Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative

Any game play session must be publicly announced in the CivFanatics Civ4 - Democracy Game II forum at least 24 hours before the scheduled start of said game play session. Said announcement must include:

The date and time the game play session will start
The Designated Player for the session
A link to the sessions's game play instruction thread
The purpose of the game play session


Should the Game Play Scheduling Initiative be binding:

Yes
No

This is a private poll.
This poll will be open for 7 days.

Link to discussion thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210594)

I voted but why 7 days? That's way too long or are you expecting loads of new citizens in 5 days?

no Real life happens. lets say I post I can play at 700gmt...but I then find out i need to change it to 900gmt. No flexibility for the DP

No
This initiative means less work for the citizen, but more for the DP. The DP has a hard enough job already.

no Real life happens. lets say I post I can play at 700gmt...but I then find out i need to change it to 900gmt. No flexibility for the DP

You didn't read that too carefully, did you? This is about the initial post for scheduling your session, NOT about changing the time because of RL issues.

-- Ravensfire

No
This initiative means less work for the citizen, but more for the DP. The DP has a hard enough job already.

What extra work?

THERE ISN'T ANY!

Let's look at the requirements other than the 24 hour rule.
The date and time the game play session will start
The Designated Player for the session
A link to the sessions's game play instruction thread
The purpose of the game play session

Hmm, that really is a lot of work, isn't it? I mean, I have to say when I'm going to hold my session, that it's me who's holding the session and if it's a regular or special session. That's generally been done in the instruction thread so far.

Oh wait - I know! If we ask the DP to post a "Got It" in the DP thread, boy it would be tough to require 30 seconds of typing, wouldn't it?

I'm probably the biggest proponent here for keeping the DP's job as straightforward as possible. This is nothing that will impact the DP's time. This is 30 seconds of work, well before the actual session where we should be keeping things straightforward. This proposal is about given information to the citizens, and stopping the 2 minute notice before a game session.

<EDIT> Last para deleted

-- Ravensfire

You gotta love sarcasm :). I understood donsig's reason for the poll in the same way as Ravensfire seems to have done: it's about the intended gameplay session time. If you are kept from appearing due to real life I assume a simple notification does the trick.

It might be a marginal amount of work and responsibility for the DP, but it is more work. All this information could be found in other threads too, with less effort.

It might be a marginal amount of work and responsibility for the DP, but it is more work. All this information could be found in other threads too, with less effort.

30 seconds of more work, THAT MOST DP'S ALREADY DO? :rolleyes:

And no, it will take MORE effort to find this information when it's spread out all over the place.

You don't like it, though, that's fine. 30 seconds is a lot of effort, isn't it?

@Hyronymus: Sarcasm? Who, me? Nooooo, never!

-- Ravensfire

Well, I can certainly see us getting loads of discussion because a DP didn't post in exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time, with the exact legal wording required by some of us.

I fail to see the point of this initiative as, like you said, most DP's announce things anyway, and if they don't they'll probably have good reasons not to. Making it compulsory will just result in law suits, flame wars, long discussions in the judiciary and things like that, while most DP's don't want that, they just want to play the game.

The point, dutchfire, is that we've already had a session that violated just about everything here. That incident, plus the desire of a citizen to be able to quickly find fairly important information was the cause of this intiative.

But hey - that's fine. I'll be sure to post the rest of my instruction thread's with the minimum required information - "I'm having a game session, please post your instructions." And you, of course, will support me, correct? Because you're voting to allow exactly that to continue.

-- Ravensfire

The point, dutchfire, is that we've already had a session that violated just about everything here. That incident, plus the desire of a citizen to be able to quickly find fairly important information was the cause of this intiative.

But hey - that's fine. I'll be sure to post the rest of my instruction thread's with the minimum required information - "I'm having a game session, please post your instructions." And you, of course, will support me, correct? Because you're voting to allow exactly that to continue.

-- Ravensfire

If there were circumstances that gave you a reason to do this, then yes, I would support you.

And I still support what I did in the "incident" if that's what you're getting at, although I could have handled it better, there was absolutely nothing illegal done during that session. If this law had been passed by then, I could have just waited 24 hours (not enough time to give citizens time to poll anything, so the same instructions would still be valid) and then done the same thing, with exactly the same effect. So this law can not guarantee citizens input any more than the current laws, therefor I see absolutly no reason to vote for this law.

Correct - there was nothing illegal done!

Nor will there be, by your reasoning, if I post an instruction thread that says "I'll play sometime, post instructions." That is, of course, perfectly legal and thus supported by you. Including, of course, if I run a full session 2 minutes after I post it! Hey - you said it "we don't guarantee citizen input"! Why even bother with a chance of input, right?

Ahhh, the madness. So much fun!

-- Ravensfire

The Power of the People can be delegated to officials of the game in one or more of the following ways, or in other ways which may subsequently be discovered.
By Initiative in the form of a completed forum poll initiated by any citizen.
By Mandate in the form of game play instructions posted in the forum by a duly elected official with legal authority in the area covered by said instructions.
By Constituency in the form of citizen comments in favor of a decision, in a forum discussion.
By Designated Player Action in the form of actions made (and logged) during game play.

Note the order!
If there has been any discussion since last turn chat than you might have a serious problem at your hands as the Constituency would overrule your action. In the specific incident however, there was a Mandate that overruled this Constituency.
So if you decide to post a TCIT scheduled 1.15 hour later, and within 15 minutes all officials post their instructions, you may start your TC entirly legally, and with my support.

I fail to see the point of this initiative as, like you said, most DP's announce things anyway, and if they don't they'll probably have good reasons not to. Making it compulsory will just result in law suits, flame wars, long discussions in the judiciary and things like that, while most DP's don't want that, they just want to play the game.

I agree with you here dutchfire, we shouldn't add more redtape to something already wrapped in it.

Actually, I could post the TCIT and start the session 15 minutes later, and I'd expect your suppo. Yup - I'd have to go through the various discussion threads to see what the citizens were thinking and if there was concensus, plus follow any initiatives, but without instructions, the rest is all up to me!

To drag this back the proposal ...
All of the requirements can be accomplished with a well-formatted instruction thread. These requirements are not significant, and do not require any significant time. Using the template, a DP can create an instruction thread that satisfies the notification requirements in 30 seconds or less. Indeed - the template adds additional information not required and further sections to help the DP.

The core of this initiative is simple - give us, the citizens, 24 hours notice of any game session. Tell us when you plan to hold the game session. Tell us who's going to play the game session. Tell us if it's a regular game session or special session. If this isn't done via an Instruction thread post, give us a link to that instruction thread.

If you think these requirements are reasonable, vote yes.
If you think these requirements are unreasonable, vote no.

-- Ravensfire

You didn't read that too carefully, did you? This is about the initial post for scheduling your session, NOT about changing the time because of RL issues.

-- Ravensfire


To me when you say a BINDING initiative...it means once posted it cant change.

You gotta love sarcasm :). I understood donsig's reason for the poll in the same way as Ravensfire seems to have done: it's about the intended gameplay session time. If you are kept from appearing due to real life I assume a simple notification does the trick.

one thing i learned in this game...never assume any ones intentions in legal matters. I read everything as its written trying to not put any of my own definitions or notions of how it should be.

To me when you say a BINDING initiative...it means once posted it cant change.
I don't think anyone would be that annoying. Heck - donsig noted in the discussion that there isn't anything in proposal that says you can't give a range.

Personally, if someone started up to a few hours late for any reason, I would toss out charges if someone tried to request them if someone ran into some issues. We've had issues with netsplits, internet failures, power failures, significant other aggro, dog emergencies, events running late, over sleeping, etc. I think just about anyone else would as well. There are some things that need to be absolute - the schedule start time for a game session isn't one of them.

-- Ravensfire

This should not be made into a personal issue.

Another approach might have been to include this in the DP Pool Procedures. Asking for that instead of pushing for a rule would have given the true culprit (the Chieftain) the opportunity to clean up his own mess and save face.

I see two dimensions
Should these be the guidelines? I would say yes to that, for future sessions, as long as only the worst abuses are targeted for persecution.

Should this be a law? I don't know, would a procedure be enough? Should we have laws telling people to do what they would already do, or use mistakes as teaching tools and give people the dignity of the presumption they will do what's right, once they know what it is?

I won't argue either for or against this, only raise the questions.

You gotta love sarcasm :). I understood donsig's reason for the poll in the same way as Ravensfire seems to have done: it's about the intended gameplay session time. If you are kept from appearing due to real life I assume a simple notification does the trick.

Yes, the intent is to keep someone from playing before we (citizens, officials, whoever) get a chance to give whatever input we want to give. Giving us more time to do that is not a problem. BTW, you'll never see me complain if a chat is delayed.

I would say yes to that, for future sessions, as long as only the worst abuses are targeted for persecution.

Please note that the initiative does not proscribe any penalties for not following this initiative if it passes. That would (of course) be up to the democracy game community at large.

You do know that there are already 3 laws concerning playing the save, and we've been playing this game for 2 weeks?

I think the focus of the proposal is the 24 hour heads up.

However, the rest of the stuff that's tagged on, purpose, etc. I kinda feel like it primarily acts as Buracracy.

A.) Are we asking for an actually "Announcment" as in within the mechanics of the forum it self? (I doubt this)

B.) Is this asking for more just a thread with the announcement (more likely).


A adds too much complication of requiring that we track down a Mod well before the 24 hour notification. But I don't think this is Donsig's intent anyway...


B adds Beuracracy... The Instruction Thread is it's own announcement. DP assignment is handled by the manager of the DP Pool (right now Methos and Ice, Ice "supervising" Methos). Purpose is only neccisary if it's a special session, ie. 0 turn, etc.

Date and Time, that's assumed to be in the Instruction thread (specifically in the body AND the title). However I'm not opposed to making this a documented requirement.


Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative

Any game play session must have it's instruction thread posted at least 24 hours before the scheduled start of said game play session. Said announcement must include:

The date and time the game play session will start
The Designated Player for the session



Worded this way I would support it, but I don't like the added beuracratic clutter the seperate "announcements" would cause, so for now I'm voting now.

Sorry I didn't give input on this sooner.

You do know that there are already 3 laws concerning playing the save, and we've been playing this game for 2 weeks?

I know that. Do you know we've been playing these democracy games for about four years and we've had 24 hour notice of game play sessions since the second term of the first Civ III democracy game? :old:

@Falcon02: This initiative does not require a seperate announcement. It merely requires that some sort of notification be posted more than 24 hours in advance of a session. My legal opinion is that a game play instruction thread can double as an announcemrnt. Personally I'd prefer seperate announcements in a dedicated thread that could be subscribed to. My personal preference is not coded into the initiative.

The trouble with making rules in this game is many people either read way too much into them or you have to water them down so much that they are meaningless.

Citizen's Initiative - The Playing the Save Act of 4000 BC

Section 1 - Instructions

All official instructions must be posted in the current game session instruction thread. Instructions must be clear and defined. All sessions, including special sessions, must have an instruction thread. This thread must be started at least 24 hours before playing commences.

Officials must post their instructions at least one hour before the scheduled start of the game session. Officials may make changes to their instructions up to an hour before the session, so long as those changes are clearly noted. Officials that do not post instructions for a game session are considered to have given the DP complete control over their area for that game session, even should they be at the game session.

Citizens may post instructions based on the results of completed initiatives. These instructions must be posted at least one hour before the scheduled start of the game session.

If an instruction thread has not been created for a scheduled game session when a citizen is ready to post instructions, that citizen may create a instruction thread for that session.

Section 2 - Playing

The DP for each game session, including special sessions, must maintain a log of their actions in sufficient detail that another citizen may generally recreate their actions.

During a game session, citizens are encouraged to comment and offer advice to the DP. The DP may also seek comments from citizens. The DP is not required to do so, and is not required in any way to follow any such advice.

The game session may last for as long as there are relevant instructions, until a posted instruction says to halt the session or when the DP decides to end the session. Once a game session is over, the DP must post a summary of that session, a detailed log of their actions, and a save in the instruction thread and in the summary thread.

Why not keep it simple by simply adding the bolded line to on of our current initiatives by an amendment?

There's a concept.

I think that makes it clearer and more concise.

I agree with dutchfire's proposal and just amend the Playing the Save Act.

I also like donsig's idea that a specific thread be used to announce the turns, which is exactly what I've been doing in the DP Pool thread.

What about instead we clarify the responsibilities of the DP Pool manager? Currently I post a roster every time a turn session is played and in that roster I list the Playing the Save Act. Why not make this mandatory? Why not also make it mandatory that the DP player or Pool manager has to post in the DP Pool thread a link to the TCIT.

BTW, I voted no on this, which brought it to a 50-50 split.

I also like donsig's idea that a specific thread be used to announce the turns, which is exactly what I've been doing in the DP Pool thread.

Where's the DP Poll thread? I only saw the thread where you edit in a session every time instead of giving each session it's own post.

Where's the DP Poll thread? I only saw the thread where you edit in a session every time instead of giving each session it's own post.

I post an updated roster list after every turn session in the DP Pool thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=209694). I'll start as of now also making a post in that thread whenever I see a new TCIT thread created. Hopefully this helps keep everyone up to date.

BTW, here's the post with the current roster (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5199445#post5199445).

This poll is finally closed. Yes has won. Lawtrackers can start working again.