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[NW_Kohaku]

Part of the problem is that the top 10 voted suggestions, which have an overwhelmingly greater number of votes than anything else on the list, are still on the list, still sucking up votes.  This is in spite of the fact that Toady has already accepted them, hence meaning those votes DID count - those suggestions won the election, so to speak, and now another election has to start, which means that the votes have to be wiped so that we can start the next election.

[Draco18s]

Umm... You do realize that people can change their 3 votes later if they change their mind or if one of their voted suggestions become obsolete? Right?

Deleting votes, even after period of time has passed, basically means that their vote did not count. And I'd suspect many voters would not think to check back, only to discover that all votes had been reset...    I'm sure there's more than a few votes by fans who've not participated much on the forums in months or years, so some might not find out about the reset to resubmit their votes.

Hence why you only need to delete the votes on completed items.

[Jiri Petru]

As long as the list isn't wiped clean, there's no chance of any significant change in it. It should be named "the 2009 voting, eternally preserved."

[Kogut]

I think that it may change after implementing the top suggestions. It will purge votes in implemented ones and will also show that there it is useful to vote.

[NW_Kohaku]

How are you sure that the implimented ones are going to be purged?

The point of ESV is to tell Toady which problems are most severe, or items are most wanted as to get about a thousand people's votes.  He's already said, "OK, I'll do the 10 with the most votes right after Adventurer stuff, Caravan Arc, and Army Arc," which is exactly what the voting was for.  Why would you wait until after it is in the game to change your vote?

[Kogut]

How are you sure that the implimented ones are going to be purged?

DO NOT VOTE. This item has been completed and still exists as a placeholder. Train military to novice before sparring with others.

[Draco18s]

How are you sure that the implimented ones are going to be purged?

DO NOT VOTE. This item has been completed and still exists as a placeholder. Train military to novice before sparring with others.

That might be one of the 16 that I "own."  I think I'm the only one doing that (though there might be one other person).

[NW_Kohaku]

I can't help but notice the things that really should have the DO NOT VOTE tag on it, the ones that are already going into the game, and hence, are complete wastes of votes, are the ones STILL at the top of the voting charts.  In fact, they haven't even gone down more than about ten votes in three months.

And you can't get the people who put those suggestions up there to change them because many of those people who put them on the list no longer even visit the forums or potentially even play the game anymore. 

[Jiri Petru]

I think we should simply accept the fact that it is nothing else than "archived votes from 2009". The top10 items have been noted and Toady has a lot to work on. Once he'll get neat the completion, there will presumably be a new round of voting from a clear slate.

Or it should, anyway... one year from now, Dwarf Fortress will be so different that many voting items will become obsolete - some because they will have been implemented, other because something similar will have been implemented and they will become unattractive.

I still think starting from scratch is inevitable in the long run. Right now the list is so long and incomprehensible that noone will ever bother to read it whole.

[Silverionmox]

I think we should simply accept the fact that it is nothing else than "archived votes from 2009". The top10 items have been noted and Toady has a lot to work on. Once he'll get neat the completion, there will presumably be a new round of voting from a clear slate.

Or it should, anyway... one year from now, Dwarf Fortress will be so different that many voting items will become obsolete - some because they will have been implemented, other because something similar will have been implemented and they will become unattractive.

I still think starting from scratch is inevitable in the long run. Right now the list is so long and incomprehensible that noone will ever bother to read it whole.

One of the causes of the staticness of the list is the hugeness of many top items: there are a lot of collection threads there, or things that don't have an obvious practical solution (improved hauling, for example). If there were more small things like "Eggs, eggs, eggs", then the top ten would be realized faster, items could be striked off faster and the whole thing would be more dynamic. That doesn't prevent Toady from picking the easy, small ones, but it would seems as if he ignored the list ordering... and voting would seem pointless again. Also, any Improved x item will be there forever because improvement is always possible.

Finally, is there a link to the voting list somewhere on an accessible place? I think many people find it once, but don't bookmark it so they don't look at it afterwards.

[NW_Kohaku]

The first line of the first post of this thread, which is stickied to always be the first thread in the forum, with the name "Eternal Suggestion Voting".  That makes it pretty darn easy for me to find.

[Zaranthan]

I've been to a LOT of forums in my day. Long story short, nobody reads the stickies.

Short story long, people who are new to a forum don't read the stickies. They don't read the FAQs, the gigantic red flashing "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING" links, the front page of the wiki, nothing. The first six topics of the forum could be spelling out exactly what they have to say, they'll still make a new topic about something that's been argued into the ground a hundred times before. When you boil down the population of a game-centered forum, you get three basic groups:

1. People who like the game. These people won't hang around the suggestion or bug reporting forums, because it gets their hopes up. They'd rather just enjoy what they have and support the developers in other ways, be it writing fanfic, publicizing their favorite indie game, donating to the cause, what have you.
2. People who don't like the game. These people will hang out in the suggestion and bug reporting forums perpetually whining about how their particular pet peeve hasn't been fixed yet. Usually because their peeve is either unsolvable (inexperienced players "ruining" the game, a core mechanic they disagree with, etc.) or infeasible (multithreading support for pathfinding, make the game an MMO, make the game a Facebook app, etc.). The stickies won't stop these folks either, because they believe their opinion is worth more than that of the people who do the heavy lifting.
3. People who are new at the game. These people don't hang around anywhere in particular, they just click something that seems like it's relevant to what they want and post a question in full earnestness. The fact that their question has been asked and answered a hundred times is lost on them, because they don't know WHERE the faq even is. They don't know the wiki exists.

Basically, stuff like this is like foul weather. You can either stand in the rain and scream at the heavens, or grit your teeth and bear it. Nothing you can do short of genocide on a heretofore unimaginable scale is going to stop it. And even then, it'll just be a delaying action. People will stop voting for improved health care because there's nobody voting on anything because they're too busy scavenging for canned food.

[NW_Kohaku]

Hmm... I hang around the suggestion forum.  I don't like this game?  I'm sad to hear that (I think?), I must be very confused about what I actually feel. 

I also read the stickies (well, sticky), that's where I found the ESV thing the first time, and where I always go to link back to it.  I also made sure to read the rules section at the top of the forum before posting my first time, since I was nervous, and wanted to make sure I wouldn't be breaking the particular rules of the forum.

Plus I learned the game by reading the wiki for a few days first before really playing because I really enjoyed just reading about how all the systems in the game worked, and wanted to make sure I understood something well before I tried doing it, myself. My first fortress lasted to getting my queen and having some water reactors, and only ended because I moved on to other forts.

I think your catagories might stand to be expanded a little bit.

[TolyK]

really, it would help to have a "Hey new dude here's some basic stuff:
1. Press "?" for in-game help
2. Visit the forums at bay12forums.com for help
3. Visit the wiki at magmawiki.com for help"

for a first run of the game. That way folks could be like, "oh thanks I can actually play this game now that I know where to get help!"

[Kogut]

Visit the wiki at magmawiki.com for help"
It is in game.

@sb is reporting bugs, suggesting things - and it is supposed to be sign that sb dislike game?