After two of my votes were reported and removed, I just figured I had no idea how voting worked on this site because I am newer and only ever voted on DDO. I figured with time I would figure it out and also had a lengthy conversation with whiteflame about how to properly vote on this site.
I do hope that conversation was helpful. Based on the most recent vote of yours that was reported, I'd say you've got the idea at this point. I do apologize if my moderation has been opaque at times.
But now that Undefeatable, Oromagi, Vici, and others who have come to be known as staples on this website have also had their votes reported and removed,
I can speak to those. These are all voters who are well aware of how to vote on this site. Undefeatable and Oromagi, in particular, have produced many sufficient votes in the past. I don't mean to call any of them out, but the reports and removals are all publicly posted on those debates, so I'll reference those removals.
Both Vici and Undefeatable had the same problem: they took one side to task for a problem with their argument, but did not examine the side to which they awarded points. That's a common issue we see in a lot of votes, and it's stated in the voting policy:
"Weighing entails analyzing the relative strength of one argument or set of arguments and their impacts against another argument or set of arguments."
Weighing one side's arguments (or lack thereof) is insufficient because it doesn't assess the strength of the other side's arguments. Sometimes, this can be justified by talking about the burden of proof and showing that the side whose arguments you focus on failed to meet it, thus resulting in an automatic win for the other side, but even that requires engaging with more than just what one side did or failed to do, as you must discuss what is required to win the debate.
As for Oromagi's vote, that's a bit more complicated. It's not a lack of analysis, but rather how that analysis is skewed and his re-use of much of the same RFD on other debates between these two debaters. I get into more specifics in the removal:
I am beginning to suspect that nobody on this site other than the mods can actually come away with understanding the voting policy clear enough to cast a proper vote for a debate.
While there are certainly people who struggle with the voting policy and how to produce a sufficient vote (not trying to take a jab at anyone here), I will say that not all of those cases are the result of issues understanding the process of casting a proper vote. Like I said, all three of these voters know how to cast a sufficient vote, so whether they understand it isn't necessarily what is at issue with regards to these votes. Based on the wide variety of votes on the site that I've read (whether because they've been reported or out of interest), I would say that there are a good number of people who understand the voting policy well enough to cast consistently sufficient votes. I know that only speaks to a small minority of the membership of the site, since there aren't many people who vote often, but it's certainly more than "nobody".
I think a very straightforward, detailed rewriting of the Voter Policy covering what is and is not proper for each voting category -- based on a pre-defined, agreed-upon standard -- would make a HUGE difference and give mods time to engage in more pressing matters than constantly having to review and remove votes and then debate with users over whether there was vote manipulation from the removals or not and other things related to people casting their ballots.
This wouldn't be the first time we've considered doing this. Part of the problem with producing a really detailed voting policy is that most people just don't tend to read a longer document. We tried that on DDO when I was the voting moderator, and it didn't yield much more than complaints about its length. It also should be noted that any such policy, no matter how detailed, will not be exhaustive and many decisions will still be made in the margins because votes don't always fit neatly into categories we've seen before. That being said, if there's sufficient interest in getting a detailed version of the voting policy out there, we could work on that. At minimum, I'd be willing to work up a list of examples (I won't put names to them) of votes that we commonly see and remove, along with a clear set of reasons why they are removed, as a reference.
