Prepoll discussion: governmental reforms

[Kuciwalker]

What happened yesterday was people doing nothing at all.

[GePap]

I was there also, and the only thing different yesterday was that no one was willing to take punkbass's job quickly and make the decisions. That was the big difference.

Let me add somehting else: there has never been there isn't, nor shall there ever be something called "COMMON SENSE" When one sees a man beating his wife, what should one do? a. Interfere, b. call the police, c. keep moving? If there was such a thing as common sense, then the answer to that wold be simple and objective and obvious: but it is not.

Every two witnesses to the same occurence (like you and I and the thurchat) see two different things- becuase one's sense are the most subjective thing of all, simply for that reason, there is not common sense whatsoever. How many people were at the turnchat? and how many woudl agree with what the 'common sense' solution would be? Clearly you and I don't agree, throw in Spffor, Timeline, OPD, epistax, Apocalypse, Uber, Good-Fella, Ninot, and anyone else who was there, and all consensus breaks down immidiately- we have no 'common sense' about what happened yesterday- why would we have any more 'common sense' abvout anything else? What is clear and obvious to you is not to me, and vice-versa. Thus, any system built upon the illusion that we can get consensus without a good rulebook will FAIL and fail utterly.

[Kuciwalker]

Policy issues don't need to be in the Code of Laws, just as most laws aren't in the Constitution.

[GePap]

Which is why I call for a legislature! The congress of the US does not add to the constitution (the CoL), it adds laws. The legislature I propose would not add anything to the CoL, it would be there to create and change in game regulations and laws, and it could change them at any time with another poll- the reason I make it part of the government is to give it the power to force the actions of ministers, something your citizen polls could never do. Again, government does not equal bureocracy- something you and Uber do call for in adding non-elected "helpers" not responsible to the people but to their minister.

[Kuciwalker]

Why not just have the Citizens act as a Legislature? We could determine who is active by some means (# of posts, something), and make them official members of the Legislature. That way, we have a select group of people who vote on these things. Membership for the Legislature would be updated every month.

[GePap]

To institute ourselves as the legislature, we would need to implement various rules about citizenship, about census, I mean, you say every month- that would be a hastle every month, so forth. In short, trying to make us the legislature woul mean a very large number of things in the CoL that would have to be written. If what we seek is simplicity, I think having a group to moderate the debate and then have the power to make the debate official and bindding would require less lines in the CoL and have less chances of controversy, which is what I think we all want. It might also be simpler to implement and easier to sell to the general public, all pluses. I am not opposed to your notion- I just don't see a simple way of implementing it, thus, getting it approved would be harder.

[Spiffor]

GePap :
We had exchanged some PMs about this legislature thing, and I think my solution is much better than yours :

The People
Every citizen can set up a poll on any policy subject, whatever the issue. If such a poll follows the rules of officiality, 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.

I don't see any reason for us to restrict the right to make polls to a small circle (namely the senators). Everybody should be allowed to do so, as it is explicitely stated already.
Restricting tthis right will make the game less democratic and fun, not more.

Edit : I'd like to remind that an official poll isn't always an amendment to the CoL, and doesn't always need a 2/3 majority. Latest official polls I've made (tech-whoring, Plan Gold) would have won with only 51% of votes.

[GePap]

Spiffor: the reason I don't like such a systme is a: the possibility for abuse and b. difficualty of implementation.

On a. I would love to trust the good judgement of everyone here, but its not a practical thing to do. If citizens can force certain actions of ministers, what of governors, what of both? And are all topics open to discussion?

On issue b. : to a certain extent, other citizens may simply ignore such threads- how many votes would it need to pass, what choices must it include, what if the poster forgot one thing or another? There are too many places for simple mistakes to invite questions about validity by those who might oppose the outcome, sepcially on such issues as the victory condition to aim for.

When thinking about a future system we have to think not oly on how they might work under ptimal circumstances, but how might they work under the worst circumstances. We can't imagine everywhere were it might go wrong, but I can imagine enough problems with the 'let evryone make official polls' option to think that long term, it will bring more harm and grief than good.

[Spiffor]

GePap : I don't think so, because only the most involved players will care enough to set up official polls. we could have seen this past 2 legislations : only very active players used their right.

By limiting this right, we risk to let some involved players out of the loop, for whatever reasons (they're justices, they don't have enough time or don't want to be senators etc.).

As for the census : I think we should let as it is. A minimum of 3 days lets enough time for Apolytonians to vote on the matter, except those who are away for a long time. Those who don't want to vote won't affect our policy. They will technically do the same as not playing at all, or not being senators in your idea.
If a poll only gets 10 answers, while being official, let it be so. It means the question doesn't interest anybody. Still the small minority who voted has its say. No doubt every involved player and minister will have voted there. We'd then have the views of some would-be senators, and the cabinet.

And important matters such as the victory we strive for should DEFINITELY not be let to a small elected circle.

Maybe we differ, because I don't believe in the concept of an "enlightened elite". That's why I think a senate would be bad.

The best advice I can give you on this is to make an unofficial (but neutral) poll about how people feel with this idea. If landlide majority is against, I think we should stop thinking about it in our government reform.

[Kuciwalker]

The Constitution I just proposed includes a Legislature.

[GePap]

Spiffor:
NEVER have I said that only the senators would vote on the issue. The senators are there to moderate, regulate, and validate:

The senators have the power to start officila polls on in-game policy, but they could only do it after a senate vote- hence the number of polls is kept down, to only issues seen as vital, this is the moderate.

The senators would vote among themselves about the choices, ansd what choices are needed in the poll and so forth- this is to lessesn the possibility of mistakes and also to try to create unbiased questions: this is the regulate.

After the poll is created and debated- and the poll questions should be debated as part of the debate itself, so that an actual, you can vote on it poll, comes at the end of the debate, the senators would validate it. because the debate on in-game policy (nothing at all, whatsoever to do with the CoL as written), the ministers and governors, and any other government officials, including the senators themselves, would be bound by it.

[Darkness' Edge]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I don't see any reason for us to restrict the right to make polls to a small circle (namely the senators). Everybody should be allowed to do so, as it is explicitely stated already.
Restricting tthis right will make the game less democratic and fun, not more.

Edit : I'd like to remind that an official poll isn't always an amendment to the CoL, and doesn't always need a 2/3 majority. Latest official polls I've made (tech-whoring, Plan Gold) would have won with only 51% of votes.

Thank you. Especially with reduced ministers, it's vital that the people retain the right to vote in every poll. Otherwise, this game is going to become less democratic, and certainly less fun.

[GePap]

To state this again and forcefully:

The legislature should not and would not limit who votes on polls, but who starts polls, which is a huge difference.

I think a limit on who starts OFFICIAL polls on in -game policy (and any yahoo can stat unoffcial polls to their hearts concern) is needed to counter possible abuse, but more importantly, to make sure that everyone at the end is satisfied with the validity and correctness of such polls, so they will be followed and seen as legitimate and correct- in short, we need to remove OFFICAL polling powers from the executive while keeping this power within the government to make them legitimate, and not open to questions of validity. In anyone here as a good plan on how to allow anyone, anyone at all to be able to start OFFICIAL polls that both addresses the legitimacy question and checks possible abuse, make it.

[Epistax]

I still like the idea of locale-related government positions. Any good ideas on how to implement?

Anyone that pays attention to me knows that I currently reside in Tassagrad. I'd move to Ubergorsk but people there smell funny (probably due to the coal* mine).

*Iron

[Kuciwalker]

Coal? What's that?