I think elections & nominations are some of the most important things to cover in a ruleset, so I guess we'll start with them. Hopefully, we can follow the process of: discussion, (polling), and the actual writing of this section in the ruleset. So, what we need to discuss (in my mind - there are probably others though) are the following:

"Calendar" Term Lengths (a month, 6 weeks long, etc.) vs. "Game" Term Lengths (a certain amount of turns in-game)
Length of nominations and elections, as well as runoffs (3 days long, starting at 7 days before the end of the month? 5 turns long, starting at 10 turns before the end of the term?)
How should we address questions and candidate platforms where they can explain their goals? Place them in the nomination thread? Have a debate thread as well?
The number of nominations one person can accept
How polls are set up (public vs. private, simple majority vs. a majority of the votes as well as at least 50% of the votes cast)
Have a maximum term limit for a position (e.g. no person can serve more than 2 terms as President)?
Who is in charge of nominations and elections (make it a separate position? A moderator?)


In your post, try to cover at least a majority of these issues and other important aspects of the nomination and election periods in the game. Are there new things you want to try that will work? Are there things that you definitely want to get rid of? Discuss!

I'll answer after some people already have...

Keep it strictly Calender term lengths. Personally the Game term lengths just turns me off because 1. I have experienced this in a previous MSDG where I literally became bored waiting for the upcoming election. 2. It has potential for abuse where a DP will play only a few turn so that there would be a very long term. A Calendar term is much more fair.

As for the nominations and elections, keep it the way we have been going.

As for the debates and questions, keep them in the respected nomination thread.

As for polls, Electoral votes MUST be private and a simple majority vote.

This may be a shocker coming from a vet DG player, but I would actually push forward a max term limit so that other people can have a chance to hold office and stop the Dynasties of long tern people. Its a shocker since I know there are people that know that I wish to remain in office in a long time and yet I want an opportunity to try out different offices.

As for who would be in charge, I have not seen eye nor ear of a DG moderator around here. So its best to keep it as a separate position.

As CG said above, I prefer the calender term limits. It's much more predictable. However, I think a month was to short in this game. When I held a poistion, it seemed like a month wasn't enough time to get anything done. 6 week term limits sounds pretty good.

The standard length we've used in past DG's for elections, nominations, etc. should be fine.

I believe we should go back to allowing someone to run for more than one position. Even if all of the elections they run in are contested. Personally, when we banned this a few demogames back and allowed someone to only run for one position.. elections lost alot of their fun. The more hotly contested elections we can get (AKA interesting) the better.

A maximum term limit of 2 terms should fit nicely.

Calendar Terms are easier. Take for example the ISDG where we've got very long terms because one team is slow on sending the save. We don't want anything like that happening, so Calendar might be the best way to go. What about 5 weeks?

I don't really care about the minor things like exact date the nominationthread should be posted.

Platforms can be placed in the nomination thread, and copied into the election thread.

Term limit should be there, but maybe 3 terms?

Having the President in charge over elections will give him more to do, and eliminates the censor position, which is often quite useless IMO.

Multiple positions: Only one major position, but having some minor positions like governorships apart from your first position should be allowed.

And another point: Will all offices be elected or can there be some appointed officials like the Director of Intelligence in this DG?

Yeah, I would have to agree calendar terms work best - more predictable. However, as Strider said, sometimes they seem too short, especially since nominations and elections take up the last week. If we can stick to a routine of 2 turnchats a week (or 3 every 2 weeks), I think the pace will be moving fast enough (that's at least 6-8 turnchats a month, a good amount I'd say.)

Now for timing of nomination threads, here's my plan (times in GMT):

7 days before end of month: Open nom thread
4 days before end of month: Nominations close, elections go up
1 day before end of month: "Conflict resolution" aka run-off polls, a simple day of rest before the new term.

Example: Term ends on a Monday. Nomination thread goes up 0000 GMT, Tuesday morning (or Monday night, EST). On Friday morning at 0000 GMT, noms close, elections start. Sunday night, the elections end. That Monday, the end of term, is set aside just in case.


I also agree that platforms as well as questions can go either into the nomination/election thread.

I'd have to agree with Strider here as well on a 2 term limit.

Having the President in charge of elections would be interesting - I guess that'll come up in the new Officials thread, huh? :)

I'd like to keep 1 office per player intact. Managing it when there are multiple people in multiple races would be awkward; someone could win all their races, and then just have to chose one? Weird.

Regarding appointed offices, I don't like that. Let the people decide who should be that official.

I'd like to keep 1 office per player intact.

I don't think there would be anything wrong with someone being for example foreign minister and governor of a small city.

One step ahead of you. :) My plan (in the offices) thread is that we have 1 governor in charge of all cities (Civ4 has a lot less cities, and much slower, than Civ3), so instead, that Governor could appoint mayors for certain cities if people request it, and thus, you could be elected one position and then maybe have a small roll elsewhere, such as an unfilled deputyship.

I think a good rule to cover this would just be simple like "One person may only hold 1 elected office at a time. Additionally, that person may hold up to one other unfilled deputyship or other lesser position in another person's office."

Sounds good to me.

What we have in this (dying) DG is exactly the same as what most people seem to be suggesting.


Calendar month terms
One major office per player (but extra minor offices ok)
Term limits
Private election polls


There are two things which come up almost every time we discuss it

Runner-up deputies (vs appointed)
Running for more than one office (vs limited to 1)


There is one thing we had before and should return to:

Volunteer-based election office


Let's examine the two contentious points. We have a lot of people who are very vocally against both of these ideas, but we should take a long look at what the effects have been of appointed deputies and single nominations.

I started the game in DG3, when multiple accepted nominations and runner-up deputies were the norm. We were almost guaranteed to have a VP, ensuring that a vacationing President didn't stop the game due to lack of someone driving it forward. Most elections had 2 or more candidates, and for some offices it was normal to see 4 candidates.

Since that time, we basically killed off the deputy positions, since almost nobody goes to the trouble to appoint deputies. Also we made it so hard for deputies to get involved, with semi-strict deadlines on posting instructions and no "chat rep" duties, that there is no incentive to be a deputy. On top of that, currently there aren't even formal deputy positions, they were kinda written out.

It used to be that someone who really wants an office could be nearly assured of getting one by running for more than one office. Naysayers denounced this, saying "run for what you want and give someone else a chance". Well, lookie here, those mythical people who needed to be "given a chance" didn't exist, hence the uncontested and no-nomination elections all the time.

Let's open things up around here. Unnecessary restrictions are what kills demogames, as several people have already noted, so let's just skip the restrictions entirely and see what happens. We could even handle term limits the same way -- look at my record for what offices I've accepted, and you will see that I've always jumped around to spread the wealth. Let's assume the best of people and let them choose to do the right thing instead of ramming it down their throats.

Let's also remember past elections where the 4th or 5th place finisher actually got the office, with a handful of votes out of dozens, because the top 3 were also running for other offices.

The end result there is the majority of people that voted saw their votes count for nothing. That's a common scenario under the multiple office concept, and one that just doesn't sit right with me.

-- Ravensfire

I dont want to start recommending government structure, but in regards to the past few posts, I:

A) See no need for term limits. If we feel that one position becomes a dynasty, then we can ask the person to leave office. If we feel the dynasty has a highly positive impact on the game itself, we may rethink. If the person refuses to leave office peacefully, we stage a coup and impeach him. Maybe we should give the impeachment of an official for running a dynasty a different name so it doesn't sound as hostile and citizens won't be as reluctant to do it.

B) I'm not sure on this, since this has been my first demogame, but why couldn't we have the high elected positions, such as a President, Military Advisor, Foriegn Advisor, Domestic Advisor and then give them each deputies. The deputy positions we feel nessecary to be filled, we can write that it is nesecarry the elected official hire a deputy in that deputy position. If we feel the position would be a nice help to the elected official, but is not deemed nessecary, then the deputy position does not have to be filled:

A key example is below:
The Domestic Advisor is responsible for workers, the production queue of cities, and citizens working tiles. He is an elected official.

The law states he must have a governor position filled for every state, as long as there are enough people to fill this. The governor is in charge of production queue and city tiles, but must work under the domestic advisor. This means he is a required deputy.

The Domestic Advisor or even the governors themselves may have Mayors as deputies, who would be in control of a single city. These don't have to be filled and are non-required deputies.

The Domestic Advisor and governor may also create deputy positions that do not need to be filled, such as a deputy who controls workers in the southern region of our nation. They are also non-required deputies.

Of course we would put a limit as to when the required deputy positions have to be filled. Such as if there is a shortage of governors, then the Foreign Advisor may opt to have no governors.

But let's not go into the details of my example. Let's just focus on the concept and how it pertains to elections.

C) As for who makes the elections/noms I would leave it under the President, and if he dislikes the duty as I did, he could hire a deputy to do it.

D) I opt for calender limits as they are much easier and not as boring as turn limits. Maybe we should do five weeks. That would leave a full month for officials to work for the greater good of the nation and give the citizens more time to decide if they approve of the officials who might run again. The last (fifth) week even could be set aside of turnchats and be strictly elections. This would encourage people to really get into it, and create a lot of electricity around election time.

Let's also remember past elections where the 4th or 5th place finisher actually got the office, with a handful of votes out of dozens, because the top 3 were also running for other offices.

The end result there is the majority of people that voted saw their votes count for nothing. That's a common scenario under the multiple office concept, and one that just doesn't sit right with me.

-- Ravensfire

Then don't vote for someone who intends to accept a different position if they win it ;).

I'm not advocating that we let people hold multiple positions. I think that we should allow people to run for multiple positions (AKA accept multiple nominations). The main purpose behind doing this is increasing the competitive nature of elections and add more interest to them. Although, still have a limit on how many positions someone can actually run for.

ice2k4: Too confusing...you lost me with all those types of required and non-required deputies. Let's just make deputies optional, I guess.

Dave, your argument is very convincing. You've swayed me enough to think that we can still do without a term limit. However, I still don't like letting people run for multiple positions/be in multiple elections. What do we do if a person wins, say, all 3 of their elections? Wouldn't that just be confusing? I don't agree that a person only can run for one office because of "mythical people", I just think it's the right thing to do. Focus your efforts on one race - if you can only hold one position, after all, why try to be elected for two? There no need to give a false impression of a "contested" election when it's just really because of a person accepting multiple nominations.

Rather than increasing the number of nominations that can be accepted, why not try to increase the number of people accepting nominations?

@Ginger Ale: I much rather you read the DG2 thread about government positions. It's explained much simpler, shorter and clearer there.

Shall we poll this? It seems the only things we all agree on are a 1 month term, 7 day election period (3 days apiece for nominations/elections), and private polls, so we don't need to poll those. So, that leaves:

Deputies (appointed vs. runner up)
Term limits (none vs. 2, it seems)
Accepting nominations (one vs. multiple)
Who is in charge of elections (President vs. moderator vs. elected position)

Anyone want to put all these options up in a multiple choice poll to officially decide?

Shall we poll this? It seems the only things we all agree on are a 1 month term, 7 day election period (3 days apiece for nominations/elections), and private polls, so we don't need to poll those. So, that leaves:
I somewhat disagree. I think the term should last 5 weeks. please read this section of my previous post: (stated below):

D) I opt for calender limits as they are much easier and not as boring as turn limits. Maybe we should do five weeks. That would leave a full month for officials to work for the greater good of the nation and give the citizens more time to decide if they approve of the officials who might run again. The last (fifth) week even could be set aside of turnchats and be strictly elections. This would encourage people to really get into it, and create a lot of electricity around election time.

Yes, but I think the majority of the people here suggested 1 month. I don't care, we can poll that too...

Don't mean to be a nuisance, its just there was only one post after I put forth my idea, which didn't even address my idea. I think we may be rushing to the polls a bit early. Before we start polling everything, maybe we should wait a little to see if any knew and better ideas come in, so were not already decided on a previous, and possibly lesser idea.

I agree there is no rush on polling. We want to get an announcement out and shake some bushes first. Not even 10% of the target population is here now.

To comment on the 5 week suggestion by ice2k4, I see where you're coming from with trying to get the officials a full 4 weeks of in-office time, but disagree. The whole point of doing calendar months was that you could set yourself a "check the demogame alarm" on the 22nd because that was when nominations were starting. Having a term of 5 weeks breaks that standard way of checking.

Do we really need citizens who only show up for elections? Maybe not, but perhaps you've taken a month off to check up on RL. It's so easy to use a fixed date, and somewhat harder the other way. Not a big deal, but it feels better to some people.

There is a misconception that the term ends when elections begin. The current term's officials should be pushing right up to the end of the month, not taking a week off. We even had an almost-CC when an outgoing President scheduled a TC which spanned the end of the month, GMT.

Bottom line is, I don't see a great need to change from calendar months. It's one of the few things in the DG that you can count on year after year. :)

Why not use game turns as the basis of term length and mandate that a given number of turns must be played within a given time period. That will make the time length of terms more predictable, prevent long drawn out terms and keep the game moving at a reasonable and steady pace.

Another idea is to use a combination of term types. Designated players could be elected on a calender basis while other offices are on a turn based term basis. I'd suggest the terms for judicial offices (and censor type office) be asynchronous with other election cycles.

Bottom line is, I don't see a great need to change from calendar months. It's one of the few things in the DG that you can count on year after year.

You can also count on not enough people to have elections for all the offices. We need to generate some real interest in the DG and letting players know exactly how many turns they will have in their term would help.

donsig, I agree we need to keep the game moving. However, like you said, why can't we just mandate that, say, 2 sessions of 15 turns each must be played every week, WHILE keeping elections month-based? I don't really see an immediate benefit of turn-based terms if you make sure the game moves steadily.

Mixing up turn-based and month-based elections would get too confusing, I think. If we're trying to generate interest, let's go with something more simple. ;)

donsig, I agree we need to keep the game moving. However, like you said, why can't we just mandate that, say, 2 sessions of 15 turns each must be played every week, WHILE keeping elections month-based? I don't really see an immediate benefit of turn-based terms if you make sure the game moves steadily.

Mixing up turn-based and month-based elections would get too confusing, I think. If we're trying to generate interest, let's go with something more simple.
Agreed, although I do not think we should set the amount of turns a turnchat has to be. Let's say someone declares war on us on the third turn, that means the dp has to play out 12 turns of no instructions for that war. Instead of 2 turnchats of 15 turns each a week, maybe we should say 30 turns a week, divided into however many turnchats is nessecary.

why can't we just mandate that, say, 2 sessions of 15 turns each must be played every week, WHILE keeping elections month-based? I don't really see an immediate benefit of turn-based terms if you make sure the game moves steadily.

True. So I'll try to explain the benefits of turn based terms. Actually, I'll explain the drawbacks of calender based terms. All months are not created equally. They have anywhere from 28 to 31 days. We are also a world-wide community so that it is not always the same day or same month for all of us at any given moment. Some months are easier for us to play than others as holidays or academic schedules can either cut into or free up our time. Weekends can also be troublesome. The number of weekends in a month is not stable. Months begin and end on different days of the week and doing something on say, the 24th of each month, is not always wise. Even in real US elections we vary the date so that election day is always a Tuesday.

Basically whyat I'm saying is the calender is such a hodge podge we might as well disengage ourselves from it for the DG.

Agreed, although I do not think we should set the amount of turns a turnchat has to be. Let's say someone declares war on us on the third turn, that means the dp has to play out 12 turns of no instructions for that war. Instead of 2 turnchats of 15 turns each a week, maybe we should say 30 turns a week, divided into however many turnchats is nessecary.

First of all I don't think we should have turnchats. Let's stick with game play sessions. I don't agree that is imperative that we stop playing every time there's a war. Civ is a simulaiton game and real civs can't slow time time when war comes. I do think 15 turns is too much for one session. I'd prefer one or two turns played every day (no matter what). Not only would that simulate the inexorable movement of real time I think it would keep interest going if things moved along at a steady pace. (Of course we'd have to come up with a slightly different instruciton thread - we wouldn't want an instruction thread for each day. We'd need some standing orders system that was capable of handling specific orders as well. We'd also need a way to archive old orders.)

DaveShack, this is where we disagree, I believe this is a forum based game not a chat based game. If people who go to chats are able to vote on decisions, this is not a forum based game, if this were possible, I am not sure I would want to heavily participate in discussions since my voice can be disregarded.

New poll up (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=195707).

The poll has been decided in favor of:


Calendar month terms
One nomination per citizen
Consecutive term cap of 2 turns
Next term elections the responsibility of a person elected at the beginning of the current term (technically this causes a problem for the 1st term)

For further discussion:


How do we resolve the 1st term problem?
What do we call the election office position in the law?
Should it count as an office, and therefore be limited as one of the accepted nominations and within term limits?
If it's not an office, should we say "selected" instead of "elected" in the law to make that distinction?

I'm really disappointed we didn't get more support for a volunteer position. These questions would not need to be answered if that had happened. :crazyeye:

1st term problem? Assuming you mean if we are read to start 2 weeks into a month, how do we go about it since we have calender based terms? Simple, start when ready, and call it a half term. The law limits you to two consecutive terms, so theoretically you can serve the first, second and third in the same office. I'm not really worried that will even happen, but why don't we see when we will be ready before making this type of decision.

Call it the Electoral Administrator

electoral = elections | administrator = a person who manages

It should not count as an office unless it is given additional powers. No one would really want the job. I could understand wanting the DG1 censor position, but without any power, this job could go unfilled. Appointment by President would probably work best. (Selected)

1st term problem? Assuming you mean if we are read to start 2 weeks into a month, how do we go about it since we have calender based terms? Simple, start when ready, and call it a half term. The law limits you to two consecutive terms, so theoretically you can serve the first, second and third in the same office. I'm not really worried that will even happen, but why don't we see when we will be ready before making this type of decision.Nope, DS means who will run the first elections when we haven't had any elections yet? The first elections will elect who will run the elections during the 1st term, ie: those beginning towards the end of the term for the 2nd term. The first term elections could either be run by:

a. A moderator (do they have time?)
b. A volunteer (but how to select?)
c. An appointee (but how to appoint?)
d. Hold an early election just for that position (but who runs that election?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by ice2k4 View Post
1st term problem? Assuming you mean if we are read to start 2 weeks into a month, how do we go about it since we have calender based terms? Simple, start when ready, and call it a half term. The law limits you to two consecutive terms, so theoretically you can serve the first, second and third in the same office. I'm not really worried that will even happen, but why don't we see when we will be ready before making this type of decision.
Nope, DS means who will run the first elections when we haven't had any elections yet? The first elections will elect who will run the elections during the 1st term, ie: those beginning towards the end of the term for the 2nd term. The first term elections could either be run by:

a. A moderator (do they have time?)
b. A volunteer (but how to select?)
c. An appointee (but how to appoint?)
d. Hold an early election just for that position (but who runs that election?)
Ahh, and the most logical possibility I look over.

Anyway, it doesn't look like any of the mods are active, so a volunteer who we all have no objection to. It's not like theyll have nay power over the elections. They are simply posting a few threads that ask for noms and then after posting a few polls for elections. As long as they follow a guideline we set, everything should be in place.

Well, if we adopt just a constitution (similar to the one I proposed) we could handle this problem (or any other) with a simple initiative poll (preferably preceded by some discussion).

I would prefer a mod personally. They should be able to make the time to post the few threads needed for term 0.

Let's also remember past elections where the 4th or 5th place finisher actually got the office, with a handful of votes out of dozens, because the top 3 were also running for other offices.

The end result there is the majority of people that voted saw their votes count for nothing. That's a common scenario under the multiple office concept, and one that just doesn't sit right with me.

-- Ravensfire

(a bit late, but thought I would throw out my opinion anyway.....)

That is my primary objection to allowing this concept.

And I think it just confuses voting. If Ravensfire is in two elections (A & B) and I think he is a swell guy, I would probably want to vote for him in both. However, this then leaves me in the position that the remaining candidates for office A will be the winner when Ravensfire declines because he won and selected office B. So, then I would rather have voted for one of the remaining candidates for office A. So should I have not voted for Ravensfire in anticipation that he would decline his win? So now I am thinking I should vote for him in election A and not election B, or maybe the other way? It just makes my head spin......

How do we resolve the 1st term problem?

Have a nomination and vote before the game starts?


What do we call the election office position in the law?

Election Manager


Should it count as an office, and therefore be limited as one of the accepted nominations and within term limits?

No, it should not count as an office with respects to being able to hold multiple offices or term limits.


If it's not an office, should we say "selected" instead of "elected" in the law to make that distinction?

Couldn't hurt to further the distinction.