From DG2 CoS:

I. Game Schedule
1. The President will post a fixed schedule of game times.
A. Example: 23:00 GMT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
B. This schedule may be updated each Sunday for the following week’s
games.
C. If not updated, the existing schedule carries over week to week.

-- Ravensfire

How about:


I. Game Schedule
1. The President shall post a fixed schedule of game times in the
Presidential thread.
A. Example: 23:00 GMT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
2. Times shall be listed in GMT format.
3. This schedule should be updated each Sunday for the following week’s
games.
C. If not updated, the existing schedule carries over week to week.

-- Ravensfire

Not sure it's necessary to change it to specify the presidential thread. I would probably put the schedule of upcoming TCs as its own thread in the main forum, so it is right next to the TCITs.

I would have to agree with DaveShack on this one. :) It would be much easier for everyone to find in the main forum, although it would be more convenient for the Prez to do it your way. Maybe it could be listed in both?

If it is in the main forum, the presidential thread could simply link to it - no need to do it twice.

we should probably change it to te top person on the COC

I don't agree with this proposal. Especially the "automatically carried over" bit. If the President suddenly discovers the forum is down, his internet connection is temporarily none-existing, etc. the schedule is fixxed.

I don't agree with "sunday" either. There are some sundays that I am not available.

I prefer to have the schedule for the next week (week defined as monday 00:00 GMT - Sunday 23:59 GMT) posted before the beginning of the next week. If the President fails to do so the VP / whoever (please define) reminds the President by PM to carry out his duties. If still no schedule is posted monday 23:59 GMT, the next-in-line in the COC posts the schedule.

I don't think that we need a schedule at all. This CoS article should state that the President must make turn chat times known (especially in the turnchat instruction thread), but to plan them well in advance is not really necessary.

Bootstoots just mentioned my other problem. This blocks quick turns for special occassions like a 0 turn turnchat just to investigate a city, make a quick peace or trade WM's for instance. These quick TC's can be very important and tend to not be plannable in advance. We want to keep this game rolling, don't we ?

V1.1


I. Game Schedule
1. The President shall post a fixed schedule of game times in the
Game Schedule thread.
A. Example: 23:00 GMT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
B. The Presidential thread shall have a link to this thread.
2. Times shall be listed in GMT format, at a minimum.
3. This schedule shall list only the regular game play sessions.
4. The schedule for each week shall be updated prior to the start of
that week.
A. Week is defined as Monday, 00:00 GMT through Sunday, 23:59 GMT
B. If not updated, the next player in the COC may alter the
schedule, or carry over the times of the previous week.


NOTE: This will entail a change in the Forum Organization - we would create a new thread - the schedule thread.

While I do like Boots' idea, we are very specific throughout this ruleset - that's the DG2 concept. We need to continue that here.

-- Ravensfire

I don't necessarily agree that a schedule needs to be posted for each week. I think that a schedule should be encouraged. Instead, I think a requirement that says turn chats need to be scheduled with X number of days notice. In the proposal above, the Pres could post a schedule on Sunday that lists a turn chat on Mon; at worst there could be about 2 minutes between the posted schedule and the turn chat. That is unless this is addressed in some other section of code (I can't seem to remember all, what, 40 pages? ;) ).

A schedule needs to be posted. Period. I remember how Presidents used to post their t/c scedule for the entire month. Of course exceptions would be allowed for "quick Turn Chats", as long as the proper notice was given in the Citizen's sub forum.

I don't see a problem requiring the President to post a schedule. It should be posted in the main forum page so that even newbies can find it. I would rather have the schedule go 2 weeks to a month rather than just a week. No more major holidays or special events are coming up for quite a while. Let's just post a lengthy schedule and make changes when necessary. Proper notice of changes made in the citizen's sub forum.

As a newbie when I was lurking in DG3 I found a schedule both useful and it encouraged me to keep dropping in when things were likely to be happening (and yes it does have to be really obvious to find it – it took me a while to find the sub-forums!). I see no reason why it would have to be updated ON Sunday though, and I would definitely not want it to stop the special occasion type of sessions that Rik mentions, they can be important in providing information that allow us to make decisions and keep the game moving. I also recognise that things happen and sometimes changes have to be made after schedules are posted. But it is still useful to have a thread where it is all recorded.

So what do we want from this?. To be able to find out the schedule in advance. To still be able to have special sessions and change the schedule if necessary. But above all I would say - one place to look to find out what’s scheduled when. I would like to see this thread as the place for ALL game play times – so changes don’t then get lost as threads move down the Citizens Forum

Perhaps it could just say something like:
I. Game Schedule
1. The President (or Designated Player) shall maintain a schedule
of all game times in the Game Play Schedule thread in the Main Forum.
A. Example: 23:00 GMT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
B. The Presidential thread shall have a link to this thread.
2. Times shall be listed in GMT format, at a minimum.
3. Changes to the schedule with less than 1 week notice should also
be announced in the Turn Chat Instruction Thread (if it has already
been created for the game play session concerned) or Citizen Sub-Forum.
3. Is intended to allow special sessions, and schedule changes. I just picked 1 week as something to put in - how short notice should it be before it's announced in the Citizen Thread?
1. Would just saying or DP be sufficient to cover it?

@ Furiey - Your note on 1. is fine. But on 3. it should be ANY changes whatsoever should immediately be posted in the TCI thread AND a thread in the Citizen's sub forum created especially for that announcement.

I also noticed that you didn't include a minimum cut-off time for advanced posting fot schedules, such as a 1 week prior posting of a schedule, or schedules must be posted for the next week by Sunday - something like that. We need to have some kind of cut-off date where the President/DP is delinquent on there posting of the schedule, so we know when we can b1tch about it (see CG's Presidency).

Hmmm, thanks for your comments Cyc - showing my inexperience here and probably also trying to oversimplify, but getting involved in these discussions is definitely getting me more familiar with what’s going on.

On 3 I was trying to allow the schedule to be posted as far in advance as the person wished to, but allow notice to be given if changes were made - although I didn’t think that a change for example 3 weeks away would require notice other than in this schedule. The 1 week thing was supposed to keep a schedule for at least 1 week ahead at all times (so you couldn’t post a schedule on Sunday for something on Monday without giving additional notice elsewhere) but did allow a whole month to be posted then allow special and unforeseen changes etc. So I suppose I was thinking Schedules shall be announced at least one week in advance. I do remember CG’s presidency – it was very frustrating trying to find out what was happening when. Is the thread in the Citizen’s Forum one single thread for all schedule changes, or threads started as required? I only noticed changes if the TCIT was changed – but then as I said it took a while for me to find the Sub-forums! Looking at the wording though I meant Citizens thread AND TCIT (if it had been created) rather than 1 or the other. So maybe better wording of what I intended would be:

3. At the beginning of a Term the schedule shall be
announced within XXX of that Term starting. Scheduled
times shall then be announced at least 1 week in advance.
4. Changes to a scheduled time with less than 1 week
notice shall also immediately be announced in a thread
for that purpose in the Citizen Sub-Forum and the Turn
Chat Instruction Thread (if it has already been created
for the game play session concerned).
New 3 – don’t know what XXX would be or maybe it should even be by 0:00 GMT on the day the Term starts – it obviously couldn’t be before the elections are over though!.

I wanted to try and get this as the master schedule so to speak, to get schedules published in advance and allow even the special sessions to be included so that at any time somebody could roll up and say “what’s happening?” and look in this schedule to find out. But you’re right – we definitely need to know at what point we can start moaning!

edited for line length

Furiey,

As most here prefer mandating a schedule, I like your versions alternative to the "weekly method" that was part of the prior code.

You all might want to write this rule to allow the schedule to be written out more than a week in advance.

donsig, I believe Furiey's proposal does that. If you think it doesn't, can you point out where?

Originally posted by zorven
donsig, I believe Furiey's proposal does that. If you think it doesn't, can you point out where?

My apologies. It is very difficu;t to get a hold of the gist of these threads when there is not enough time to read every post. Furiey's proposal does seem to allow for an advance schedule. Upon reading it though I am quite concerned about *changing* the posted schedule. Am I correct in thinking the posted schedule can be changed at any time? It seems to me that the president could change the schedule at the last minute and thereby make the whole point of having a posted schedule moot. You all do realize that 30 seconds before a scheduled chat is less than 1 week notice, don't you?

I do see your point about less than 1 week notice. I suppose the fix would be to require that any changes require X number of days notice and if that notice cannot be given and a change needs to be made that the chat is instead cancelled.

You’re both right – we wouldn’t want someone to roll up and post “I’m moving the scheduled chat forward to start in 5 minutes time”. But what is the minimum notice that could be given? 24 hours – is when deputies can start posting in the TCIT, so maybe that would be reasonable to pick giving:

5. Changes to a scheduled time with less than 24 hours
notice shall result in the cancellation of the session.
(not sure about the exact wording)

You’d still have to put up notification so 4 would still be valid

So for changes the minimum notice is 24 hours or the session is cancelled, but up to a week notice you just have to give proper notification. This gives:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/notice_required.jpg

This would mean that special sessions eg: to investigate a city would have to be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance. Would that be OK?
It would also stop the “can I delay 15 mins” at the start of a chat, something I’ve seen happen a few times in chat logs. Would we still want to allow this or is it not considered to be a schedule change as such, just a problem in the chat?


PS: glad I’m not the only one who has trouble catching up with all that’s going on in these threads!

Furiey,

I think you are on the right track. I would extend the time to 48 hours though, and have it say something like this:


5. Changes to a scheduled turn chat session must be made no later than 48 hours from the start of that session.

-- Ravensfire

The whole point of having a "special session" for things like investigate a city, make a single trade and see what else comes available, etc. is to avoid starting the "real' chat with insufficient information. Think of this timeline:

[list=1]
During the chat, we discover that someone is building a wonder that we want to build
After the chat finishes, we go off to the forums to discuss the next moves
The person responsible wasn't at the chat, but sees from the log what has happened.
An investigation is requested, to see if it is possible to win the wonder race
[/list=1]

Under the "no special sessions" rules, we would have to investigate the city at the beginning of the next chat, and write extremely complicated instructions like "start (keep producing) the wonder if city x is making less than 25 shields and all of its worked tiles are already improved, but if the city is making more than 25 shields or there are worked and unimproved tiles, then produce or switch to y".

If special sessions are allowed, we could request the investigation, do it immediately (no 48 hour waiting period), and then plan the next chat normally.

With a 48 hour advance notice required, even for a special session, there is no point in doing the special session unless we are also going to cancel the regular one.

So what this means is that if the Predient finds out that the currently scheduled time can't be met for them, they have to assign the VP or next inline to play the chat. But if a revelation is discovered through the course of discussion two days before a chat, let's say, that requires a poll on the issue, then the t/c is automatically postponed. Would this be correct?

Originally posted by Cyc
So what this means is that if the Predient finds out that the currently scheduled time can't be met for them, they have to assign the VP or next inline to play the chat. But if a revelation is discovered through the course of discussion two days before a chat, let's say, that requires a poll on the issue, then the t/c is automatically postponed. Would this be correct?

Not necessarily. If something requires a poll, the leader can post a poll and use an instruction that refers to the poll result.

That would be applicable if the poll had time to finish. But in most instances, the poll would have no discussion and would not have run its full course. That is why I'm asking. Would using the results of a poll that only ran for 24 - 36 hours with no prior discussion by advisable? This might result in a poll with minimal participation.

Hence we should not allow changes to the posted schedule. Once it's set, it's set. We do have a chain of command don't we? There should be no reason to cancel a scheduled game play session.

I still think that it should be possible to change the schedule providing adequate notice is given. We wish to encourage schedules to be posted well in advance, however not being able to change a schedule once published encourages schedules to be posted as late as possible just in case circumstances change. It would work that way with me anyway. As someone who is going to be using the schedule rather than creating it, I would far rather have a schedule well in advance and get good notice of changes than have only short term schedule information.

I would also prefer to see Chain of Command used rather than cancelling the chat if at all possible so Ravenfire’s wording is probably better there.

The special session issue though – I have seen that these sessions can be used to gain information that allow better planning for the game, but with only 3-4 days between turn chats and 48 hours minimum notice, we do not have much time to get things in. How are the special sessions decided – do they have to be discussed then polled eg: shall we build this embassy? If so what is the minimum time required to do this? How long before the chat would it have to occur? I’m sure there must be a discussion/rule on this somewhere. Notice for the special session could be given at the start of the discussion with the chat only taking place depending on the outcome of the poll (if that’s how it’s done) – this would give us some time, but we would still need to hold the session enough in advance of the turn chat. We could always add a 6. to give the notice required for these special sessions if it needs to be different from a standard turn chat.

Originally posted by Cyc
That would be applicable if the poll had time to finish. But in most instances, the poll would have no discussion and would not have run its full course. That is why I'm asking. Would using the results of a poll that only ran for 24 - 36 hours with no prior discussion by advisable? This might result in a poll with minimal participation.

I'll have to agree with you on this one. There have beeen times that something came up in discussions where I wanted to throw up a roadblock and say don't play the next turns until this issue is resolved. We do indeed need a way to say don't play until we're ready.

Another frequent poster here would say (my interpretation) that this gives a malcontent the ability to keep us from playing any turns, just as much as ignoring these issues gives someone the ability to run away with the save. Ultimately we have to rely on mutual trust and friendship, because pretty much whatever we say for the rules, there is potentially a way to get around them.

I think we have two seperate issues here, both of which need to be dealt with to get a good section.

First, the regular schedule - who sets it, when, can it be changed and if so, how.

Second, special circumstances - this includes unusual activity in the previous chat, a special chat needed, etc.

To try to keep this straight for a bit, I would suggest posting seperately for each issue until we have the concerns dealt with.

-- Ravensfire

Regular Session Schedule:

The schedule for all regular sessions should be created by the President. At any given time, there should be at least two chats on the schedule, including a chat taking place on the current date if applicable. Once the schedule has been set, it may not be changed except to correct a typing error (no later than 12 hours after posting), extenuating circumstances within the game requiring additional time for decisions (no later than 24 hours after end of previous chat, may only push schedule back), or extenuating circumstances outside the game requiring additional time to deal with (no time limit). Only the Judiciary (by majority decision) should be able to declare the last situation. Should a change occur, the schedule thread must be updated, a post made in the citizens sub-forum and a post made in the Presidential thread.

Reasoning:
The citizens that choose to attend chats often arrange their personal schedule around these announced date/times. It it unfair to them for a scheduled chat to be changed except under extreme circumstances. If the change is from a type, it needs to be corrected quickly.

Otherwise, we've got the CoC, it's there to have a player around if the DP isn't there.

-- Ravensfire

Special Circumstances

How about something like this:
-- The President may schedule a special turn chat to accomplish a specific task
-- This need for this must be supported by either a poll or significant support in a discussion
-- The chat shall be scheduled no earlier than 24 hours from when the chat was scheduled.
-- A turn chat instruction thread must still be posted for this chat and shall only have:
-- The time and date of the chat;
-- A link to the save to be used;
-- The reasons and support for the special chat;
-- The specific action to be taken.
-- No other instructions from the Executive or Legislative branches shall be posted.

Combined with the above proposal, should we need a special session, that's grounds for changing the schedule, giving our leaders enough time to determine valid instructions.

-- Ravensfire

Formal proposal:

V1.0

I. Game Schedule
1. Regular Game Sessions
a. The turn chat schedule shall be created by the
President
b. The schedule shall always have at least two chats
on the schedule, including the chat taking place on
the current date.
c. Once set, the schedule may not be changed expect for:
1. Correct a minor typing error. This change must be
done within 12 hours of the initial post for that
turn chat.
2. Extenuating circumstances within the game requiring
additional discussion time. This change must be
done within 24 hours of the end of the turn chat
producing the circumstance, and may only delay
the turn chat.
3. Extenuating circumstances outside of the requiring
additional discussion time. This change shall only
be done by the Judiciary acting unanimously.
d. All changes shall be posted in the Schedule thread,
the Presidential thread and as a new thread in the
Citizen's sub-forum.
2. Special Game Sessions
a. The President may schedule a special game session to
accomplish a single, specific task.
b. The need for this task must be supported by either a
poll or through significant support in a discussion.
c. The chat shall be scheduled no earlier than 24 hours
from when the chat was added to the schedule.
d. A turn chat instruction thread must be posted for
this special session, and shall include only:
1. The date and time of the chat, in GMT;
2. A link to the save to be used;
3. The reasons and the support for the chat;
4. The specific action to be take.
5. No other instructions from the Executive or
Legislative branches shall be posted.

-- Ravensfire

Ratification poll as been posted here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74644).

-- Ravensfire