W4Q allows to pass proposals with simple majority (majority of all votes cast) instead of absolute majority (majority of all eligible votes). One problem with simple majority is that if the voter turn out is low then it may be possible for a large voter to “snipe” the election. This means the following: say the large voter wants to vote “yes” but an absolute majority actually wants “no”. The first votes come in and the trend is towards “no”. A large part of the “no” group doesn’t bother voting because of that. The large voter waits until the last second before the deadline and turns the relative majority around to “yes”. When the “no” group realizes this it is too late. Given more time the “no” group could have increased their turn out and re-established a relative majority.
The current W4Q takes care of election sniping only. It does not have any other sophisticated features such as, for example, a stochastic model for “quiet” that could be used to speed up elections and close them as early as possible. In the current W4Q, “quiet” is simplified to mean “not flipping”, which is enough to mitigate sniping.
The rough idea behind the formula given above by @jwiegley can be summarized as follows:
- If the simple majority flips during the original voting period then we make sure that we have at least W (currently W=12h) from the time of flipping left. If the flip happens 1s before the end of the original voting period this means extending the deadline by 12h. This gives the group that is affected by the flip time to increase their turn out (if possible).
- The margin W linearly decays over time so that a second flip within “overtime” creates a margin that is smaller than W. The effect is that a decision is forced even if continued flipping happens.