First Proposal for UN Constitution

[Zakharov VII]

I believe a term is one Real Life month...with the minimum of 2 days per turn (IIRC), that's a maximum of 15 or so turns per term (try saying that 15 times fast ).

About term limits...I'm for rules that give a slight edge to the underdog...what I'm thinking, for example, would be that a "veteran" (two term) Comissioner would have to win a majority, not just a plurality, to serve a third/fourth/etc. term. For example, imagine Crisler is retained next term, and then for the next (possibly Crisler's 3rd term) it's Crisler vs. A vs. B. If Crisler has 11 votes, A 8, and B 6, then A would win because Crisler doesn't have a majority with only 44% of the votes.

Good things about this (at least to me)...as seen in the above example, Crisler has a very difficult time winning a third term (despite getting more votes than anyone else). However, if we're in the middle of a very, very difficult war and Crisler is doing well, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that Crisler could win a majority.

Problems, of course, come up if two or more veterans are also running...say Crisler and A are each going for their third term, with B trying again. If Crisler gets 12 votes (48%), A 10 votes (40%), and B 3 votes (12%), it would be rather absurd for B to win (which, under the above rules, he would since neither veteran has a majority). And this rule is no help when there are only two candidates, but it's an example of the kind of flexible rule I'd like.

Z

[Crisler]

Zakharov VII,

Thank you for your confidence sir :-) I really am working hard at this job, would love one more term.

However that being said, I plan to retire at the end of a second straight term. I not only feel that term limits are important to making sure everyone has some time to lead in this game, I plan to live it as well. No matter what the majority decision I will step down after my second term, if I am blessed to have a second term, and will not consider running again for at least 3 or 4 terms.

I have proposed many ideas in this forum, I have also talked about compromise on many of them if need be for the public good. However I also believe in the things I have proposed and I am willing to back up what I have said with my own actions.

Yes in case anyone is interested, this could be the opening speach for election 2:-)

E.L. Crisler
First Commissioner

[FlameFlash]

That's all well and good, Crisler... but we're still nowhere near even having a term limit idea up and running.

I'm thinking that it might be time to just start an official poll now that we have three/four options.

[Darkness' Edge]

Originally posted by Crisler
Yes in case anyone is interested, this could be the opening speach for election 2:-)

E.L. Crisler
First Commissioner

Election 2?

I take it you mean for the month of October?

[Darkness' Edge]

Originally posted by FlameFlash I'm thinking that it might be time to just start an official poll now that we have three/four options.

Sounds good. I can't remember the procedure for this. Does Crisler have to post it?

Originally posted by Leland
As for other stuff that the Constitutional Committee has to agree upon:

• Election procedure
• Parties (and what official status they may have)
• Impeachment
• "No playing ahead" rule, as well as punishment
• Finalize director positions
• Uh, what else?

Perhaps we should get to discussing these in detail...the term limits section is a fairly minor area of the constitution...

Originally posted by Sprayber
There needs to be some kind of provision that states the official deadline for declaring oneself as a candidate for one office or another. We have had lots of race switching for the sake of party advancement. For us independents that a little worrying.

The deadline in all the other games is when the elections are called, pretty well. The only reason there has been so much changing this time around is because of the nominations being called so early in the month. In the other democracy games, there's only been about three days to nominate, then three days to vote.

[Crisler]

Right after the campaign I called for the formation of a Constitutional Committee and they are due to report soon with the first roguh draft for consideration.

E.L. Crisler
First Commissioner

[DeathByTheSword]

if all goes well that is

[FlameFlash]

Election procedure

First of all, was it decided that the Alpha would be setting up the director elections?

My personal feeling is that each needs to be a seperate election so that discussion can take place if wanted about each position.

Parties

Parties are just that... groups of citizens with similar ideals and wants for the future. The same with coalitions, just on a party scale (parties that join together each share a common bond and ideals.)

There's really no reason that they should be officially mentioned since, while they are organizations within our faction, they're still citizens as well, and each individual can still sway from the "official" party platform if he/she chooses.

Impeachment

With as short as terms are (in IRL terms) I'm not sure why this is really needed. The only reason I can see we would need to impeach anybody is if they suddenly disappeared from 'poly and didn't tell anybody why or what's going on.

"No playing ahead" rule

This one would have to be explained to me... I don't see why any of the director's or commisioner's statistical computational devices couldn't be used forward one turn to see the probability of a new policy been bad... plus we'll need to know what tech is available the next "year" so as to be able to give input on what to research... same with build queues.

One year only, however.

I'm wondering how easily one could actually enforce this, however. Also, I thought this was a UN Constitution for RP terms in the game world... a provision like this needs to be elsewhere if that's the case.

Finalize director positions

I thought they were finalized... what still needs to be done here?

nomination deadlines

The commissioner or Alpha should call for nominations, allow four days of them, and then call the official vote. Four days should be plenty of time in case people go away for the weekend, etc. That way, one week after nominations have been called for we would have new directors in place.

There are my submissions and ideas... any thoughts/comments/suggestions, etc?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
Election procedure

First of all, was it decided that the Alpha would be setting up the director elections?

My personal feeling is that each needs to be a seperate election so that discussion can take place if wanted about each position.

I agree here - we should have a separate campaign thread for each office, posted by a candidate. The first post would have to label all candidates, and all politicking, promises, questions from the public etc. go on here. Once elections start, each position gets its own polling thread, and we should encourage no more campaigns there, and basically tell ppl not to post there unless there are extenuating circumstances, that I can't think of right now.

Parties

Parties are just that... groups of citizens with similar ideals and wants for the future. The same with coalitions, just on a party scale (parties that join together each share a common bond and ideals.)

There's really no reason that they should be officially mentioned since, while they are organizations within our faction, they're still citizens as well, and each individual can still sway from the "official" party platform if he/she chooses.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Parties are unofficial collections of citizens and shouldhave no impact on playing the game beyond a bit of fun in your posts/sigs.

Impeachment

With as short as terms are (in IRL terms) I'm not sure why this is really needed. The only reason I can see we would need to impeach anybody is if they suddenly disappeared from 'poly and didn't tell anybody why or what's going on.

Hopefully, we won't need this. We may do later, but let's leave it out 'till it's needed.

"No playing ahead" rule

This one would have to be explained to me... I don't see why any of the director's or commisioner's statistical computational devices couldn't be used forward one turn to see the probability of a new policy been bad... plus we'll need to know what tech is available the next "year" so as to be able to give input on what to research... same with build queues.

I am vehemently against this. It is certainly cheating in any SP game to play ahead, even one turn, and I think we should play by the same rule. It is one step from checking the tech discovered next turn to reloading after battles. Besides, if you play one turn ahead, even with the best of intentions, you get wind of Faction attacks and Fungus activity, and this certainly affects the game. We don't need any of this - it's all the fun to decide whether some strategy will work or not, and there is little challenge in checking to see if it will work before committing.

Finalize director positions

I thought they were finalized... what still needs to be done here?

Search me.

nomination deadlines

The commissioner or Alpha should call for nominations, allow four days of them, and then call the official vote. Four days should be plenty of time in case people go away for the weekend, etc. That way, one week after nominations have been called for we would have new directors in place.

Haven't nominations closed? I thought all we were waiting for was the election day to be announced. Maybe I'll start things off by posting the Director of Base Production campaign thread.

[FlameFlash]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt

I am vehemently against this. It is certainly cheating in any SP game to play ahead, even one turn, and I think we should play by the same rule. It is one step from checking the tech discovered next turn to reloading after battles. Besides, if you play one turn ahead, even with the best of intentions, you get wind of Faction attacks and Fungus activity, and this certainly affects the game. We don't need any of this - it's all the fun to decide whether some strategy will work or not, and there is little challenge in checking to see if it will work before committing.

I understand your point... checking for tech could also easily be done simply by seeing when the science screen shows "1 turn until [researching tech]" and then if the science director is doing everything he/she is suppose to he/she would have an idea on where to go next anyway, without playing ahead.

Though how do we enforce it?

Haven't nominations closed? I thought all we were waiting for was the election day to be announced. Maybe I'll start things off by posting the Director of Base Production campaign thread.

As of 3 GMT today they close. Heh, good job on getting the ball rolling for Base Production campaign thread.