First the amusing part of this thread...
Isn't it amusing to have the one suggesting ingame regulation unable to respect forums regulations when posting?
http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=22698.msg273552#msg273552Now, about votes...
Democracy is not the only political system that existed in RL history. In fact, I did not see many guilds with democratic decisions in their Constitution.
But let's suppose Yliakum allows polls. Who will be allowed to vote?
date of char creation? Create a char today, vote later. When creating a char you want to promote faster, you only have to create ghost accounts with ghost chars and ask your allies to do the same. Phatom electors are realistic (it happens IRL) but not really meaningful. and talking about real life, why do you think there is usualy a minimum age to vote? no only because vote bulletins are hard to read, but because it is better to rely on age to ensure a reasonable maturity of electors. Not everyone is able to RP the maturity of a 120yo man. At least not the majority of the ones who tried. No matter how hard they tried.
online time? the server does not kick idle characters. It is easy to score hours without doing enything.
If you give some (elected?) people the power to make regulations, is it safe to have the same people carry out the executive power? There are few political systems were you can be judge, jury and executor at the same time.
And in this release there are little ways to actualy execute a sentence since even a sentence of death is a small punishment that declining challenges can easely prevent. It's actualy a great source of unresolved-unresovable conflicts.
It does not mean that there is nothing that can be done. Even now the community can accept some behaviours and reject others. Being an outcast is fine when you only think about leveling and collecting money...but to join the community you have to agree on some social regulations. Anyway, there will always be rebelion, not only because some are dreaming of being IC the bad guy they can't be IRL, but also because the age/maturity of the average computer games player.
Everyone with a possible technical implementation making it possible to establish a medieval hierarchy inside PS. With a way to allow some punishing without allowing power abuses. Everyone with such ideas is welcome to post them in the whislist.
For my part, as I did in another thread, I strongly encourage Yliakum citizens to take their fate in their hands instead on relying too much on ethereal beings watching from the skies. Those creatures, if ever they exist, won't interfere unless someone/something is a real nuisance to your everyday life. To those you can send your prayers [petitions].