Gratuitous ribbons for proposed achievement

I would (and you could) like to create this place as a workshop to propose certain gratuitous ribbons to become real achievements. The criteria are, of course, the same as for real achievements.

The gratuitous ribbon should have been claimed by several people in the past, proving that it is interesting.
The achievement should be generic enough to be achievable for any geohasher worldwide.
The achievement proposal should include well-defined criteria.
The achievement should further the spirit of geohashing. (All that is good, geeky, amazingly random or randomly amazing).
...

This page may be considered as a first stage to see if other people agree on ribbons becoming achievements, without having to create a proposed achievement page for every single one. They may, of course, evolve later on on their own pages, before actually becoming achievements.

Feel free to add new achievements to this list, or express your support and doubts.

Democracy achievement (and consolation prize)

This is a proposal made on 2009-09-28. Please leave comments and suggestions below, indicating your thoughts on the proposal, including:

Support - you think this proposal should be added with zero or minor changes
Do not oppose - you think it's boring/meh/not for you, but it wouldn't harm to have it created
Oppose - you have a specific reason as to why this ribbon should not exist (state this reasoning in your comment)
Needs work - you think the achievement should be created after more significant changes have been made

See Proposed achievements for more information on this process.

Ribbon

Zb and Baerenfell earned the Democracy Geohash Achievement

by going voting on the way to the (47, 10) geohash on 2009-06-07.

Definition

The geohasher must have cast a vote on the day of the expedition
The geohasher doesn't need to have reached the hash point, but shown significant effort towards reaching it.
The vote must require physical presence (letter or e-voting on the same day just doesn't cut it)
The vote must be of significant political importance (well, as far as that usually goes. But that's usually the kind of vote requiring physical presence among the other criteria for a free and democratic vote.)
Proof: No picture of the voting ballot. :P Pictures of the voting booth are welcome.

Support

support - I would like to encourage people to use their citizen rights. It's a physical achievement. And all the problems involved in voting, fairness and possible manipulation will appeal to any security/mathematics/sociology geek out there. -- relet 15:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
support - Koepfel _talk 19:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
support I like the idea of encouraging people to go both voting and geohashing! --HiroProtagonist 13:30, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Needs work I don't want to see letter voting banned (see below) --Ekorren 20:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Support - I'm in favor of things that encourage people to get out and vote. I won't try and say anyone here has done it, but maybe getting an achievement if they can combine it with geohashing would get people to vote who would otherwise claim 'my vote doesn't matter that much' or 'it's too much trouble' and not vote. -- turbomagnus 10:20, 4 February 2011 (EST)
support - A good way to encourage voting. -Haberdasher 18:06, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

Elaborate comments

There is also the consolation prize for people who did not go hashing, because they thought voting was more important. I would like to include this on the achievement page as well. I just don't think that consolation prizes need the same conflict-free, elaborate approval process as achievements do. ;) -- relet 15:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
An alternative would be to "arrange" for the hashpoint on that day to be in a voting station... SteveL 18:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I remember that, in order to go to the Eibsee expedition (on the Sunday of the European parliament election) without forfeiting my vote, I (and ekorren and dawidi, too) raced to the town hall on Friday shortly before they closed to get papers for letter voting. I'd like to include something like that as valid for future democracy ribbons. - Danatar 08:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm with Danatar here. The achievement here is making it possible to do both voting and hashing although they might get in each others way (time-wise, at least); no matter how this was accomplished. Letter voting past hash o'clock on friday requires physical presence as well, btw. You can't send them in any more at that time but have to run to the town hall to get the papers, and another time to hand them in. Apart from that, I think a gratuitous ribbon is sufficient. So: Needs work for now, may be changed to do not oppose depending how it turns out. --Ekorren 08:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I will leave the proposal as it is for now. I do not see how you could include other forms of voting (if you accept letter voting, then e-voting is just as acceptable) into this proposal without losing any time constraint. And (this being my personal opinion) I do not wish to encourage letter voting. -- relet 20:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There's the point: I don't see a reason to add an entirely artificial time constraint. IMHO the actual achievement/challenge is to combine both if they could get into each others way, no matter how this is achieved. --Ekorren 20:47, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Even though it would preclude me from getting this achievement, I would seek to make letter/e-voting not be a part of it. Here in Oregon, there is no on-day voting, you must vote through letter ballot. --aperfectring 23:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I like the time constraint part of it, even though I'd be excluded too, at least this year (won't be in the US in November). I like the achievement as proposed, including the exclusion of letter votes. -Haberdasher 18:06, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

I (still ;) ) support this and I agree its okay to exclude letter voting, because then the definition will get more complicated. I like the achievement because voting is important and the letter-voters can still get a gratuitous ribbon for that. (include a hint to that in the description maybe) --HiroProtagonist 21:43, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

We need to define "significant effort" somehow. We really should make a general definition of it somewhere, but just having "significant effort" in the requirements without definition tends to make it very tenuous how this would be assigned. I don't think this is enough to prevent it from becoming an achievement. I still think letter ballots should be excluded, because including them makes the achievement very hard to define. --aperfectring 16:04, 27 September 2011 (EDT)