SENATE BILL: Dividing Domestic Chores

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Also this job is one that changes with complexity over time. Several months ago the DM positon would have worked, but currently the CP job may be a little much for one person.

Perhaps leaving the PW and CP jobs together but dividing it up based on number of cities. Say no one person can be in charge of more than 10 cities and over those 10 cities they would control CP and PTW issues. At the end of each term the Senate would ratify districts for the next term and "governors" would run for each district.

Just another idea.

Thought if I quoted myself someone might read the post.

[Togas]

Doesn't matter if we make a new office or not, what we need is for people to do BOTH of the jobs.

We could elect a DM and he could appoint a PW guy. Heck, he could appoint a WF guy, too. The law doesn't prohibit us from having additional people to do the work, it only requires that A person be elected to be ultimately responsible for it all.

Unfortunately, the deputy trend seems to have dissapeared from our Demo Game and the NewCon was somewhat dependent on the theory that Ministers would have deputies.

I know, however, that if someone stood up right now and told E_T that he'd be willing to help do the PW or City jobs, E_T would gratefully accept the help.

--Togas

[adaMada]

I know people'll accuse me of being unflexible and closed-minded -- but I disagree with this amendment. If people feel it's necessary, make there be an elected position under the DM to deal with PW -- I'd be fine with that, and it'd still honor the spirit of the NewCon (a logical organization of government). Having two branches for those two positions makes little sense. Other parts of the NewCon are structured around the idea of a four branch government, and I do believe it's the most logical thing. I agree with Togas -- our major lack is volunteers for the job (which was always intended as being delegated down) rather than the NewCon, but if people feel that we can find more people to serve if the position is elected, I'd be fine with that. Just don't force us into another huge governemnt -- the NewCon created a logical structure. If we feel that one of the suggested deputies should become elected deputies, then that'd be an acceptable compromise without destroying the work. Having said that, I'd like to remind anyone that the lack of volunteers for the position doesn't reveal a flaw in the NewCon. The creators of the NewCon simply moved positions from elected territory to appointed -- we had no way of knowing that people woulod be less likely to volunteer for an appointed position than an elected one, though perhaps we should have. Either way, I believe that this flaw in the NewCon is fixable without changing hte underlying structure of our government -- we can create an elected position under one branch, and change nothing else .

Last but not least -- this should be an amendment , but we could do the preamendment discussion here...

-- adaMada

[Panzer32]

1. I think the DM job is getting too big.
2. I think the NewCon is too bureaucratic
3. I think PW and CP still needs to be combined.

Therefore:

1. Have a single DM with deputies (I am considering being a deputy next term). Maybe have different deputies in charge of different geographical areas (with PW and CP combined).

or

2. Simply run 2 joint DMs. Either run together, or band together after the election (might have worked in last DM (tie) race). Write an ammendment if you must to make this happen.

[notyoueither]

The NewCon is too bureaucratic?

I don't recall historians being prescribed. Nor extra ministers who wind up with little or nothing to do.

The NewCon is stream lined and could suit a game of 10 people as well 500. The number of members of the court would need to be adjusted for 10, but not the ministries.

In short, the NewCon removes limitations and problems built into the Code of laws. Just what was the Minister of Imperial Expansion going to do when we stopped building settlers? What does the Minister of Science do while we are 40 turns to a tech?

The short answer is that these positions are not always needed. When they are, the appropriate Minister may appoint a deputy to oversee the job.

[Meshelic]

This thread isn't for arguing for or against the NewCon, this thread is to help us decide what we want to do with the DM office.

The reasons behind posting this thread were obvious: There is ALOT that a Domestic Minister has to do. Yes he may appoint deputies, but we haven't seen many volunteers for that. Now, whether the public thinks that it would be better to split the office in two parts like before, or whether we should use the idea of regional governors, or whatever, I for one would like to see at least SOME weight lifted from the office of DM. Now how are we going to do that? WITHOUT arguing for or against the NewCon....

[notyoueither]

That is part of the point Meshelic. When we wrote the New Con, we limited the number of elected positions for a reason (several of them, actually).

Is your new elected minister admitted to the commitee for veto? OK, you now have an even number. There is a reason it was left an odd number.

How about this? Why doesn't the DM allow the President to move workers about? Give him some general instructions and let the President have at 'er. A certain number of workers, for important projects could be personally directed by the DM. If the DM want to do it that way. That's the point. The workers fall under the DM. He or she has the final say.

What would your newly recreated worker master do once the job of workers is largely complete? Wait for pollution to pop up so he can instruct the President to dispatch 30 slaves to clean it up?

[nz_upy]

I say that rather Regional Administrators be established once again. This both involves a whole lot more people into the game and allows for more people to fell they "own" the game and as a result a more active citizen base. These would come under the Domestic Minister as such and the Minister would have the last say. But who would be willing?

[Meshelic]

Originally posted by notyoueither
That is part of the point Meshelic. When we wrote the New Con, we limited the number of elected positions for a reason (several of them, actually).

Is your new elected minister admitted to the commitee for veto? OK, you now have an even number. There is a reason it was left an odd number.

hmm, I guess the question I have to ask is in what situation would there ever be a reason for a commitee of Ministers to veto anything? It seems that this 'odd-numbered' veto issue is, to me at least, imaginary. I have not seen any situation where anything like that would happen. Do you mean if there's a tie in elections or ...? Maybe you can enlighten me to this path of reasoning...?

What would your newly recreated worker master do once the job of workers is largely complete? Wait for pollution to pop up so he can instruct the President to dispatch 30 slaves to clean it up?

Well I suppose that since the poll was supposed to be an Amendment and not a Bill, the entire thing is unnofficial anyways... I don't necessarily have any answers to your questions, other than this.

My chief concern about the Domestic Minister issue is that it may be viewed as such a large and time consuming role that it turns away citizens who may have wanted to run for office. I know I'm not the only one who feels that it is a strenuous job for one person to command, just ask E_T, I'm sure he knows quite a lot about it...

I'm hoping in all of this that there won't be any citizens intimidated out of running for office because they fear the tasks of Domestic Minister are too large for one person to carry. How many people want to run for DM this election? I couldn't count any at all! That in itself speaks for something, doesn't it?

[notyoueither]

Well, the way things were designed the power goes up to the President if not held from below.

The game will go on. Will the President by himself be able to do the job that 3 or 4 people could have done? No, but the job will be done none the less.

The question I have is... where did all the people go who 2 terms ago were running around as deputies? Sure, some people have moved on to other interests, but many remain.

I might point out that the CFC demo game seemed to find a successful conclusion with about 10 regular people (maybe 20). We have more than that.

I think that part of the solution is actually with letting the President back into the game. Why should some one individual, or two be expected to spend 40 hours a week to calculate and communicate? Tell the player what to do in general terms, give him or her some specific instructions for some cases, and let the game roll on.

Or, spend the time and give the specific instructions for every detail. Your option as DM.

[Meshelic]

I agree with you NYE, either way, the game must go on.

And for all the deputies that were running around a few terms ago, we both know where they're at; the PTW demo game, or somewhere else in real life. I don't blame them too much, honestly.

My returning here was mostly because I don't wish to see this game left to only a small handful of people who have to give so much more of their time to keeping this game going than the rest, mostly because when I joined the game there were SO MANY people involved that it blew my mind.

But hopefully people may be able to find ways of splitting some of their time and helping out with the rest of THIS game. Things already seem to be livening up a little bit, don't you think?

[Kuciwalker]

[irony]Obviously, the president can do the job. Civ3 WAS designed for one person to control the entire civ.[/irony]

[jdjdjd]

Originally posted by nz_upy
I say that rather Regional Administrators be established once again. This both involves a whole lot more people into the game and allows for more people to fell they "own" the game and as a result a more active citizen base. These would come under the Domestic Minister as such and the Minister would have the last say. But who would be willing?

This is not a bad idea, even better then when GK instituted it when he was City Planner only, and we had a separate PW guy, because now the Regional guy controls both offices and can coordinate both. Then, you can still have the DM, and his deputies split the territory, and then you don't need any amendment.


The beauty of the New Con and the Old Con or any darn Con, is there are always ways around it, through it, over it, etc, without breaking it.

I think when Arnelos becomes our next President he should be able to lead us through this mess, as he'll have to deal directly with the fact that we have no DM running for office and there's no way any amendment gets through by the 18th. I think we should table this discussion until there's a new sherriff in town.

I am confident that he's just the person we need at ths time, since he's experienced with the New Con (he's one of the few who has read it-oh and kudos to MSS and Meshellic for quoting it in their bill proposals), highly active in the game, and from what I can tell a great gamer.

So, I say lets table this till after the 18th and the new Administration.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Meshelic
hmm, I guess the question I have to ask is in what situation would there ever be a reason for a commitee of Ministers to veto anything? It seems that this 'odd-numbered' veto issue is, to me at least, imaginary. I have not seen any situation where anything like that would happen. Do you mean if there's a tie in elections or ...? Maybe you can enlighten me to this path of reasoning...?

Well I suppose that since the poll was supposed to be an Amendment and not a Bill, the entire thing is unnofficial anyways... I don't necessarily have any answers to your questions, other than this.

My chief concern about the Domestic Minister issue is that it may be viewed as such a large and time consuming role that it turns away citizens who may have wanted to run for office. I know I'm not the only one who feels that it is a strenuous job for one person to command, just ask E_T, I'm sure he knows quite a lot about it...

I'm hoping in all of this that there won't be any citizens intimidated out of running for office because they fear the tasks of Domestic Minister are too large for one person to carry. How many people want to run for DM this election? I couldn't count any at all! That in itself speaks for something, doesn't it?

Exactly my point. The NewCon created a postion so HUGE that the only person who can do it is someone who takes it as a FULL TIME job. That means we would have to pay them a real life salary and collect money from the DemoGame members.

My proposal for the Senate to divide the civ into regional districts before each election creates smaller more manageable offices that people can run for.

I would even run for one of those. There is no way I'm running for DM and getting left with that huge amount of stuff.

However I proposed this in the last DM election and it was shot down by adaMada and I lost the election so it probably isn't a popular idea. I still see it as the best alternative for an office far too intensive for one person.

[E_T]

Originally posted by ManicStarSeed


So are you saying that this bill/ammendment is unnecessary?

Mss

Maybe, one of the things that the Concon (as I understand it) had wanted to do, was to simplify the structuring of the Government. With appointed (and with senate comfirmation in the Vices) Deputies, it keeps a small group of people (say Joe Blow and his cronies) from taking over the game (something that I have been accused of on occasion, from a small number of people), because the Senate has some say in part of the structuring of the Goverment Offices.

One of the reasons that HAS NOT been said, for why there have been a lack of Vices/Deputies, is that no one wants to really be in a "subserviant" position to the one elected Official. They want to run their own show and not have power over their domain. They feel that they wouldn't, if they had to work under the other person.

Example, The RA's. They had been first been started as a kind of roleplay position and a way to try to keep a larger group of people involved. They were to help the CP compile his orders, so that all the CP had to do was to just reformat the 9 sets of Orders into one Complete set for the next Turnchat. But they had their own adjendas and sometimes were limited on the scope of the needs of the whole.

But as the reality of the whole was that there was an overwhelming need for things (mostly) other than what they had wanted for their areas or they had other RL things to not even bother with the position, it meant that there were somethings that weren't taken as they had wanted. Some People had started to feel that they had lost that power that they had accumulated and didn't bother or felt like they were being ignored (or in some cases, being swept aside). But the power of the position (in the old & new Cons) have been layed out at the top and those positions were the ones that had the ultimate responsabilities to see that the needs of the nation were met and to have the ultimate burden if they had failed. Not the RA's.

That is one of the reasons (besides PTW) that I was unable to fill positions in my staff (at least IMHO), because some felt that they didn't want to to be dictated to. In some ways, I had brought that about myself, but I was the elected person who had to take in (and try to fill) all requests and properly shepard over the cities. If a few toes were stepped on because of this, I'm sorry.

But the goals that were set for both of those positions (in the two terms) have been largely met and I feel comfortable in having some other person finish what I have started. I hope that they will have better success at getting people to help them than I have been.

But mainly, I feel that this job can be run by one main person, with others helping them. The Con doesn't need to be changed, because some people think that they will have no power to do anything. That, I feel is the main problem.

E_T