Prepoll discussion: governmental reforms

[Shiber]

In light of recent events, I suggest that we move all discussions concerning any reforms in the current governmental structure to this thread. This is due to numerous reasons, among which are:
* Some people don't like the thread title "Revolution", thinking that a change can be achieved through the current system and does not require a revolution. A neutral title more suits this kind of discussion.
* Members of the executive branch are offended by poll answer #2 which appears at the top of every thread page. I'm not saying that they all take it personally, but I know some people are more sensitive than others and besides, noone likes to be called an immature kid. If we want to make this a proper discussion we should hold it in a neutral and sterile environment, not one that is hostile to some of us.
* A thread beginning with "Prepoll discussion:" would make it clear to everyone that this thread is to be used as a tool to discuss and set up a proposal for a new system, not as a place to throw insults at each other.

There's no need to split over petty differences and feelings. Suggesting for reforms in an apparently lacking governmental structure is a good initiative. We should not let it be spoiled by insults and arguments.
Let's do this properly.

The purpose of this thread is to finalize a proposal for changes to be made to the current system and then set up a poll about it. Let's all begin by summarizing our stands below.

[Epistax]

The COL needs to somehow make ministers responsible for being prepared.
Deputies are a bail out-- not a complete solution.
Temporary replacements appointed by P or VP.
Impeachment for ministers that vanish is needed.

As for restructuring, I'll let other people bounce ideas off eachother, as I have none.

[Captain]

What Epistax said.

Plus, I think an additional, separate COL is needed.

1) To govern the C3DG online Community (what we have so far). Governs things like polling, ministers, elections, etc... Amended by 2/3 requirement.

2) To govern the actual in-game world (non-existent, we only have "official polls" on such things like Case Pink/Teal, Plan Eagle, Plan Gold which are then generally accepted by unwritten convention but nowhere is it required to be followed despite heavy public support. Other examples of what could become ingame laws: Ban on Sneak Attacks, Pop-rush policy, Minimum Treasury Balance, ROP policy, MPP policy, Nuke policy, etc...) Passed by 50% + 1 vote.

[Captain]

As in real life, everyone wants the ministers and officials to carry out all their responsibilities in full, but few people are willing to run for office because they can't afford to carry out all the responsibilities of the office.

How can we create INCENTIVES for people not only to run for office, but also to stick around and do their job if they win?

Real life has a way of pulling even the most dedicated forum poster and C3DGamer away at the most inopportune times.

[Spiffor]

A small reform I deem important :
We get rid of the Imperial Expansion minister 17th September. We'll very probably have no land to grab with settlers by then. The control of potential settlers should go to the minister of Public Works IMO, or perhaps the city planner.


Now, bigger reforms :
I'd like to point out a very important thing. Our government structure should be completely different whether we continue doing turnchats, or if we now do turnthreads.


I If we do turnchats
Indeed, in turnchats, things go fast for the officials (even if it doesn't look like it). That's why we shouldn't give too much power to ministers if we play turnchats : I remember a chat when I was Economist, FAM and city planner all at once. Without Aggie's and Epistax's suggestions, my job would have been poor on these areas, because I had no tme to look at every detail.
If we are to continue with turnchats, I suggest we continue like it has begun. Maybe we should merge ministries which take very little time, if there is such a thing.

You could say "but ministers can plan ahead". Sure, they can. If they'll actually do it is unsure : just look at how many officials simply resign. How many will be involved enough to plan ? We shouldn't be utopic if we want our future structure to work.


II Now, if we do turnthreads systematically
Big ministries are good, but only if ministers have to listen to people's feedback for any reason. If not, we'll have superpowerful ministers who could lead a wrong policy, without listening to others.
If we do turnthreads, big ministries are viable because ministers will have time to look at details before issuing their decisions.

However, one or more aides should be mandatory for a "super mnister" candidate to run : if a superminister leaves for a turnthread (and we can't predict what RL prepares us), his absence will be extremely bad : just imagine our domestic minister must miss a turnthread : it's like having Public works + city planner + Science + Economy missing. Deputies should have a true power, and really be teammates with the minister, not underlings
(well technically, deputies are underlings and must abide by the minister's decisions. But they should help him, and give documented advice whenever the need arises. When the minister can't attend the turnthread, the deputy has a complete power over the ministry).

If we are to make a smaller cabinet, I think Uber's decisions are pretty good :

Empire level
- War minister decides strategies, has an absolute power on all units, except settlers and workers.

- Domestic minister gets to decide what should be built in cities (with the help of governors), what the workers do (ditto : in my idea, governors have control over their workers, but the city planner can overrirde their orders, and can distribute workers among provinces as he wants), where settlers go, what to research next.

- Foreign advisor has power on agreements and trades. He isn't required to ask other ministers before making a trade, but asking would be better.

- President and VP play phisically the game. They make sure the forum goes fine, and everybody has the info he needs in conveniently placed threads. They do the chores of presidency, as per our constitution. One of them has to attend discussion chats (if such a thing exists). They also decide on the budget repartition, if the people didn't do so (through an official poll).

Local level :
Every minister can appoint small-scale aides like he wants (for example, the War minister appoints a commander for the Gaia area). He gives them as much power as he wants in the boundaries of his ministry : for example, commanders under the orders of a control freak will only be able to write reports. Commanders under someone more lax will have right to move units. Minister (or his main deputy, if the minister isn't here) can overrife any decision taken by his aides.

The only elected local people are province governors : they decide how to manage their citizens, what to build in their cities, how to use workers under their control. Their orders can be overriden by the domestic minister any time.
Province governors have to abide with general strategies for the country (building units for the far away war, rather than temples, building a locally useless road rather than clearing jungle now). They also have to send complete information to the Domestic ministry, in case it disagrees with some orders.


People :
Every citizen can set up a poll on any policy subject, whatever the impact. If such a poll follows the rules of official polls, the cabinet has to abide with the results, whatever it thinks.
With this, the people have an absolute power, if they decide to take it.

[Inverse Icarus]

point of order: how do we decide who elects govonors? will people have to "move" to a sector to elect one? will the entire nation decide? I think the former is best.

[Togas]

Governors.

We ought to have city or (if nothing else) regional governors who manage their cities/regions, but who can be overruled by the Domestic Minister/City Planner.

I'm fond of the idea (can't remember where it was previously posted...) that all citizens choose a city to reside in and pick their own governor. Of course, if no governor is picked or the governor becomes inactive, the Domestic Minister/City Planner does the job (or has an assistant do it).

--Togas

[lmtoops]

How does the Phoenaticans turn chats or threads work? Seems to me they have been at this for a bit longer and have some good ideas that we can ponder.

[Shiber]

The idea of people deciding where they live in Apolytonia and then elect their own governor is troublesome. The decisions made by governors do affect its region (building improvements and so on) but also have a wide effect on the entire empire. For example, the commerce produced by a region is shared with the rest of the empire. A wonder built in one region can have a civilization-wide effect. And so on, and so forth...
To sum up, region/province/sector governors should be elected by the entire populace. I see no other logical options, since those governors will be in charge of some operations that have a civilization-wide effect.

[Kuciwalker]

The CoL is so bulky and just plain messed up that there is no hope of internal change. We need to tear down the system and rebuild it.

[GePap]

Hurrah! Constitutional debate back in style! and begun by the "I hate this talk of CoL' crowd! Finally, I can let it all out........

I have been calling for a whole new sytem for a longtime- first with a legislature to hold ministers accountable for the people's need, and then with governors- I like governors more, since they woul be more in tune with the game, though I think we do need somee sort of legislature, so let me spell it all out:

The Executive: 4 people: President, Ministers of War, State, Interior. (I now agree treasury is porbaly not needed)
The Judicial: 5 member court
The legislative: 4 people: The Vice president and 3 senators
Total number of elected members in central gov. 8, since judges not elected.
Local gov. Governors, number unknown, also elected.

Powers of each, what they do in turhctas, turnthreads.
Executive:
The president plays the game-if he/she can't, responsibility goes to the VP. President can take action according to what they feel is best for the state is Ministers and governors have not left orders.
The Ministers: Ministers make central level plans for the state: they have the power to overrule governors when they feel they must in order to carry out civ-level plans. Ministers must leave orders for the president to follow- the president must follow orders as given.

Judicial: same as today- figure out CoL debates

Legislative:
The VP shall play the game if the president can't.
The legislature control Official polling- has the power to create in gama regulation, which Ministers must follow- the CoL shall include no in game regulation- they will be made by the Legislature after holding official polls of the populace (issues like which victory to aim for, tax policy, pop-rushing, declarations of war, making treaties, nuclear policy, so forth can change over time if the people want ti to change without needing a change in CoL, which should only deal with the government maeup and divisions of power)

Governors: Governors shall be elcted by the all the people in open elections. Governors control city queues, local garrisons, local workers- are instructed with the safe and efficiant handling of the cities they have been given control of. Governors must follow the outcomes of in game legislation and must also follow the orders of Ministers. Governors must leave orders for the President to follow.Governors may hold unoffical polls about what their actions will be.

Issues and questions:
Why a legialture?: This is something many people are ignoring, which was first brought up in the ethics debate. Wen we pay the game as individuals, we all play with a certain set of vaues (in the general sense) that inform our game. Since many are playing this dem game, we need a way of distilling our collective values in playing this game in a binding way- how should we handle pop-rushing? Should individual government officials do it any time they feel its needed? In most other proposed systems this notion- of distilling our collective values into action is igonored, for perhaps we assume such things won't be issues, but they will be, and we need a way to have this issues resolved quickly, efficiantly and in a satisfactory and official way. I also want to limit the scope and shape of the CoL so that discussions on such issued don't become constitutional debates, just legislative ones.

Turnchats or turnthreads? I think if we have a smaller government, were responsibilities are clearly laid out, and where lapses in them are quickly corrected- by being more harsh with impeachments and getting replacemenst for absent members post haste- we could keep having turnchats- I don' think ministers wil be able to give detailed orders, nor should they- those sorts of details will come from Governors, who will handle smaller portions of the whole. BUt if this become difficult anyway, then by all means, lest do turnthreads. One way to do them is for the president to announce how many turns he/she will play (or this could be a legislative issue), then all the governors and ministers write down in the thread their orders, first governors and then ministers, since minister orders overrule governor ones.

Role of the citizen: with a legislative and governors, i feel the average citizen would have a greater say, since they can both make pushes for their localities (if each province wishes to have a local CoL, fine) and with a legislative, they can have their voices heard in the central government.

This is a very general plan, which for a thread such as this, is best. Many people will dislaike it, fine, but I do ask that people keep in mind the many, many issues we have to confront, and how will we confront them. How much shall be in the CoL: rewriting it will take a long time and we have to be ready for that.

[Kuciwalker]

No legislature. No no no. We have five officials, the court, and then assistants. Look at Uber's modification of my plan in the revolution thread.

[GePap]

Skywalker: I saw yours and Uber modification, and I simly think it is not good enough. Under your system, how would something like, pop.rushing policy be handled? You keep calling for a new system, but one that its extremely vague- what got us into this situation was vagueness. It is a common problem- when trying to create a 'simple' system, so much is ignored, that over time a more and more complex system of patches must eb set up to counteract the original simplicty, and what you get is a horribly creaky and complicated system, so again, Skywalker: Tell me how pop.rushing policy would be decided in your proposed system?

[Kuciwalker]

Gepap - I'll answer these one by one.

Pop rushing policy? A citizen or minister or the Banana or whoever posts a prepoll discussion thread, then after the time needed is up posts a poll on our policy. Just like we do now.

What got us into this situation was bureaucracy - the effort to put every situation possible into a rulebook, and then spend hours in a commitee debating in which direction to move worker number 7 (not much exaggeration here).

The solution to this is not to make policy on everything - to figure things out on a more case-by-case basis. Let people use their common sense and we'll be fine. Unlike real world governments, we have both a (much) lower and more intelligent population combined with a simpler reality (Civ3), and all of those factors work in favor of a logical, commonsense system.

[GePap]

Skywalker: you better than most know that the government doesn't need to follow citizen posts. You would have to written in the CoL that the government MUST follow the results of any poll created- otherwise this is no solution at all. And that solution brings up all sorts of problems.

Another thing- we don't have a bureocracy at all- government is not the same thing as a bureocracy. If we had that much debate it was not because it was in the rulebook, but because it wasn't, or at least because who should move the unit when the person reposnsible is abcenst is not clear. If we had debate is because bno one said- hey, this is what will be done, period, since its my responsibility. and that was not done because no one had a clue about doing that. Lets take what you brought up during the chat:
Timeline created a nice, simple thread saying: hey, I will play a turnchat on 3pm EST on tuesday. Most people saw it, SirRalph even created a second thread telling everyone about it again. Isn't that a nice, simple, common sense, non-bureaocratic action? A citizen just took the time to make a public announcement that ayone could see,and many did. Why have somehting as simple as when a turnchat will appen by slowed down by bureocratiuc concers about clear postings in one specific place and time so everyone an always see it there and not worry about missing the threads of someone else? You didn't see timelines thread because yo expect there to be procedure about announcing when turchats will be- expecting that procedure is xpecting rules and regulations.

I always see you skywalker demanding more common sense and less rules, less regulations: BUt you are also the one I always see complaining that people have done something ignoring regulation, ignoring polls, and so forth- things they did according to their 'common sense' (which of course, does not ahppen to be yours). You can't have it both ways skywalker. To use the turnchat exampla again: the one way to stop what hapened yesterday would be to create a law about posting in a clear place when a turnchat will occur, and creating a mechanism to hold people responsible if they ignore it, all which is a call for greater, not less, regulation.