempts as they wish, prior to the Final Vote deadline, if the qualifying questions type is "restrictive." If the qualifying question type is "permissive," an Issue Participant is provided only one attempt to answer the questions before his or her final vote is registered. index
Supporting Text
Co-authors: None
Part of proposition copied from a previously submitted proposition: None
General Statement in Support:
1. How authorized
A voting process cannot have integrity when the majority of the participants do not understand that for which they are voting. Integrity is a state of soundness or something that is unimpaired. Voting integrity must include an acceptable level of subject matter awareness – at least the possible allowance for it. When asking about the need for qualifying questions in a voting process an all too familiar answer is, "You can’t expect us to prevent someone from voting just because they don’t understand that for which they are voting." If one is to agree with this mentality, further reading is not necessary. The only way to guarantee the understanding of subject matter of a particular issue is to have in place a system that can measure this understanding. The question then becomes, “Who decides when it is implemented?” The remainder o f this section describes who implements this system.
A priority in setting up a measuring system is establishing, if possible, the reasons for an organization’s failure. If these reasons are known, then certain precautions may be taken in order to prevent an organization’s failure. Ancient Athens will be used as an example of a failed organization.
There was one individual who could have been solely responsible for the fall of Athens, and it would be useful at this time to understand his character and personality. This individual’s name was Alcibiades, and his nickname was “Chameleon.” He was a demagogue in its purest sense -- a leader who uses the passions or prejudices of the populace for his own personal interests. In 415 BC he carried the torch in favor of a decision to attack Sicily.
It would be helpful to keep in mind that Athens’ entire economy rested upon the back of imperialism. It was not uncommon for the Athenian Assembly to gather and discuss its next target for plunder. Sicily was to become its next target. Within this on-going imperialistic atmosphere, Alcibiades, and a few others, were keenly aware of at least two facts. One fact was that Athens was badly out numbered (compared to Sicily), and the other fact was that the much of the known world was tiring of Anthens’ insatiable imperialistic behavior.
But Alcibiades cleverly glossed over these two facts in order to get the Assembly to allow the attack. After the Assembly officially decided to attack Sicily, Alcibiades was chosen to lead the forces -- only to be called back from the front shortly thereafter to face charges of sabotaging the attack. Alcibiades then fled to Sparta (a most significant enemy of Athens that was an ally of Sicily) in order to avoid the charges -- and much more. While in Sparta he engaged in treason against Athens in his new position as a consultant to one of the Spartan kings. He was able to provide Sparta with all the secret details of the Athenian army in Sicily as well as the weaknesses of the Athenian home defences. The engine that drove the Athenian imperialistic economy, their army, was largely wiped out in the Sicily disaster.
Wallowing in his new-found popularity in Sparta Alcibiades then conveniently had an affair with the Spartan king’s wife that resulted in an illegitimate son. Once this affair was discovered by the king Alcibiades took swift refuge in Persia. While in Persia, he convinced the Persian king to heavily invest in the rebuilding of Athens after the Sicily defeat. This “rebuilding” consisted of cooperating with conspirators in Athens who were prepared to lead a coup and replace the participatory democracy with an oligarchy. Of course, one of the conditions of the Persian king was to have Alcibiades installed as the Supreme Commander. Arrangements were made for Alcibiades return to Athens, and the new oligarchy was in place by 411 BC.
But within a few months there were some of the oligarchic “leaders” who were proposing to end the war with Sparta by surrendering to Sparta and becoming Spartan puppets. Alcibiades, just being installed into power in Athens, wanted no part of it (especially thinking of the potential wrath from the Spartan king he betrayed earlier). He then took the opportunity to become a hero in the peoples’ eyes by betraying the Persian king and re-instituting a participatory democracy. The betrayed Persian King and the betrayed Spartan king then conspired to kill Alcibiades -- which resulted in his death in 404 BC. This was the beginning of a gradual breakdown and then fall of the Athenian participatory democracy -- which came to a complete end in 338 BC.
One might ask "What has this got to do with voting integrity?" It has a lot to do with it. Now that the real character of Alcibiades has been revealed (his intent being suspect from the very beginning), and that it was he who led the call to attack Sicily, it is time to refocus on the Assembly when it made the decision to attack Sicily.
It is clear that Alcibiades, and a few others, purposely churned up the Assembly into a virtual feeding frenzy. The Assembly’s majority, therefore, voted to attack Sicily without even having asked about, or looked at, the most two basic strategic facts. There was a scattered minority within Athens that did understand these facts, but the existing blood-thirsty momentum of the Assembly was impossible to overcome. If the whole of the Assembly were aware of the "facts" -- such as the enormous size of Sicily compared to Athens (approximately nine times the size), as well as the size of its army (which greatly overshadowed the Athenian army), as well as the swiftly crumbling Athenian reputation around the world, the "decision" would most likely have been different. It could be safely assumed that the Athenian people, regardless of their insatiable imperialistic appetite, would have at least waited for one of three things. They could have increased the size of their army, found several large allies before commencing an attack against Sicily or become intelligent enough to mend their ways in the world.
The conclusion, of course, is that Athens could have prevented its fall, or at the very least postponed it indefinitely, had each member of the Assembly known the facts (overlooking the selfish interests of the demagogues) and acted accordingly. Likewise, it is to each community’s benefit to assure their members’ awareness of the facts.
This web site provides for a pre-vote prior to any vote on a decision. And this pre-vote would be to determine whether or not qualifying questions will be required to be answered by each participating member of the community. Answering the questions correctly would prove their understanding of the basic facts involved in a particular decision.
These qualifying questions would have been extremely easy in the case of Athens in 415 BC (i.e. Each member of the Athenian Assembly should have simply and unmistakably known the size of Sicily and its army compared to Athens. The Assembly members should have also known about readily available allies to Sicily due to the current world opinion of Athens).
It is also easy to see that installing a “qualifying questions” mechanism is not the decision of one individual or a small group of individuals. The choice is made by the organization as a whole.
This way, if something goes amiss later on, it is the organization’s fault as a whole. What had gone amiss in the ancient Athens’ example given above was the fault of the system. The lack of foresight and/or desire to have a voting system with fool-proof integrity proved fatal. This had allowed someone like Alcibiades to unethically, and deceitfully, lure the Athenian Assembly into voting for war -- with the apparent total disregard for the security of the general population of Athens and its existing participatory democracy.
The question then becomes, “How many members of this community, or any one of its sub-divisions, should it take to trigger the ‘qualifying questions’ mechanism?” In making this decision, it is important to keep in mind that it would have been a very small minority in Athens that could have protected the security of the entire Athenian community.
The answer begins with a question. Before asking this question the reader is asked to place themselves in the position of mother and/or father of a family consisting of one hundred children. In this position, how many of your 100 children would have to share the same serious concern before you would determine it to be a significant family concern? This is the question that should be asked of each participating member of the community.
The answers, once averaged, should be the percentage of the participating members of the community it would take to trigger the “qualifying questions” mechanism. A test given in the Byron Shire, Australia in 2001 resulted in the averaged percentage to be 2.46%. In ancient Athens’ terms it would have meant 861 people (out of approximately 35,000 Assembly members) could have triggered the “qualifying questions” mechanism. Would this have been enough to save Athens? This site's initial default setting is 2.5% to engage the qualifying questions mechanism, 67% to change that setting, and 75% to change the 67%. Before a member submits a notice to change any of the percentages above, he or she must give selfless consideration to the overall security and integrity of the organization.
2. Choice of Method
There really are only two ways to fairly determine one’s degree of participation in a decision – concerning the community’s desire to ensure the understanding of the facts. Either all qualifying questions are answered correctly and the voter is allowed full participation; or a fraction of the qualifying questions have been answered correctly, and the voter is allowed only a limited participation in the decision. In the latter case, the percentage of correct answers is the percentage of participation allowed. In other words, the value of a member’s vote can be fractionated according to their demonstrated understanding of the facts.
3. Submission
When submitting suggested questions it is important to understand the intent and purpose of the questions. The questions should be designed to highlight the most important components of a particular proposition. This is not a hide and seek game so the questions should not be sly, tricky or devious. A question should be clear, easy to understand and include a reference to its answer’s location so it is easy to find.
4. Choice of Questions
Qualifying questions should not be barriers to the voting process. They should be designed as enhancers of understanding concerning the most critical parts of the proposition.
5. Implementation
No further explanation required. index
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