The Free Spirits

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

BCLG100 said:
That still isnt everyone, it is a majority.

It's a hell of alot more than a majority... it's 92% of the vote.

DaveShack · Feb 5, 2006

It is interesting to note that a relatively independent newcomer, who according to anti-party theory should be unable to infiltrate our supposedly party-dominated society, was able to effect such a dramatic change. Could it be perhaps that the premise that parties have undue influence might be founded on a fallacy? :mischief:

One example does not make a proof, we'll have to see if a trend develops. Logically though, it is much easier to show something which is not influenced by party membership than it is to show something which a party does influence, given that we can never show whether individual decisions are in fact driven by the party.

Swissempire · Feb 5, 2006

ya, WOW strider. Chill found a good alternative and presented it after the poll. He Pm'ed people to drum up support and then made a vERY VeRY good case for it. If you can't regonize that, or if you are going to patronize him, thaty is not fair to him or any of us.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

DaveShack said:
It is interesting to note that a relatively independent newcomer, who according to anti-party theory should be unable to infiltrate our supposedly party-dominated society, was able to effect such a dramatic change. Could it be perhaps that the premise that parties have undue influence might be founded on a fallacy?

I might also point out that this relative newcomer is on the membership list of the first post in this thread

. Chill and Sigma are both perfect examples of how you gain reputation. He's doing thing's exactly the way I've been saying.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

Some interesting comments from pass discussions on this issue:

Octavian X said:
I actually think that most people hate me, or are simply unaware of my existance. Very few people have posted support for me in elections, though many are vocal supports of my opponent.

The Strider - EA team, though... Both have won every election they've been in...

Octavian X said:
It has been found that, in Democracy Games, that politcal parties only serve to increase bickering. This causes the game to loose the fun factor, along with the fact that nothing gets done. I believe that our lack of parties has allowed us to reach the state we are in today. Of the democracy games I've seen, Fanatika must have the most stable rule set. Since the current rules have been adopted, we have not experienced a major conflict.

Eyrei said:
The reason political parties are disallowed is to avoid people voting in blocks along party lines. If it happens because people happen to agree with each other, that is fine. If it happens because it is organized, that is another story altogether.

Cyc said:
Now I understand this thread. It took me two pages to realize we weren't talking about the post-election parties we keep forgetting to invite Strider to...

Cyc said:
And the Green party would have never needed to form a party if it weren't a two-party system in the US, that only the rich can play in. Sorry, I don't see the logic in your approach...

Octavian X said:
Since the inception of the Civ3 Democracy Game here at CFC, there has never been a legal political party. We finished the first game in five months. Apolytonia, in its fifth term, is still trudging through the middle ages. Granted, the play was extremely accelerated in that first term. However, when is the last time the game play grinded to a halt because of major disagreements of two groups of people? We have arguments over the science queue every once in a while, but we haven't completely put off a chat.

My point is, our democracy game has run fine without parties, is running fine without parties, and will always run fine without parties. If you want to be in a party, I suggest you go to another demogame, or start your own.

Bill_in_PDX said:
This is a discussion, with intent to drive changes/additions in the laws to prevent the selling or trading of votes using the coinage of the RPG game.

The RPG game is an optional component of the Demo game overall. However, the recent trend toward bartering or outright auctioning of citizen votes is something crosses over from this optional component of our system, to the serious, impacting of the actual game side.

As Judge Advocate, I feel that there is sufficient implied law to support a PI against anyone who encourages bribery, however, I feel that we should directly, within the Code of Laws, mandate against this.

Eyrei said:
Since they are not a necessity for an effective election campaign, I do not see what good they would actually do. I do think that they would cause an unnecessary duplicity in regards to many issues, where those who hold a very valid "third" point of view would not be heard.

And, Neutral leader, it is not a matter of people telling you what is wrong with them, but rather you need to tell us what is so good about them.

Eyrei said:
Like I said, political parties do anything but give the people more say. Those that do not agree with the views of a major party are essentially 'swept under the rug'. It also causes unnecessary discord among the citizenry.

Eyrei said:
It has nothing to do with what someone's title is anyway. If you make a good point, people will probably listen to you. And BTW, a good chunk of our citizens are very new to the game. If you expect that everything you say will be take as gospel, you are going to be disappointed, and I do not mean that in a derogatory sense. Just a little bit of advice. Take it or leave it.

Eklektikos said:
I cannot see political parties being anything but artificially divisive. In the current situation the citizenry need never feel under any obligation to argue a position or cast a vote that conflicts with their beliefs regarding what is in the best interests of the nation. Everyone can state their opinion or make a proposal, whatsoever it may be, to the entire citizenry and know that it stands or falls on its own merits rather than on whether their party commands the greatest support. As a number of my fellow citizens have pointed out in this thread, political parties would just serve to stifle individual voices and IMO could cause citizens who do not belong to the controlling party to leave the demogame due to their effective disenfranchisement. Would you want to bother with a game in which you can have little or no say?
You argue that newer citizens' opinions and ideas do not hold any weight in the demogame, but I certainly did not find that to be the case when I first joined and have not seen any shift towards elitism in the time since. It's not your postcount or the length of time you have been a citizen that determines whether your ideas are taken up around here, but rather the nature of your idea itself and the force of the arguments which you use to advance it. I feel that this is the way the demogame should be, and have no desire to see that way of doing things wiped out by partisanship.

Danke said:
I am against political parties and have a real world example. When in college (some time ago), my friends in the student government and I formed a de facto party to help raise awareness of things we felt were important. In the end we basically controlled the student govt', had no input from anyone else (why bother, as they could *never* win in any issue we opposed) and alienated most of the thoughtful people who would have been involved had we not locked everything up. Sad to say, we also ended up with some positions filled by people who agreed with us, but were not terribly motivated by anything other than being on the winning team. The following year we ditched the party idea, and had an incredible, vibrant, talented, opinionated group, and actually got more done with better, more thought-out discussion. Political Parties in a small community kill good ideas. Plain and simple.

Padma said:
And for input from yet another "mere citizen", let me say that I have absolutely no interest in political parties. Their net effect on the game would be negative, and could reduce our system to a shambles.

Grandmaster said:
Hmm..... anyone who remembers my first thread on political parties will be rather confused.... I find myself having to join the ranks of anti-party debaters. Chalk up one more simple citizen who has had some say in things without being elected... true, nobody listens, but thats beside the point... when I argued for parties upon joining nearly a year ago, I was bombarded with reaons why they shouldn't exist, and having now seen the chaos caused on Apolyton by parties, I agree that they're a bad idea. They might serve only to take away the opinion of new citizens: Little Johhny joins and has no idea what is going on, so he goes into a thread for...say... the Orange Party, and the head of the party says "Johhny vote for (somebody) for president", and so Johhny does w/o knowing who or what hes voting for. Also, I'm sure we all see the threat posed by someone creating a *cough* historically based party.... maybe advocating a certain Industrial Age gov't.... or maybe somebody hoping to take power with the N-word (ain't gonna say it!) Anyway, I hope I've proved my point... if not than at least I've gotten off my daily rant nice and early... thank you all.

Zarn said:
I will not particpate in this demogame, if there were political parties. It ruins the game, and could cause people to hate one another. I cannot express how much I am against this.

AlimightyJosh said:
Just to remind everyone that all players start of small! Of the top of my head, I think Fionn is a reletively new player who quickly rose to acclaim through posting good ideas. I myself plunged head first into Governorship and managed not to screw it up too badly. The very first proposal I made as Gov was defeated 22-6 or something, with the 6 being me and 5 mayors I appointed! So son't be too disheartened if your first few ideas fall flat, it is the fresh inspiration we get from newer players that often drives some of the most fun aspects of the game!!

Ravensfire makes some great points:

Ravensfire said:
I really don't like parties. It's going to end up as a popularity contests, and people will get their feelings hurt. Over politics?

Sorry - that's not right.

The naive assumption that "parties" will somehow increase the popularity of this game is mid-guided at best. The only people who would be attracted are the people I don't want to see in this game. People who want to argue everything, debate everything, demand a vote on everything. While politics will always be partially in this game, as multiple people try to use scarce resources, and as different solutions to the same problem are proposed, that's all I want to see.

This is supposed to be about playing Civ3, not party politics.

Ravensfire said:
I will strongly campaign against either effort - I see no reason to codify such things. In some of the other forums I have read, parties have brought out the worst in people. Posts aren't from a poster, they are from a "party", and this seems to lead to far more polarized arguements. People stake out extreme positions for their party, and refuse to budge on the grounds of "the party".

We don't need that. It won't help. It will become the most divisive element ever to appear in a Demogame on CFC. The past 2 terms have been quite, no PI's and judicial reviews mostly over procedural issues. People are talking, negotiating back and forth and generally working well together. People are putting effort to help everyone succeed - and that is what this game is about. Not parties.

------------------

BTW... half of these quotes were made in a thread that I posted, I was attempting to bring political parties into the demogame. It was back when I was 15 years old... stupid.... immature, and everyone thought of me as more like they're kid. :lol:

Swissempire · Feb 5, 2006

ANd all that was about the Civ3 demogame. This is the Civ 4, and there is a different government, different people and a different style. I think people gave political parties a chance, and then lked them. No one has miss used them and they add a lot of fun to the game. Again, if you don't agree with political parties, don't join them, but don't ruin the majorities fun and tell us to disband and then either conform to your system or leave!!

The evident hipocracy in most of your arguements is quite... :eek:

Swissempire · Feb 5, 2006

i found some good arguements from when we were dicussing political parties pre-game. Soem of the are from the Same sources as yours

Theduckofflanders said:
However ,as such thing's go ,from the moment it goes a little wrong the moderaters will intervene and i would more than agree with them.We can however experiment with it ,and it could prove to be fun to ,however we can only have one experiment ,when it fails party's will never be into the Demo game.So if we go into this route i would urge the veteran players to share their view on how such politics should be directed as to create a constructive and fun enviroment.

Octavian X said:
Let's get rid of this no-political party nonsense. We're all operating on a fear that's several years old, of conflict generated by parties way back with the Civ2 demogame was new. People will inevitably come into conflict, and as several successive games have shown, that will heat up no matter what happens. Political parties will only be a representation of conflict that exists already.

We all have opinions that line up pretty much along the same lines as they have before. Why not formalize those opinions in statements of party platforms? At least that way, elections will have some clearer conflicting issues, and new players can come in and see where some players stand based on party membership.

Because elections are always (and must remain, incidentally) private, block voting for candidates can't be enforced. People can and will feel free to differ from party's nominee. Does a party seem to dominate elections? It's not because of size, it's because those people are the best candidates, and because more people happen to agree with the stances that party takes. If you're in the minority, well, that's democracy for you. Besides, with parties or without, no matter how good a candidate he is, Joe Newbie who joined up a week ago will always lose to someone like Chieftess.

Allowing political parties will not cause the universe to end - indeed, given the ineffective nature of Citizen Groups, I actually doubt that a stable, active party organization can exist in these forums, and most will probably die out after a few terms. My point is that citizens should be given this freedom to organize poltically as they see fit, irregardless of old prejudices.

Donsig said:
I'm also in favor of allowing political parties. The only reason they were banned throughout the Civ III demogames is because of something that happened in a Civ II demogame that didn't even (as far as I know) involve anyone who's been active in the Civ III demogames. It's time we try 'em.

Alphawolf said:
It is an individual's choice to join a party in the first place. I don't think that anyone should be penalized for not joining a party, but by the same token people who join parties shouldn't be penalized either.

Provolution said:
I REALLY REALLY REALLY and absolutely REALLY hated the political correctness of past demogames. There are always voting blocs, and banning them in order to satisfy an established veteran elite that already had covered all bases by mapping tendencies, allegiances and friendships, they got a leg up on newbees, that was already thrown into the fray by the established blocs in the shadows.

UnitQ said:
See, political parties are organizations that try to get there veiws and ideas into government. A citizens group is a organization that makes a part of civ demo game better in ther own ways. So i can see citizen groups as political parties and they should be like that. For example if there is a reiligious citizen group that is tring to get, lets say Hinduism as the civs state reliogon but there is another religious group that wants confucianism they would have to get one of there own as the religous advisor instead of the other one, just like a political party.

Gotta go watch the Super Bowl, but more coming!!

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

Swissempire said:
ANd all that was about the Civ3 demogame. This is the Civ 4, and there is a different government, different people and a different style. I think people gave political parties a chance, and then lked them. No one has miss used them and they add a lot of fun to the game. Again, if you don't agree with political parties, don't join them, but don't ruin the majorities fun and tell us to disband and then either conform to your system or leave!!

The evident hipocracy in most of your arguements is quite...

Oh my god... my respect for you has now gone to nothing. I have never told you to disband... I have never told you to conform to my system or leave. Your ignorance has gone to far.

You actually have the balls, to tell me that I'm ruining the game? How? I've done nothing to the game yet!

Fine, you wanted to <snip>... then your get <snip>. I'm done playing nice, I'm done trying to do this the non-aggressive way.

I still have respect for Ravensfire, although I doubt he knows this, because he has a good way of placing a mirror infront of you. Sure, I think he disagree's with me only because it's me... and not because of the actual idea, but atleast he shows me what I could be doing to help. Unluckily, most of the time I get to pissed off at the end of the discussion... that I simply just refuse to do it.

Your not doing this to help, anybody.... well.. except yourself.

-----------

It's about time we pull our heads out of our asses and take some god damn responsibility. Political parties are selfish, immature little creations that only bring those who wish to bicker and destroy. Your fun destroys the fun of others! You want proof of this, then read up inside of the thread! There is already proof of it! Your lies, your slander, it's disgusting! I have done nothing to you untill this point, I even publically gave you my respect. Now, you wish to slander me, for what? What are you afraid of?

Oh.. that's right. Your afraid to stand alone, or are you afraid that you just won't get elected on your personality alone?

My point has been proven, with the mere existance of this debate.

There are 11 threads on the first page of the citizens forum that concerns the game of Civ IV we are playing. Guess how many threads they're are per page? 45... yes... only 11 of 45 threads is actually about the game. You want to take a guess as to why that is?

The focus is no longer about the game, so why do we even have a Democracy Game?

Moderator Action: Strider - Warned for a member-specific post, language and flaming. - Rik
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

BCLG100 · Feb 5, 2006

Strider said:
The focus is no longer about the game, so why do we even have a Democracy Game?

For fun and if thats there way of having fun then let them have fun with there way, if you have fun in a different way there is no reason why the demogame cannot accomadate the two seperate ideas.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

BCLG100 said:
For fun and if thats there way of having fun then let them have fun with there way, if you have fun in a different way there is no reason why the demogame cannot accomadate the two seperate ideas.

Unless the political parties are distracting from the game, scaring away those that would be actually interested in the game, etc. so I can no longer have my fun.

BCLG100 · Feb 5, 2006

Strider said:
Unless the political parties are distracting from the game, scaring away those that would be actually interested in the game, etc. so I can no longer have my fun.

Well you see to my eyes it seems like the majority of the people thus far prefer how things are working right now, so unless you can prove otherwise there seems no reason to change for the minority.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

BCLG100 said:
Well you see to my eyes it seems like the majority of the people thus far prefer how things are working right now, so unless you can prove otherwise there seems no reason to change for the minority.

Look up... the proof is already there.

ravensfire · Feb 5, 2006

Put it to the test then, Strider. Create a thread for the following Constitutional Amendment.

Renumber Article B.3 to Article B.4

New Clause:
Article B.3. The formation of Political Parties or Slate Voting is not allowed.

-- Ravensfire

BCLG100 · Feb 5, 2006

Strider said:
Look up... the proof is already there.

well just how many people have joined your 'group', theres my proof.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

ravensfire said:
Put it to the test then, Strider. Create a thread for the following Constitutional Amendment.

No need to ban political parties completely, just the corruption in them. Slate voting.

I'm up for it.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

Okay, wait up. According to the constitution, you don't even need a discussion before you amend it? All it says is that it requries a majority of votes in a poll that is public and open for 4 days.

ravensfire · Feb 5, 2006

Continue on to sub-clause A, and remember that procedures are lower forms.

A lower form of law may specify a procedure which must be followed to amend the Constitution.

-- Ravensfire

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

ravensfire said:
Continue on to sub-clause A, and remember that procedures are lower forms.

Yeah... so that's basically telling me I've got to go somewhere else to find out where to amend the constitution, but it doesn't tell me where I need to go?

That's like putting a sign up that tells you the sign has sharp edges.

BCLG100 · Feb 5, 2006

Strider said:
No need to ban political parties completely, just the corruption in them. Slate voting.

I'm up for it.

Well just how could you possibly ban slate voting??? there is simply no way.

Strider · Feb 5, 2006

BCLG100 said:
Well just how could you possibly ban slate voting??? there is simply no way.

It's been banned before... say organized slate voting if it makes you feel fuzzier.

-------------

Still... where the hell is the law that tells you how to amend the constitution?

The Free Spirits

In Retrospect

Inventor

Poet Jester

In Retrospect

In Retrospect

Poet Jester

Poet Jester

In Retrospect

Music Master

In Retrospect

Music Master

In Retrospect

Member of the Opposition

Music Master

In Retrospect

In Retrospect

Member of the Opposition

In Retrospect

Music Master

In Retrospect

Similar threads