Vote Chess System

Hello:

I think we should work out some sort of a system to be used for vote chess in this group. The system is meant to facilitate better coordination among the team members, and to avoid losing games due to timeout or miscommunication.

Here is what I am proposing:

1. Every member who has voted MUST copy-paste the voting result (which is on the right side of the board) into the comment section, and post it. This allows team members who have not voted to make better informed decision. This is important. Therefore, it is Rule Number 1.
2. If there is no comment when you come in, it means that you are the first one. As the first person, you must make the best move that you can find and vote it. This is to prevent timeout in case if nobody else checks in. Don't forget to post the voting result into the comment section.
3. If you are not the first person who checks in, you must delay your voting as far back as possible and try to discuss the game with others first. Cast your vote only when it is your last opportunity to stay online and to cast vote before the time is up. For instance, let's say it is 5 pm here and the next time I will be online is the next day at 9 am. In the game, there is still 10 hours left to make a move, but right now is my last chance to cast a vote. So I will vote now based on the best possible move according to the discussion up to this time at 5pm. If there is a better move discovered later, then it will be up to others to cast different votes but I have made the best decision that I can make at 5pm.
4. Lastly, we may win or lose, but we all are here to have fun. So don't let ego gets in the way. We are here to work as a team. There is nothing personal whatsoever. Defend you idea objectively but stay open minded when others propose better moves. Let's say that somebody happened to make a terrible blunder earlier (nobody else was online to make the correction). We shouldn't point fingers and blame one another. We are in this together and we will solve whatever problems together as a team.

If somebody has other ideas, let us know.

I like this system. It seems minimal yet likely to be effective. Some suggestions:

1. Voting should, I think be anonymous precisely to avoid pointing fingers for blunders so I would actually suggest the opposite of posting the votes thus far and say the rule should be "no posting of votes cast thus far".
2. As for casting of the first vote, would it not be proper for Phylarch artdeep1 to always be responsible for casting a vote on every move and therefore avoiding a timeout. When he does it exactly is up to him but it means we can blame him for timeouts :-D More seriously though, with such a small voting body, I hesitate to encourage people to vote earlier than they feel comfortable with because they may want to vote completely differently once the discussion is clearer. In order to help artdeep1 figure out whether he needs to vote quickly to avoid a timeout, participants should post the word "VOTED" to indicate when they have voted but not the actual count thus fur (see rule #1).
3. This rule I really like!! I think I'm going to steal it and suggest that other tribes try to adopt a similar convention. I will give credit of course. :-)
4. This rule becomes mute if you like my suggestion to invert rule #1.

Thanks very much for having spent time to think about how to make these war games work more smoothly, hankas. I'm really pleased by the level of participation and initiative I'm seeing here and in other tribes.

Best of luck, Erechtheis Tribe! May Athena inspire your strategies and Theseus lead your attacks.

Thanks for the idea. I don't agree with putting one specific person responsible for casting vote. What if that person does not check on time? I have been in a number of groups where they have captain and vice captain in-charge of ensuring that there is no time-out for the vote chess. Regardless how active they are, we still lose games due to timeout once in a while. (Different people live in different part of the world, so go figure). Hence, I think it is best for the first person who checks in to cast vote (whoever they may be). It is better to make bad moves than to lose games due to time out.

The anonymous vote idea is interesting, but posting the result of the votes is still important. Right now people who have not casted any vote are not able to see the vote result. This is a serious drawback. By posting it on the comment section, it helps them see what moves have been voted and what moves need more voting. I am thinking that after you vote and when you copy-paste the voting result into the comment section, you may leave out the part that tells you what move you voted. Still I do think that shifting blame is the least of the problem. I haven't seen much of it yet. What I have seen a lot is losing games due to timeouts and people casting votes without much discussion. So the first person cast the vote, while the rest delay voting as far back as possible is an ideal solution and it has been used effectively in one of my groups.

Also, you don't need to give any credit because I stole this system from another group, who in-turn stole it from another group, and so on and so forth. (I am sorry if it is not original ). 

Don't worry. I've stolen most of my ideas from history. :-D

Ok. Well, if it's an idea that's already been field tested then go right-ahead I'll be interested to see firsthand how it works. I'll have to repost your leading post to The Aigeis Tribe (who I'll be playing tribal VCs with) and see how it feels.

Sounds good.

I'm against voters themselves posting voting results although I certainly understand the reasoning for the rule. However, posting stats causes too much overhead for participation and is not fun. It is more fun to discuss and give opinions than to act as journalist reporting results. Also, the voting stats occupy too much real estate on the screen, obscuring far more important analysis and comments in the comments section. Comments section should be comments, not stats. Also, there is something to be said for voting anonymity which is blown if everyone posts stats. The perfect solution would be for chess.com to display voting stats to all in one tidy little box. Vote chess has not fully evolved yet to what it could be. But chess.com did not hire me for a QA or development position, so I don't expect such an improvement to be adopted anytime soon.

Yeah. I think chess.com in general is still a work in progress. It's main strength is it's community rather than any particular feature.

Too bad the results aren't viewable to all participants - prior to voting in particular. I've studied very little and as such don't know various openings etc, but primarily play by my gut instinct and a limited hypothetical projection. As such, I'm not certain that my contributions to vote play may be nothing more than a vote-diversion.. Have y'all decided on a voteing regulation for us participants to follow yet? Personally I think if all participants just took the obligation to check vote chess each and every time they log in and or daily, it should work out, pending of course there are enough participant voters that the game doesn't hang on indecision. Also, in my opinion, posting comments telling members to vote such and such or we're going to loose is counter the point of vote chess and hedges towards unsportsmanlike like conduct. That being said only as a initial impression for this new (for me) way to play chess and isn't ment to be taken as a harsh criticism on any of you but merely as an expression from a new member who is inexperienced in this style of play.

I agree with your distaste for the whole dreary "cheer-leading" some people do. Surely we'd rather they posted something informative instead.