Contitution Article: Poll Scheme

[H Tower]

so what's the latest draft of the polling part of the constitution? and why are you mixing in a bill of rights into this thread?

[Pedrunn]

Yeah the Bill of Rights got accidently mixed.
Here is the latest, really small things were changed since the last:

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Article: Bill of Rights

1. Any person who has registered to participate in this Democracy Game in the Citizen Registry is considered a Citizen. No person shall be denied the right to become a Citizen.

2. No Citizen shall ever be denied the right to vote in any poll and to keep this vote private.

3. Freedom of speech and the right to associate into any form of organization shall not be denied unless it violates Apolyton rules.

4. No citizen may be punished in any way without the consent of the Court. Still no one shall be banned permanently from participating in the Democracy Game, excluding those who are permanently banned from Apolyton. Note that people may still be banned for any amount of time, as long as it is not permanent.

5. The government may not knowingly hide information or give false information to the people. Therefore all citizens shall have access to the saved games. However, no Citizen shall ever 'play ahead'.



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Article: Polling

1. Definition and validity:

(a) All official decision making will be done through polls, in which Citizens can express their opinion on issues. A poll is the standard vBB poll feature in which people can anonymously vote for 1 or more of a list of options.
(b) Any Poll that is not Unofficial (see section 3) and that violates any of the rules specified in this Article is invalid. The Court has the right to rule over the validity of polls. Invalid polls should be considered Unofficial and may be closed if the Court requests this.

2. Voting Rights:

(a) All Citizens have the right to vote in any poll.
(b) No Citizen shall be forced to vote for any poll.
(c) No Citizen is allowed to vote more than once.
(c) Non-Citizens are not allowed to vote in any poll except Unofficial ones.
(d) When it is known that non-Citizens have voted in a poll and it is also known what they have voted, this poll is valid if the votes by non-Citizens are removed from the final result.
(e) When the things in 2(d) are not known but there is a reasonable suspicion that non-Citizens have voted in a poll, the Court may declare this poll invalid.
(f) Any polls started by non-citizens will be regarded Unofficial and may be closed if the Court requests this.

3. Poll Organization:

(a) The first post of all polls must contain the following elements:
* A clear and unbiased explanation of the question and the answers, if needed;
* Expiration date, if applicable;
* Links to related threads or other information sources, if any;
* Type (see section 4) and nature of the poll: information gathering or decision making.
(b) Two types of poll organization are allowed: Yes/No polls and multiple choice polls.
(c) Yes/No polls must have three options of which only one can be chosen. The three options must be:
* Yes, meaning that the voter agrees with what was stated in the poll;
* No, meaning that the voter does not agree with what was stated in the poll;
* Abstain, meaning that the voter does not have a specific opinion on what was stated in the poll or does not wish to express it. Abstain votes may not be considered to say anything about what was stated in the poll.
(d) Alternative terms for 'Yes' and 'No' may be used in a Yes/No poll, as long as their meaning is along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' (examples: 'I agree'/'I don't agree' or 'In favour'/'Against'). Terms are along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' when the question in the poll can be rephrased so that it can be answered with 'Yes' or 'No'.
(e) Multiple choice polls must have at least three options of which only one can be chosen. Such polls must at least have an Abstain option as defined in section 3(c). All other options are open for the poll creator to fill in as he wishes, as long as they are clear and unbiased.

4. Poll Types:

There are 5 types of polls: Election polls, Official polls, Resolutions, Amendments and Unofficial polls.

I. Election polls:
(a) These polls must be started by the Court. They serve to elect the persons who will fulfill the official positions of the executive and judicial branches of the government, as defined in Article I and Article II of this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'ELECTION', written in capital letters, and the name of the office for which the election is held.
(c) They have to be multiple choice polls with only the names of the candidates as options. They can only be decision-making polls, they cannot be used for not information gathering.
(e) They must follow the rules as defined in Article V of this Constitution.

II. Official polls:
(a) These polls must be started by members of the executive branch of the government, as defined in Article I of this Constitution, and relate to the game.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'OFFICIAL', written in capital letters.
(c) They can be either Yes/No or multiple choice polls and can be used for either information gathering or decision making.
(d) The government official who started the poll may or may not follow the opinion of the majority of the voters. In case (s)he does not follow what was decided, (s)he must make this decision public. Failure to do so will be regarded withholding of information, as defined in Article IV section 7, and can serve as grounds for Impeachment (see Article VI).

III. Resolutions:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose resolutions. resolutions, if passed, modify the rules that clearly affect the course of the game or the policy of the executive branch of the government government (as defined in Article I of this Constitution).
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'RESOLUTION', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as resolutions.
(d) resolutions may not violate or change the Constitution. Resolutions may change, amend or remove any existing resolutions or judicial decisions regarding resolutions.
(e) If more than 1/2 of the voters votes in favour of the resolution, at least 1/2 of all Citizens vote in the poll and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, the resolution is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) A record must be kept of all resolutions that are passed, amended, or removed. The person who proposed a Law that has been passed must add this resolutions to the record as soon as possible.
(g) The Court will resolve all conflicts of resolutions. The Court’s ruling on an interpretation of a resolution is of the same power and authority as that resolution.

IV. Amendments:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose Amendments to this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'AMENDMENT', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as Ammendments.
(d) Amendments may override any existing Laws, judicial decisions regarding Laws or any number of existing sections of the Constitution.
(e) If more than 2/3 of the voters votes in favour of the Law, at least 1/2 of all Citizens vote in the poll and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, the Ammendent is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) Amendments of the Constitution must be recorded by the Court. The person who proposed an Amendment that has been passed must inform the Court of this as soon as possible.

V. Unofficial polls:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the government.
(b) They may only exist to debate or gather information. Their outcome should not affect the course of the game or the policy of the government.
(c) Unofficial polls are the only polls in which more than one option may be chosen from the list of options.
(d) They do not have to follow all the rules specified in this Article. However, rules specified in Article IV of this Constitution must still be obeyed.

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Although RunsWithDwarfs made a comment about the resolution type of poll that should be looked at:

Originally posted by RunsWithDwarf
if you have 5 or more citizens, and each one of them has a different opinion on what's to be done and they all decide to file suit. Do you see what I'm getting at here?

[H Tower]

your going to run into huge trouble trying to pass an amendment, there is no way you'll be able to keep half of everyone who joins from leaving. The 1/2 of population part needs to be taken out. and a time limit should be instituted for all official polls as well

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by H Tower
your going to run into huge trouble trying to pass an amendment, there is no way you'll be able to keep half of everyone who joins from leaving. The 1/2 of population part needs to be taken out.

I had stated earlier that this count probably should be dropped to 1/3 for the reason you mentioned. I am afraid that an amendment can be passed by a minority of the community.

Originally posted by H Tower
and a time limit should be instituted for all official polls as well

This is still to be determined since we (me at least) want to see the result of the How long does a turn takes thread.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

well, perhaps there should be some kind of record, counting people out of the citizenship, who haven't posted or voted here for some defined time.

[Gilgamensch]

Zaphod,

sounds like a bad idea....... Some people might be of for holiday, business-trip......whatever....... and might not be able to post for like 3 weeks....... Happened to myself already..........

Pedrunn (and other's)

I think we should try it with the 1/2 of the allowed voters and if it doesn't work out we can still change it later (although we would need 50% of the votes, sounds at least interesting..........)

BoR, 5: Why should they not keep information secret? It is being done to us in the real world as well, but here WE can make the difference and hopefully people will remember later, when it is time to crush vote again.

Otherwise BoR sounds good.

Polling:
1.
a: might sound minor, but

......anonymously vote, according to the poll's option (single/multiple)

b: I think there we have to wait for the officials to let us know if this is possible......(closing polls upon 'our' request)

2.
c. ????????? to clarify (at least how I understood) Each Citizen has only one vote per poll, unless it is a multiple choice poll?
second c I guess should be (d)

(d)=(e) Don't know if possible, to be checked again ..........
(f)=(g) same as above

But I like this idea, giving the court some power above this issue.

For the polling: I am not sure if we might not restrict ourself's from some options there. It could happen (can't think of anything right now) that there is a poll Y/N/A-type and just because how it has been asked people might just vote A(bstain) and no-one is happy....... Could be down to the court to decide on this, but............

Maybe we should make a threat for each article (and afterwards a poll about it). This way we nobody could moan about 'somebody' decided for him.

Locutus (or other officials):

When will the new system be active????????????????

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
Zaphod,

sounds like a bad idea....... Some people might be of for holiday, business-trip......whatever....... and might not be able to post for like 3 weeks....... Happened to myself already..........

to me as well, you could renew your citizenship afterwards

[Gilgamensch]

sounds a bit over the top........ renew citizen-ship?????????

We want people to participate and have fun........ not to strike them with Bürokratie/Bureaucracy..........

And also some people just might not feel to 'post whatever' just to stay in............

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

well, i was rather thinking of long time spans, like for instance 3 months or longer.
the whole thing is meant to keep a little track of how many of the registered citizens are still alive (in the game ) at all

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Zaphod Beeblebrox
well, i was rather thinking of long time spans, like for instance 3 months or longer.
the whole thing is meant to keep a little track of how many of the registered citizens are still alive (in the game ) at all

Keep track would be nice but really a pain for the citzens.
I am against.

I really believe that the minimum nunber of votes to make the poll valid should be 1/3 of the community. Or not have a limit at all

if you have 5 or more citizens, and each one of them has a different opinion on what's to be done and they all decide to file suit. Do you see what I'm getting at here?

I can only think in giving the court the power to close thread that they think repetitive. Anyones has a better idea?

[Pedrunn]

1.
a: might sound minor, but

......anonymously vote, according to the poll's option (single/multiple)

Actually the "1 or more" stuff is totally wrong. Since you can onlt vote once for both types of Polls organization. I will fix that. Thanks for the tip.

b: I think there we have to wait for the officials to let us know if this is possible......(closing polls upon 'our' request)

The court will close and has to explain why the thread was closed. The citizen could explain to the court that he wasnt wrong at all. Still if the court doesnt accept he could appeal with a resolution poll. If we get too much burocracy it will scare people off the game.

2.
c. ????????? to clarify (at least how I understood) Each Citizen has only one vote per poll, unless it is a multiple choice poll?
second c I guess should be (d)

I will fix that.

(d)=(e) Don't know if possible, to be checked again ..........
(f)=(g) same as above

They give diferent statement but are reductants in some parts. In the newer version i will try to condesate those topic.

For the polling: I am not sure if we might not restrict ourself's from some options there. It could happen (can't think of anything right now) that there is a poll Y/N/A-type and just because how it has been asked people might just vote A(bstain) and no-one is happy....... Could be down to the court to decide on this, but............

If the thread is not clear. The court or any explicit post could ask the thread starter to be more specific.

Maybe we should make a threat for each article (and afterwards a poll about it). This way we nobody could moan about 'somebody' decided for him.

There is a thread for every article. Didnt you noticed?
Just Bill of Rights and Poll scheme got accidently mixed up.

When will the new system be active????????????????

When we finish it...
...
And have every article voted by the community

[Pedrunn]

UPDATE:
Check bold parts
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Article: Bill of Rights

1. Any person who has registered to participate in this Democracy Game in the Citizen Registry is considered a Citizen. No person shall be denied the right to become a Citizen.

2. No Citizen shall ever be in any poll denied the right to vote and to keep this vote private or be forced to vote by any reason.

3. Freedom of speech and the right to associate into any form of organization shall not be denied unless it violates Apolyton rules.

4. No citizen may be punished in any way without the consent of the Court. Still no one shall be banned permanently from participating in the Democracy Game, excluding those who are permanently banned from Apolyton. Note that people may still be banned for any amount of time, as long as it is not permanent.

5. The government may not knowingly hide information or give false information to the people. Therefore all citizens shall have access to the saved games. However, no Citizen shall ever 'play ahead'.



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Article: Polling

1. Definition and validity:

(a) All official decision making will be done through polls, in which Citizens can express their opinion on issues. A poll is the standard vBB poll feature in which people can anonymously vote for 1 or more of a list of options.
(b) Any Poll that is not Unofficial (see section 3) and that violates any of the rules specified in this Article will be declared invalid.
(c) Any polls started by non-citizens will be declared invalid.
(d) The Court has the right to rule over the validity of polls. Invalid polls should be considered Unofficial and may be closed if the Court requests this.

2. Poll Organization:

(a) The first post of all polls must contain the following elements:
* A clear and unbiased explanation of the question and the answers, if needed;
* Expiration date, if applicable;
* Links to related threads or other information sources, if any;
* Type (see section 4) and nature of the poll: information gathering or decision making.
(b) Two types of poll organization are allowed: Yes/No polls and multiple choice polls.
(c) Yes/No polls must have three options of which only one can be chosen. The three options must be:
* Yes, meaning that the voter agrees with what was stated in the poll;
* No, meaning that the voter does not agree with what was stated in the poll;
* Abstain, meaning that the voter does not have a specific opinion on what was stated in the poll or does not wish to express it. Abstain votes may not be considered to say anything about what was stated in the poll.
(d) Alternative terms for 'Yes' and 'No' may be used in a Yes/No poll, as long as their meaning is along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' (examples: 'I agree'/'I don't agree' or 'In favour'/'Against'). Terms are along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' when the question in the poll can be rephrased so that it can be answered with 'Yes' or 'No'.
(e) Multiple choice polls must have at least three options of which only one can be chosen. Such polls must at least have an Abstain option as defined in section 3(c). All other options are open for the poll creator to fill in as he wishes, as long as they are clear and unbiased.

3. Poll Types:

There are 5 types of polls: Election polls, Official polls, Resolutions, Amendments and Unofficial polls.

I. Election polls:
(a) These polls must be started by the Court. They serve to elect the persons who will fulfill the official positions of the executive and judicial branches of the government, as defined in Article I and Article II of this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'ELECTION', written in capital letters, and the name of the office for which the election is held.
(c) They have to be multiple choice polls with only the names of the candidates as options. They can only be decision-making polls, they cannot be used for not information gathering.
(e) They must follow the rules as defined in Article V of this Constitution.

II. Official polls:
(a) These polls must be started by members of the executive branch of the government, as defined in Article I of this Constitution, and relate to the game.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'OFFICIAL', written in capital letters.
(c) They can be either Yes/No or multiple choice polls and can be used for either information gathering or decision making.
(d) The government official who started the poll may or may not follow the opinion of the majority of the voters. In case (s)he does not follow what was decided, (s)he must make this decision public. Failure to do so will be regarded withholding of information, as defined in Article IV section 7, and can serve as grounds for Impeachment (see Article VI).

III. Resolutions:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose resolutions. resolutions, if passed, modify the rules that clearly affect the course of the game or the policy of the executive branch of the government government (as defined in Article I of this Constitution).
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'RESOLUTION', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as resolutions.
(d) resolutions may not violate or change the Constitution. Resolutions may change, amend or remove any existing resolutions or judicial decisions regarding resolutions.
(e) If more than 1/2 of the voters votes in favour of the resolution, at least 1/2 of all Citizens vote in the poll and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, the resolution is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) A record must be kept of all resolutions that are passed, amended, or removed. The person who proposed a Law that has been passed must add this resolutions to the record as soon as possible.
(g) The Court will resolve all conflicts of resolutions. The Court’s ruling on an interpretation of a resolution is of the same power and authority as that resolution.

IV. Amendments:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose Amendments to this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'AMENDMENT', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as Ammendments.
(d) Amendments may override any existing Laws, judicial decisions regarding Laws or any number of existing sections of the Constitution.
(e) If more than 2/3 of the voters votes in favour of the Law, at least 1/2 of all Citizens vote in the poll and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, the Ammendent is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) Amendments of the Constitution must be recorded by the Court. The person who proposed an Amendment that has been passed must inform the Court of this as soon as possible.

V. Unofficial polls:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the government.
(b) They may only exist to debate or gather information. Their outcome should not affect the course of the game or the policy of the government.
(c) Unofficial polls are the only polls in which more than one option may be chosen from the list of options.
(d) They do not have to follow all the rules specified in this Article. However, rules specified in Article IV of this Constitution must still be obeyed.

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Summary of the changes:
Article: Bill of Rights
Section 2 - Added the statement that say that no citzen may be forced to vote
Article: Polling
Changes:
1) 2-b was breaken onto two section: 1-b and 1-d. Articl 1-c equals the old 2-f.

2) Section 2 totally removed an moved to:
2-a. Already included in the section 2 of the Bill of Rights.
2-b. Moved to the section 2 of the Bill of Rights.
2-c'. Impossible with to be inflicted with the apolyton rules
2-c'' and 2-d and 2-e. Impossible with to be inflicted with the new civgroup rules.
2-f. Moved to section 1 of the polling article.

Any new comments?

Note: I did not changed nothing about the minimum number of people to validate an amendment or resolution poll.

[H Tower]

BOR (1) You should also include anyone who joins the CtP2 democracy game group

I(a) Why does the court post the polls? why not the vp? I think the court should remain seperated from the day to day operation of the government so they can maintain an unbisased opinion. And what happens if someone questions the legality of an election poll? The court would be ruling on the legality of a poll posted by one of its own members!

I disagree with how the multiple choice polls are defined. I think that you should be able to select more than one option in polls if the minister desires it. For example, the science minister may want the citizens to vote for more than one technology, so that the minister can report a techpath to the president instead of just a single tech that the people desire.

Vote for two:
A)Monarchy
B)Republic
C)Democracy
D)Automobile
E)Space Flight
F)chivalry
G)Future Tech

The citizens may overhwhelming want to research automobile, but what should be researched next? The science minister would have to make another poll and slow the game down.



V(d) What is article four of the constitution? the amendment polling rules?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
b: I think there we have to wait for the officials to let us know if this is possible......(closing polls upon 'our' request)

The author of that section (i.e. me) *is* an official

2.
c. ????????? to clarify (at least how I understood) Each Citizen has only one vote per poll, unless it is a multiple choice poll?

Well, simply put, you can't use DLs or hack the site or otherwise abuse the system to vote more than once (as a mod, I could vote as often as I want ). But I guess Pedrunn's simplification makes sense, considering the new voting system and Apolyton's own rules.

Maybe we should make a threat for each article (and afterwards a poll about it). This way we nobody could moan about 'somebody' decided for him.

Isn't that what we're doing now? (Sure, the BoR is included in this thread but that's only 5 lines of text and there already seems to be a fair degree of consensus on it).

Locutus (or other officials):

When will the new system be active????????????????

Unknown, but soon, I presume (and if not, I'll whine to Markos until the does activate it ).

Regarding a minimum number of votes: we're not gonna get more than 50 people to participate in this DG anytime soon and if we can't get more than 15 to vote in such a critical poll, this game is doomed anyway. So starting out with a 1/3 requirement for important decisions sounds okay to me. We can always amend it if activity starts to decrease...

can only think in giving the court the power to close thread that they think repetitive. Anyones has a better idea?

I second this. It's implicitly covered in section 3.IV(g), but maybe this should be made more explicit in a seperate section?

Suggested changes to the latest update:

Polling:

1(a): remove 'or more'.

1(c): "(c) Any polls started by non-citizens will be declared Unofficial."

3.IV(e) and 3.V(e): 1/2 of all Citizens must be 1/3 of all Citizens.

3.II(d) section 7 is now section 5.


Bill of Rights:

1: Considering the future voting system, better replace the Citizen Registry with the CivGroup entirely: "Any person who has registered to participate in this Democracy Game in the CtP2 Democracy Game CivGroup is considered a Citizen. No person shall be denied the right to become a Citizen."

2: Better make that addition a new sentence: "2. No Citizen shall ever be in any poll denied the right to vote and to keep this vote private. No Citizen shall ever be forced to vote in any poll."

V(d) What is article four of the constitution? the amendment polling rules?

Bill of Rights

Constitution ToC (not final):

I: Executive Branch: The Ministers
II: Judicial Branch: The Court
III: Polling
IV: Bill of Rights
V: Government Changes

As far as 'multiple select' polls go: there's no way to check for how many options people have voted, results of such polls are often rather ambiguous. In such a case one can better post 2 single-select polls: one to find out people's primary choice, one for the secondary one.

[Pedrunn]

I: Executive Branch: The Ministers
II: Judicial Branch: The Court
III: Polling
IV: Bill of Rights
V: Government Changes

Wouldnt look better if we change to:

I: Bill of Rights
II: Executive Branch: The Ministers
III: Judicial Branch: The Court
IV: Polling
V: Government Changes

After all Bill of Rights should be the first thing to be read by a citzen.

1(c): "(c) Any polls started by non-citizens will be declared Unofficial."

The Section 1-d says "The Court has the right to rule over the validity of polls. Invalid polls should be considered Unofficial and may be closed if the Court requests this." So the change is not needed.

All the others changes stated by locutus will be added to the update

why not the vp?

Will we have a vp? That something to think about it. We must speed up the Executive Branch: The Ministers Article. This article is the only one moving too slowly.

I will wait a few more comments to post the new updated article.