Article A. All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen
Registry are citizens of our country. Citizens have the
right to assemble, the right to free movement, the right
to free speech, the right to a fair and speedy trial, the
right to representation, the right to name units (within
the naming convention), the right to seek to redress of
grievances and the right to vote.


Since this was the general concensus (the specifics of 'right to a speedy trial' will be handled elsewhere), this is an approval poll.

Public polling on the constitution? That's as bad as public election polling...

stop saying this is a bad public electioon

Public polling on the constitution? That's as bad as public election polling...
its always been this way

I voted yes, but there is a grammatical error. It should say "to seek to redress grievances" or "to seek redress of grievances."

We'll deal with the grammar issues when we write up the rules. (now if I could just figure out what "redress of grievances" means. You should know I'm a legalese klutz. :p).

Idea: Perhaps we shouldn't evolve a constitution until the Age of Enlightment. Maybe tribal council will due until oligarchy?

Under Feudalism, will the the governors be competitive Feudal lords, only united against the Infidel/Saracen?

If we're being nitpicky, there should be a comma after "grievances."

I'm a little confused as to why the right to name units (within the naming convention) has made it to the constitution, but the right to name cities hasn't. Seems to me if one is in there the other should be too.

I'm a little confused as to why the right to name units (within the naming convention) has made it to the constitution, but the right to name cities hasn't. Seems to me if one is in there the other should be too.
I thought the same thing also, Furiey. At first I thought that the people that wanted the naming of cities based on rank left city naming out because they didn't want to be forced to allow everyone a equal chance. But then I realized that they will probably say that there will be a hell of a lot more units than there will be cities, so there won't be a shortage in that regard (they won't feel any political pressure to include a *statement about how the law only stands when there are enough cities to go around). No additional wording is neccessary here, as we'll never run out of units.

EDIT: The *statement wouldn't mean that, sorry. It would say that it would come into effect as new cities were created or captured. Something to the effect of "Each citizen is entitled to name a city, so long as there is an eligible city available as that citizen becomes qualified persuant to procedure." Blah, Blah, Blah.

Though I haven't been involved much in the drafting of this constitution, I will weigh in on one issue (I know it is late, but I had no internet connection for the last week). The 'right to seek to redress of grievances' is part of the reason there is so much bickering and bad blood. It implies a personal injury, when the only issue should be whether a person violated the rules. I strongly urge you to remove this from the citizens' rights section and add a law that says that any citizen may ask that a investigation be made into whether someone violated the rules, and that officials will be held accountable for their violations if found guilty.

Though I haven't been involved much in the drafting of this constitution, I will weigh in on one issue (I know it is late, but I had no internet connection for the last week). The 'right to seek to redress of grievances' is part of the reason there is so much bickering and bad blood. It implies a personal injury, when the only issue should be whether a person violated the rules. I strongly urge you to remove this from the citizens' rights section and add a law that says that any citizen may ask that a investigation be made into whether someone violated the rules, and that officials will be held accountable for their violations if found guilty.
excellent point, this current wording would make CCs like CC#2 legal...

eyrei,

Forgive the tardiness in my response. The "redress of grievances" is there basically to say that citizen can call out leaders that don't follow the rules. It's not intended to allow citizen A to get citizen B in court because B called A a 'ninny'. To be honest - that's something you (and the other moderators) are best suited for.

How about "... the right to hold leaders accountable for their actions,... "? Would that work?

Anything that clarifies the point that's being made is a good thing.

-- Ravensfire

eyrei,

Forgive the tardiness in my response. The "redress of grievances" is there basically to say that citizen can call out leaders that don't follow the rules. It's not intended to allow citizen A to get citizen B in court because B called A a 'ninny'. To be honest - that's something you (and the other moderators) are best suited for.

How about "... the right to hold leaders accountable for their actions,... "? Would that work?

Anything that clarifies the point that's being made is a good thing.

-- Ravensfire
does this mean citizens can break the laws?

does this mean citizens can break the laws?
Well, actually, the laws are made to direct the Government (although rights of Citizens are included). I don't really remember a PI or CC against a Citizen unless that Citizen was an Official of some kind and did something that broke a Law/Rule covering the capacity of the Office.

BTW we should make the above change using eyrei's word Official, not Leader as Ravensfire uses. Official covers ground that Leader may or may not cover.

Can citizens break the law? It seems to me that all our laws are directed towards making sure those in office operate fairly. What could an ordinary citizen possibly get CC'ed for?

Actually, Cyc, I can. Ummm, DG4, I think, a new citizen played ahead in the save and posted comments about what was coming up. CT spotted it quickly, purged the thread and notified me. I think it was DG4 as we worked out a remedy for it that corrected the problem.

Quite intersestingly enough, in the actual game we made a slight change that completely invalidated the entire post - we avoided a potentially nasty war.

Back to the issue. eyrei is essentially asking us to move this to some other area. How about into the Judiciary? Task the Judiciary with "investigating all complaints as requested by a citizen and hold accountable those responsible for violating the laws of $COUNTRY_NAME".

I just don't know. PI's and CC's are ugly and nasty. I've seen only a few of late get resolved quickly and quietly. I've seen accusations of fraud leveled at people. I've seen just plain mean-spirited character assassinations that continued on for months afterwards. We've got a system of rules, and people that work within those rules. We aren't perfect, and run into conflicts with those rules. Some place we're going to have the clause about requesting investigations, or filing complaints. The door is open, sometimes good things come in, other times bad things. Heck - (and I'm sorry for singling him out) look at CG. Early in DG4 he had a CC filed for skipping instructions. Ever since then, he's been a very solid official. The process can, and does, work.

eyrei, we can certainly move it, and the Judiciary article would be a decent place for it. Do you think that would help? I just don't know.

-- Ravensfire

Can citizens break the law? It seems to me that all our laws are directed towards making sure those in office operate fairly. What could an ordinary citizen possibly get CC'ed for?playing the save ...

Yes, you're right. There are grey areas elsewhere too.

As far as what eyrei has requested though, Ravensfire, he is not asking us to move the wording to some better location, he is asking us to remove the wording and replace it with alternate wording.

I'm thinking this is a primal right of each Citizen. In the real world, Investigative reporting on the government is a very need service to the public. In the Demogame, CCs are a citizen's right to keep the Government from extending it's authority over the guidelines granted to it by the Constitution. This should remain here.

When we changed this wording in DG4 there was a nice long discussion about it. Memory is the 2nd thing to go when you get old, and I can't quite remember what the original wording was nor why we changed it.


I can't remember :lol:

Going from memory (and I'm not far off you DaveShack so we know what that means) I think in effect the "seek" bit was added, the reasoning being without it all grievances would have to be redressed eg:

it if 2 citizens had grievances against each other only one would have them redressed to their satisfaction therefore the rights of the other would have been violated,

if someone had an unreasonable/invalid grievance - their rights would be violated if that was not redressed.
The seek to bit was put in to allow everyone the right to get their greivances addressed, but not guarantee a favourable outcome.

My point is really that the wording, while sounding good, has always reminded me of people throwing down a gauntlet to challenge someone to a duel, a very personal thing. The goal of the law (or right) is to make sure that the government does not run away with the game leaving the citizens in the dust, not to allow people to challenge each other to a rhetorical duel.

Change the wording to something less dramatic and personal, move it to another section with the wording changed, I don't care. Just heed the bolded text above. If it will make it easier, go ahead and ratify this article and then I'll change it, and post a simple poll regarding your acceptance of my change.

Okay, I understand what you're looking for, I'm just not sure of the best way to handle it.

For reference, DG 2 was "the right to demand satisfaction", so we've gotten a bit better than that.

How about "the right to request an investigation into possible violations of law"?

-- Ravensfire

Okay, I understand what you're looking for, I'm just not sure of the best way to handle it.

For reference, DG 2 was "the right to demand satisfaction", so we've gotten a bit better than that.

How about "the right to request an investigation into possible violations of law"?

-- Ravensfire

That's probably why I have always gotten that impression...

Your suggestion for alternative wording is fine with me.

The "right to demand satisfaction" and "right to redress grievances" language was probably written that way to leave open the possibility of "civil" action vs. "criminal" action. Player A can infringe player B's rights without actually breaking a law, for example suppose player B is domestic leader, and player A repeatedly opens polls to try to overturn player B's instructions. There is nothing illegal here, but it's clearly something which needs to be stopped. Likewise, a leader can legally infringe a citizens rights by refusing to poll something with vocal opposition by saying "you're just one voice and I don't want to listen."

Unfortunately I have to agree that most DG legal action is started because it targets the player and not the action.