I had an idea for a poll that went along the lines of; "Would you like the class name Traitor to be changed?" Yes Yes, just change it back to Tactical Yes, to Chaos Space Marine/Chaos Marine/Marine(or insert suggestion) No No, they're Traitors to the Emperor* I Don't Care *Unsubtle way to gauge who's just fanboying for the Emps. Yeah, if I'd have known we'd ended up with Traitor I'd have said nevermind to the whole thing. This is a case where I'd have taken nothing and liked it.
My concern with having multiple options to vote on is that it opens up a selection of potential issues, depending on exactly how we go about it. Scenario 1 We submit Chaos Space Marine / Chaos Marine / Marine to Behaviour and say "Please confirm if GW are happy with any of these; if they are then we'll vote on the favourite". This makes life harder for Behaviour, as they have to commit not only to running another set of options past GW, but also commit to a secondary vote being run (by them? by us?) to select which actual name will be used. That's extra hassle and uncertainty for Behaviour. Also, how do we decide which names get resubmitted? Do we resubmit Legionnaire/Legionary, despite Behaviour refusing to reopen discussions on these names so far? I just worry it makes Behaviour more likely to say "no, sorry". Scenario 2 As above, only we run our own poll first with a broad list of names including Traitor and submit that poll to Behaviour to run by GW, and agree to adopt the most popular one approved. The variety of options will dilute support for removing traitor in favour of a specific replacement, as we know there isn't universal agreement on the preferred replacement. Many people will also ignore any comments we make about "please bear in mind some are more likely to be approved than others" and vote for the coolest/most preferred name. So Legionnaire, if in there, is likely to win again (with the same effect as in Scenario 1). If Chaos Space Marine ends up below Traitor, we're almost certain to end up right back where we started. This also feels like a direct re-run of the original vote, which isn't a good thing. It's also more aggravation for GW if the list is broad, and (to be honest) makes it look a bit like Behaviour have lost control over class naming and/or their player community. It's not a great image, and may make it harder for Behaviour to get behind the idea of proposing a change. Scenario 3 As Scenario 2, only we preselect a small set of options that we believe have a strong chance of approval by GW. While avoiding the Legionnaire issue, it still has most of the same fundamental flaws as Scenario 2 - just not as pronounced. In addition, who decides which options are 'acceptable' for the fan vote? Ultimately, we'd have to explain our reasoning for somewhat limiting the choices to the wider community and justify why some names are in and others are out. That would require a group of us fully behind the proposal to avoid pressure to opening up to additional names, e.g. Legionnaire. Scenario 4 We run a pre-vote of a shortlist of names in Scenario 3, excluding Traitor, with a view to using this to get wider community approval over which single name to run against traitor in a poll. Then we pitch the winner of that binary poll (if it isn't traitor) to Behaviour and request them to run that name past GW for approval, and if it's approved to adopt it. This retains the same issues as 2 or 3 regarding the preferred name (depending on whether it's a shortlist decided by some of us or just any names people want to submit). Once the name is selected, it has the huge advantage of being a much easier pitch to Behaviour and to GW. It also avoids anyone feeling like they've just put on their tyrant shoes. However, if the name selected doesn't have a great case for approval by GW and is rejected, we run the genuine risk of ending up back where we started with Traitor. So again, how the name gets decided and people's understanding of the potential risk of voting for...well, most of the options we've discussed...comes centre stage again. Scenario 5 Someone puts on their tyrant shoes and runs a poll of Keep Traitor Marine / Traitor Assault vs Change to Chaos Space Marine / Chaos Assault. We explain the reasoning for the highly limited options on the basis that CSM is the only name which is absolutely certain to be approved by GW, is the tabletop lore-correct name to use for the class, and oh by holy Tzeentch have we all agreed we widely dislike Traitor. If Chaos Space Marine wins out, we pitch the winner to Behaviour and request them to run that name past GW for approval, and if (when?) it's approved to adopt it. This is the simplest pitch to the community, to Behaviour and to GW of all the scenarios. I suspect it's also the most likely to result in Traitor being changed. On the downside, it does require that initial tyrant-like action. Understandably, none of us are 100% comfortable with that. This route would also absolutely need a group of us fully behind the proposal to explain and defend why this vote was a very different beast to the original "vote for your favourite name" poll, and why we took the decision to do this rather than a more inclusive democratic path. The main risk I see to this scenario is we could end up seeing furious arguments over 'why choose Chaos Space Marine rather than (x) which is much better' could undermine the validity of the poll, and if we're hoping to influence Behaviour then the poll has to be a genuine picture of the community's opinion. If people didn't get the chance to have their say about the choice of Chaos Space Marine, they may be more inclined to argue about it, or turn personal against whoever has organised it. There's probably no 'right' answer here.
I'm happy to settle for Chaos Space Marine. Tactical is just a personally preference it makes more sense to me. If it was added to a poll wonderful if not, well it's better than an insult. If it was a choice between Chaos Space Marine and Tactical I'd choose Tactical but if they become neck and neck in a poll I'd want to change over to Chaos Space Marine just so we're not called Traitors.
A good start would be to make a poll with just two options; "Anything but Traitor" and "Traitor". This way we would be able to show how many people who object with "Traitor".
That little piece of data we kinda already have with the thread i made some time ago asking if people like the new term or not (poll and all).
This certainly is a lot harder given that we have zero official information to base these assumptions on, though I share the fear that if we allow too many options that Traitor will stay comparitively high. That was the problem with the original, it was obly 4th because the other suggestions didn't have enough people rallied behind them. I can assure you had they eliminated the options that couldn't be accepted something else would have outvoted it. The thing is that we already do, Djemo already has one that asks how many people like the name Traitor, and the answer was 30% And speak of the devil.
@Kanthric I'm in agreement with you, especially with Scenario 5 being our best bet. Edit: With a good introduction, and reference to all of this, I think we can explain the general non-tyrant nature of what we're attempting. There's also the very real fact that if we as a community can show a united front on this and Bhvr is allowed to reidentify the Traitor class, they may run their own official poll. I think Chaos Space Marine, Chaos Marine, and Marine can all logically be rolled into one option. All of them reference the squad name for TT, and has the strongest branding strength for GW to consider. I think this is a good place to talk about whether we want additional names, in case anyone is feeling shoehorned into this. Before we make a move on anything I think we should have a consensus. I think one has already come out to be honest, but it doesn't hurt to check. @Djemo-SRB thanks for the info! I found the link for it http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/the-name-of-our-csm-tacticals.46405/ Which saves us a bit of time legitimatizing this.
I accept that this probably wasn't entirely serious ( ) but speaking as someone who does research as part of my day job, we'd want the poll to be clear and unbiased. In the above "Yes" is unhelpful, as it doesn't express a preference for what to change it to. "I don't care" would need to be removed at the end to avoid skewing the percentages reported. It might matter if 80% of people voted "I don't care", as in reality this would be an argument in favour of retaining Traitor, as only a minority are seeking change. Missing out an "I don't care" option would be reasonable, as there's the option not to vote. Realistically, to make the argument for change it would require overwhelming preference for change "No, they're Traitors to the Emperor". I get where you're coming from, but we have to take a 'no' vote at face value, irrespective of the reasons for making it. We'd have to add this back in with the No votes to be fair to those wanting to keep Traitor. I feel this issue would better be handled by an FAQ to the vote explaining to SM players why the Chaos community feels that it shouldn't have its classes named based on how the Imperium views us (the comparison to calling Ork Boyz "Xenos Scum" could be made), and that the only reason we ended up here was a quirk in the original poll that none of us saw coming. Personally, I'd suggest a binary vote similar to Djemo's, only with a direct call to action: Keep the current names: Traitor Marine, Traitor Assault Change the current names to: Chaos Space Marine, Chaos Assault With a note to the effect that no proposal is being made to change Raptor, Havoc or Aspiring Sorceror.
