Official Nomination

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by vondrack
I am really glad to see the suggestion to appoint/elect me the VP - it's exactly what I was thinking about... Seriously, even though I originally considered becoming the Foreign Minister, I now tend to give up running for that post in favour of the VP (or a similar position). I will do my best to help redstar or anyone else elected the F.A. conduct our foreign affairs, but I feel that I could be more useful for the team, if taking care of other matters.

The reason is simple. We are lacking almost any organization. I thought that our President would mostly take care of organizing things, but I can see that Jack is busy with his RL, so it would be unreasonable to expect him taking upon the organizational duties. Besides, he has already managed to put us together as a team, which was a considerable feat.

What we desperately need is someone taking care of informing others about how the game proceeds, taking and posting screenshots, summarizing the stats etc. We also need someone to keep track of polls, maybe even putting together guidelines for the President and other Ministers to follow (based upon poll results). We DEFINITELY need a backup turn-player - the Sunday night showed that it may be a problem, if we have just one person authorized to play our turn and he/she (do we have any "she" in our team?) is not available during the set period of time (basically, 24 hours).

Considering all this and considering I am checking Poly very often (at least several times a day, but often several times an hour), often staying up late in the night (thus available for real-time chatting even for our US members), I hereby offer my services as a Vice-President or Chancellor.

Should I be appointed/elected, I have the following ideas to be implemented until the end of this week:[list=1][*] Set-up a (possibly topped) thread which will summarize all the polls, their status and possible results.[*] Set-up a (possibly topped) thread which will summarize our gameplay (something like a "Chronicles of Legoland"). It would have screenshots, descriptions of our moves/actions, plus summaries of any other relevant events happening in the game.[*] Set-up a (possibly topped) thread that would deal with our plans for future turns. This would be the place summing up all the information needed to play our turns. President or whoever would be playing the turn would find the "voice of people" there, members would be able to find the relevant information there without having to read through all the threads...[*] Set-up a (possibly topped) thread to be used as a place to decide/arrange on who is going to play our next turn(s). Primarily intended as a public "log" of communication between Jack/President and anyone else serving as his deputy as fas as playing turns is concerned. Using this thread, there should never be a situation that we would be uncertain who is supposed to play our turn... whether Jack shows up to play it, or whether his deputy or anyone else is supposed to play it. Any member of our team, checking this thread, would be able to tell other teams, what the situation is and who is supposed to play for us. This will not only help us prevent any disputes regarding this matter, but would also greatly improve out turn-around time, helping the demogame proceed faster.[/list=1]
The first three threads would be sort of "read-only" by a gentlemen agreement, I (or whoever might take the post of Secretary of State at a later date) would be the only one supposed to post in them, hopefully helping to keep them uncluttered and easy to follow. Each of them would have a corresponding "discussion thread" open to all members, serving as a place to comment the read-only thread, propose corrections, changes, improvements etc.

And the last thing: I would also be ready to play any turn Jack would not be available for. I hope I have already managed to get the grasp of handling PBEM games (technically), so I believe I would not screw anything.

I do realize that it's quite a lot of work and I may find out I will not be able to manage all that. I have some real life and business, too... In that case, I would still consider my duty to arrange with others to take care of parts of the agenda decribed above.

What do you think?

Well I would glad to have you as VP and have some help in running things. One of the reasons I have not done anything it that you cannot top threads yet or anything else. Also there are already a million threads out there started by a almost everyone. Sometimes people start threads on the same topic so we have two or three threads out there diccussing the same thing. That makes it hard to find things. Also if I were to start organizing were would I start? Were would I put it? In anther thread that would get pushed back off the front page because of all the other active threads and new ones that are made.

Also you can be VP and Foreign Minister. We did this to give the VP something todo, since there might not much that you can do in that position. So please still be Foreign Minister.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
Basically, you could do it for me now, if you wish.

Sorry, I can't do that. I have internet only at work and I was just leaving. (Plus, you seem to have a better idea on what the chancellor should do).

See you tomorrow!

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by vondrack




Well, theoretically, I could. But we have 17 members and I seriously doubt we would have so few interested in actively participating in the game. Grabbing more than one position, especially when speaking about positions likely to imply lots of work, does not seem appropriate to me. This should be a team effort.

Well the sad thing is there are only about 9 to 10 active members on the team. The rest of them I doubt dont even come to this forum and look and see what the hell is going on in here. It has taken us a long time to find people willing to take positions so I sugest you stay Foreign Minister, untill someone post saying they want it. Because if you dont do it I am affaird no one will. Personally I am fine with you doing the stuff you first posted. In real life even though vice president's offical duties and limited, the President delegates stuff to him to do. We dont have to add it to Consitution. Rather I would like to let President Decided. Lets say President is busy with one task, he can have his VP do something else for him while he is doing the other thing.

[Jack_www]

I was just wanted to disscuss the issue of inactive members and what to do about it. I know that only about 9 to10 people of the team are active. So what we will do with the other 7 who do nothing?? I know can ban people, so if we deem it necessary to kick people out we can do it now. I will not do this on my own, not unless something really, really , really , really bad happens and it needs to be done right away. But it can be undone. Well what will we do??? Also I think in the future that we are make sure that these people will be active instead of just sitting there and not doing anything.

[ZargonX]

I had suggested during the turn chat that we should hold a roll-call, as it were, just to check in on who is actually reading these forums.

That lead me to the thought of percentage issues and voting. Since, if only 8 people out of 17 ever vote, a majority could never be reached, let alone a 2/3 required for an ammendment, I think we need a dynamic team total. By this I mean that each week, a Senate roll-call is issued; at the end of the week, all votes and percentages are judged based on the total of people who checked in during the week, not the listed team total.

Thus, if only 10 people check in during the course of the week, 6 votes would be enough for a simple majority. This way, it's not an issue of kicking people who aren't participating constantly, but instead maintaining flexability to work around absences.

What do you all think?

[vondrack]

Last two posts have reminded me of a post that I wrote some time ago, but never actually submitted, since it seemed a bit too controversial to me. However, I can see that it's perhaps the time to revive and further develop some of my thoughts.

First: we do have inactive members, correct. Judging from my observations though, they are only four: aliatar, Darkness' Edge, JTFreak, and rendelnep. I have seen others posting or taking part in the chat. Namely, the following members showed up during the Sunday (first-turn) night, at least for a while: Jack_www, Kloreep, Imtoops, Nimitz, quantum_mechani, redstar1, Sharpe, me, and ZargonX (I am not completely sure about Spiffor, he may have been there for a while, but I really can't remember). Tiberius & Spiffor post almost every day, Colonel Kraken, Odin, and shadylookin have posted during the last week. I do not think the situation is that bad.

Second: I would strongly oppose any notion towards kicking out people that do not want to take active part in playing the game. I believe that we may have members that joined primarily to WATCH others play, intending to learn from that. That is perfectly okay with me and I'd think it would be rather rude to not let them enjoy the demogame in this way.

Third: we definitely need a mechanism preventing lockups and indecisive/non-binding polls. If there are members that do not wish to actively take part, fine. But they must not - directly or indirectly - prevent others from playing/acting effectively and flexibly.

Instead of complicated quora and formulas, I suggest we adopt a very simple mechanism: polls intended to lead to a decision binding for the Executive should say so in the first post, should include an Abstain option, and should stay opened for three days. Whatever option gains the majority of votes, would be binding for the President and the Ministers. Majority of "abstains" means the poll would be automatically declared void and President/Ministers would be free to act as they see fit. Two or more options receiving the same highest number of votes would mean President/Ministers are free to choose from the corresponding options at will.

This way, the more often members check in, the more influence - to an extent - they will have. Everybody able to check at least once in three days would be able to use his right of vote to the full extent. Members checking in less frequently would have to put up with the fact that their voice may sometimes be ignored, since not being heard in time.

This is, IMHO, simple, straightforward, and encourages reasonably frequent participation in the forum/team life.

Note: would someone PM the inactive members, telling them the game has just started? They may not be aware of the fact. Just send them PMs and state here you did so. Thanks. (I would do so myself, but there is so much for me to do this night, that I would rather have someone else do that)

[Jack_www]

I already pm the inactive ones. I am trying to say only 10 or 9 are really active in voting and posting. Some dont post at all, and other posts once a month, which they might as well be considered inactive. The point I am trying to make is that it is hard to find people for spots so untill then I think you should be vp and foreign minsiter. Also just so everyone knows JTfreak has join two teams, i dont know what the guys problem is but he is not in the team, so ignore that name.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Jack_www
I already pm the inactive ones. I am trying to say only 10 or 9 are really active in voting and posting. Some dont post at all, and other posts once a month, which they might as well be considered inactive. The point I am trying to make is that it is hard to find people for spots so untill then I think you should be vp and foreign minsiter. Also just so everyone knows JTfreak has join two teams, i dont know what the guys problem is but he is not in the team, so ignore that name.

OK, I no longer object being a VP and a Foreign Minister. I will hopefully sort things out this night (my time), create the vital information threads and tomorrow, everybody will see what exactly we need. Perhaps we will not create any new (administrative) posts, like the Chancellor, but rather assign new duties to existing ministerial posts.

If JTfreak joined two teams, I would kick him out immediately. One thing is to watch people playing, not being actively involved, another thing is being a member of two teams at once. That is absolutely unacceptable for me.

[Nimitz]

Hey I'm back had some probs that caused me to disappere computeer crashed and then there was thanks giving. I only got the computer up resently so I should be more active now.

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by vondrack

OK, I no longer object being a VP and a Foreign Minister. I will hopefully sort things out this night (my time), create the vital information threads and tomorrow, everybody will see what exactly we need. Perhaps we will not create any new (administrative) posts, like the Chancellor, but rather assign new duties to existing ministerial posts.

If JTfreak joined two teams, I would kick him out immediately. One thing is to watch people playing, not being actively involved, another thing is being a member of two teams at once. That is absolutely unacceptable for me.

JTfreak I never let him into the group so he cant come into the forum, and just in case i ban him also. Anyone can join the civgroup, but unless i let them in they cant come in here so dont worry and I have know about him for a long time.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Jack_www
JTfreak I never let him into the group so he cant come into the forum, and just in case i ban him also. Anyone can join the civgroup, but unless i let them in they cant come in here so dont worry and I have know about him for a long time.

OK, glad to hear that. I just did not know that he was never authorized. The civgroup listing is not very helpful in this regard...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Nimitz
Hey I'm back had some probs that caused me to disappere computeer crashed and then there was thanks giving. I only got the computer up resently so I should be more active now.

Welcome back

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by vondrack [*] Set-up a (possibly topped) thread which will summarize all the polls, their status and possible results.

Sounds like the C3DG Directory which I'm currently in charge of. I'd be willing to work on this.

[Kloreep]

Welcome back, Nimitz.

I don't think anyone should be kicked off the team unless it can be proven they are actually harming Legoland (in other words, treason). However, they do raise a problem with polls. Let's just set the quorum to something low - 40% or 1/3rd of the team, or something like that.

[Sharpe]

Hi all,

Looks like we got ourselves well organized now.

Sorry for not participating in this thread before now, but I didn't plan on standing for any nominations this month.

Although I will be active in the game when I can, my time will be intermittent due to computer problems with my current computer, and time needed to work on my new computer (when I get it that is).

I absolutely agree with appointing Vondrack VP & Foreign Minister (or to a Chancellor position

He was very helpful in the Chat on Sunday, especially in offering to play the turn for us when Jack was unavailable and for figuring out how to create a private chatroom on irc, which proved critical in being able to freely discuss issues (an earlier attempt by me wasn't private and was invaded by nosy members of the other teams grrr)

Just a suggestion but having noticed that half of our team is in Europe and most of the rest in North America, it might be an idea that whenever possible, one of the executives be in North America while the other is in Europe.

That would allow us more flexibility in dealing with issues promptly. For example, if a save arrives during the middle of the night in North America, our VP Vondrack might be able to post the info regarding the save and allow the European team members to have more time to discuss about any issues.

If this idea isn't feasible, then I recommend that we at least put one North American and one European as the email receiptors of the saves.