• Derived from the discussion on public opinion map about whether there is a difference between a Polis-like +1/0/-1 vote and a 5-step vote.

The idea of introducing Strength of Opinion so that users can distinguish between “strong approval” and “weak approval” is the same as in 5-Step Questionnaire. Quadratic Voting (QV) goes further and tries to solve the problem of “if strong and weak opinions cost the same, we will just end up weighting and tabulating the opinions of ‘those who strongly argue for everything’“.

The principle is simple: “You can vote as many times as you want, but it costs 1 cost for 1 yes, 4 costs for 2 yes, and 9 costs for 3 yes. This “quadratic cost” is the origin of the name Quadratic.

The interesting thing about this mechanism is that it creates a positive meaning for “neutral. While classical voting, which always allows only one vote, leads to the assumption that neutrality or white vote is a bad thing, in the QV world there is a rational meaning to the action of “voting 0 for an issue you are not very interested in and allocating that cost to a topic that you are very interested in.

relevance - QV is a meaningful mechanism for not voting


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