Ah, I forgot about appealing for a vote.
The reason appealing for a vote doesn't work is simple: participants do not have to support their position. Let's say, as an example, we have a vote to nerf a class suspected of being overpowered. We have four guys:
- - Guy A votes to nerf the class based on a well-reasoned analysis of the metagame and the class' abilities.
- - Guy B doesn't know anything about the class, but he votes to nerf the class because he plays the opposite faction and nerfing the enemy will make him look better, or because he believes that the faction as a whole is overpowered and will support any nerf to that faction, even if it's to a class that is balanced.
- - Guy C votes to keep the class as is based on a well-reasoned analysis of the metagame and the class' abilities.
- - Guy D plays the class or the faction that the class is aligned with and will always vote against any reductions in power to that class, no matter what the balance looks like.
Under voting, all these people have an equal say, but two of them are casting votes for the right reasons and two are not. This shouldn't be the case, because Guy B and Guy D have invalid reasons.
The next problem is that under a vote, a player does not even have to read the discussion to have input. They can simply cast a vote without ever having had their viewpoint challenged or being educated on the subject, so the risk of getting a lot of Guy B and D-type voters is increased. If one posts to a discussion without having read the previous pages, it's obvious and it leads to one looking foolish and ignorant, which is useful for weeding such people out.
For these reasons I prefer to see discussion coming to a consensus rather than simple voting, though it's not always possible to do things that way.
