Hmm… maybe “at least twice as many FOR votes as AGAINST votes” in addition to requiring either a FOR vote quorum or a timeout? That keeps the 2/3 while compensating for inactive players.

Inactive players who genuinely can’t be persuaded to either vote on a DoV or go idle are a rare breed, and could be idled/invalidated by quorate CfJ if they were blocking a DoV. The bigger issue is inactive players who do vote, but do so uncritically (not following the dynasty or any discussion of the victory) or impatiently (mostly just wanting the dynasty to end). The most extreme example of that was what prompted trying a 2/3rds supermajority even after 24 hours.

From the stalls, last dynasty’s DoV seemed like an example of Nomic at its best: a lively discussion of what happened and what everyone thought about it, with the players who had reservations needing to be being won around. It opened at 1-2, after three hours went to 5-0, after another couple of hours dropped to 3-2, and the next day came back to 5-0. If those last changes of vote hadn’t yet happened, a single inactive-but-voting player could have carried it to regular quorum (or to Ais’s “at least twice as many FOR votes as AGAINST votes”) at the 24 hour mark, which would have seemed like an anticlimax.

@Kevan: I think this example was more extreme, given that quite a lot of players voted in favour of the DoV even though there clearly hadn’t been a win (the player in question had newly joined the dynasty earlier, and although the DoV looked a bit like a scam win, no scam had actually been attempted and the description in the DoV didn’t match the gamestate), with some players not understanding what was going on and others just wanting to end the dynasty. It hadn’t even been posted as a DoV, just as a joke post (but an admin missed the joke and edited it into the category).

It’s also worth noting that there was an inactive-and-nonvoting player last dynasty; a timeout at 4 for, 1 against, 1 nonvoter was a genuine risk, and that would have caused the DoV to fail (4 is not greater than 2/3 of 6, it’s equal rather than greater). I suspect that the DoV might have only passed due to players not realising that 5 votes would be needed to enact it even at timeout, and wanting to avoid the wait for the DoV to time out.

Resolving a fully deadlocked timeout by majority vote is fair enough, when players fundamentally disagree on what a rule means and there’s nothing left to discuss. 24 hours seems too early for that, though.

I guess what we really want is “2/3 majority needed to resolve a DoV early, or a quorum at timeout”, but that reflects neither the current situation nor the situation after this proposal is adopted. That leaves me unclear which way to vote on this one.

per the discussion on Discord a while ago, I support lowering the bar to get DoVs passed. If you ask me last dynasty’s DoV should’ve passed even at 3-2. Lowering the bar to quorum encourages more entertaining and controversial DoVs just like that one to be posted, which is a bigger plus in my eyes than the negative of the occasional DoV pushed through by shrug-votes

  I’ve never really been a fan of DoVs relying so heavily on semi-idle participants to make a vote, since it just seems risky. Weakening it is a plus in my eyes.

[SingularByte] That risk has never manifested in the thirty dynasties we’ve been using it, though. I don’t know if CyberStella was refraining from voting on last dynasty’s DoV out of caution or absence, but it ended with two AGAINST voters changing their cast vote (but not their opinion) to allow the DoV to pass quickly.

I think it’s healthier for the group if that kind of consensus has to happen, to close out a dynasty; that any players who have questions or doubts about a victory either get a response that convinces them, or agree to concede it as a difference of opinion.