Plans

A plan is a vote segment that other users can reference by name.

Technical aside:

From a technical viewpoint, every user's vote can be considered a plan named after the user themselves, and anyone can reference their entire vote by voting for their username (ie: user proxy). However for the specific purposes of this section, a plan is something defined within a post, and given a name by the user who made that post.

Historical aside:

Base plans were introduced in 1.0.6, and embedded plans (plans that are part of the vote itself) were introduced in version 1.3. Self-named plans (plans named after the user themselves) were allowed through to 1.4.x, but disabled in 1.5.x and 1.6.x because they introduced too many conflicts in processing tallies. They were re-enabled in version 1.7 once those issues were worked out and new rules implemented.

In version 2.2, 'base' plan was renamed 'proposed' plan, because of the purpose it serves (creating a plan that is separate from your vote), now that its original purpose as the stepping stone for allowing plans to work is long obsoleted by newer, better code.

Proposed Plans

A Proposed Plan is a plan which a user is proposing, but is not actually voting for. It's identified by that naming convention, and treated as a new plan the first time it is encountered. If someone copies it wholesale into a later vote, it is treated as a vote for just the "plan" portion of its name.

A Proposed Plan must have explicit content beneath it.

Example:

[x] Proposed Plan: Invade
-[x] Setup
-[x] Transport
-[x] Fight

In the above, the indented lines of Setup/Transport/Fight are the actual plan, and will be used in any later votes that have a line of [x] Plan Invade or [x] Invade.

Note: A Proposed Plan is not automatically voted for by the user that proposes it. The user must themselves actually vote for the proposed plan if they want to support it. They may do so in the vote that they propose it, or in a later post.

Thus, proposing a plan and using it within the same vote might look like:

[x] Proposed Plan Invade
-[x] Setup
-[x] Transport
-[x] Fight

[x] Invade

Explicit Plans

Explicit plans are formatted in mostly the same way as proposed plans, but with two notable differences:

• They are named using "Plan Y", instead of "Proposed Plan Y"
• They are part of the user's vote, rather than separate from it. The user thus automatically supports it without needing to add a separate proxy vote for the plan.

Basically, you can define a plan within your vote, and have that plan's name be something other users can vote for directly.

For example, if this was your vote:

[x] Plan Invade
-[x] Setup
-[x] Transport
-[x] Fight

Then anyone else can immediately vote for

[x] Plan Invade

You may define multiple plans within your vote, and each will be available as something others can vote for. If you change your vote later, any plans you defined in earlier posts are still available for other users to vote for.

Vote Plan Labels

A plan label is a vote line at the start of a user's vote that names the entire vote as a plan, in its entirety. It does not have any explicit content.

For example:

[x] Plan Invade
[x] Setup
[x] Transport
[x] Fight

In this case, "Plan Invade" does not have any direct content (indented child lines), but it is the first line of the vote, so the entire vote becomes what "Plan Invade" refers to.

The primary difference between using standard explicit plans and a vote label is that the vote label does not allow segmentation of the vote. For example, if you have the two votes of:

[x] Plan Invade1
-[x] Setup
-[x] Transport
-[x] Fight
[x] Call Mom

[x] Invade1
[x] Call Dad

In this case, the second voter will keep the Setup/Transport/Fight plan, but change the "Call Mom" line to "Call Dad".

[x] Plan Invade2
[x] Setup
[x] Transport
[x] Fight
[x] Call Mom

[x] Invade2
[x] Call Dad

In this case, the second voter gets the entire original vote as the 'plan', and thus automatically includes "Call Mom". Their vote to "Call Dad" is added on top of that, rather than replacing the original "Call Mom" vote line.

If those are two separate pieces of what's being voted on, it's recommended that you use the explicit format rather than the label format.

It's also easy to break the plan label if someone else later in the thread adds an indented line item to the vote. EG:

[x] Plan Invade2
-[x] Call Dad

Since explicit plans have higher priority than plan labels, this vote will change what the Invade2 plan is to just the above vote, overriding the original proposal.

The Forbid Vote Label Plan Names option allows you to disable the above label-type plan definition format.

Naming

In the event that a user names a plan after himself, that causes a change in how user proxy votes behave.

If Kinematics makes the following vote/plan:

[x] Plan Kinematics
-[x] Mystery Cat
[x] Turn out the lights

And someone votes using the universal user proxy:

[x] Kinematics

they will be voting for the entirety of that user's vote, and not the embedded plan. However if they vote using the "plan" prefix:

[x] Plan Kinematics

they will only get the portion of the vote that is defined as a plan:

[x] Plan Kinematics
-[x] Mystery Cat

If Kinematics used a vote label to define his entire vote as a plan:

[x] Plan Kinematics
[x] Mystery Cat
[x] Turn out the lights

then there will be no difference between [x] Kinematics and [x] Plan Kinematics, as they both encompass the entire vote.

Put another way, [x] username can only ever refer to the user's vote as a whole. [x] Plan username will attempt to be used as a plan proxy, but if no such plan exists it will fall back to being a user proxy.

Note: A user can never create a plan with the name of another voter. If you have a plan named after a user, it can only ever be created by that user.