the "book of regulations" (constitution) - discussion

As we saw from many posts, it will be best for our nation to split the rules to different books. This thread will serve as a discussion point of what should be in the "book of regulations".
This book should contain the "how do we ..."'s of the game, like chat-rules, poll rules, poll quorums etc. The detailing of the game principles should be in the "book of laws".

The pro/con discussion of splitting the constitution should be spawned to other threads (see below) and kept to minimum in here to avoid clutter.

Citizen discussion: Veto of Amendment 1
Demogame Concerns - Citizen discussion encouraged
Citizen Discussion : Article 5. Veto Provisions

Poll:split the constitution? (informational)
splitting the constitution - how can that work?
the "book of regulations" (constitution) - discussion
the "book of laws" (constitution) - discussion
the "book of principles" (constitution) - discussion

reserved for summarization of rules we complied on

difference of the books:
book of principles: hard to change (citizen+cabinet poll)
book of law: easy to change (citizen poll)
book of regulations: easy to change (citizen poll)
maybe the outcome will be that the last two will be one.

ranking of books:
principles->laws->regulations
this means for example a rule in the "book of laws" has to comply to the rules in the "book of principles".

remember:
* the rules here should be easy to change
* they should not contain any game principles
* they should be regulations on how we do things

I suggest that if we do go to a division into three books then the regulations book should be the easiest to change of all and should not even need a citizen poll to make changes. That book should be reserved for things it is appropriate for government officials to change on their own initiative.

i thought of this book more like a "the chats are scheduled on saturdays" or "the chats are on #civfanatics" "the polls need a minimum of 13 votes to be valid" kind of book.
the book of law would then be "you are not allowed to do this and that"... so a citizen poll is the minimum.
example:

to post a chat schedule till sunday for the following week is a rule of the regulations-book->citizen poll
the chat schedule itself is a normal government-announcment->no poll

I'm glad you brought up the turn chat schedule as an example dis.

Anyone remember the 24 hour notice rule? That caused us to postpone a few turn chats because Grey Fox wasn't always able to get the notice up in time. That rule was terrible, but since it was in the constitution it couldn't be ignored.
The constitution should say the demo game is played using a turn chat and that sufficient notice of the turn chat schedule must be given. Period. It should then be up to the president to set that schedule. After one information poll to determine what *sufficient notice* is life can go on. This is flexible and allows the president to set a regular schedule or to make weekly notifications of the turn chat or 24 notice, which ever is best for him or her. As long a sufficient notice is given then all is well.

Some things must be decided fast and citizen input isn't required. We should figure out what those things are and let the government officials handle them as they see fit.

so thats the proposal:
principles: a chat schedule must be given with sufficient notice
regulations: a chat schedule must be posted in this thread to a latest of sunday of the week before it will be active. if not posted in time, the previous schedule will stay active.

where is the problem? no problem. just for the regulations book, we would need a citizen poll to change. this will be a 2 day offset (3 day if you like to be nice).
changis the priciple for it would be a 3day+5day council offset.
i think we do not have to decide anything faster than 3 days?

the other thing is:
what does "sufficient" mean? do you follow real-life processes? with laws like this we will soon need a horde of lawyers.
in my sense, sufficient is 1h before the chat. like "hey, in 1h we will have a chat. and who is not there->his problem!"
the 24h rule was not in there from the beginning. the beginning was: no rule. which resulted in most of the chats not being attended by many ppl because they did not know in time. the 24h rule was too much, though it only said minimim 24h in advance, which could also have been a regular schedule. but we changed it in only 1 week and we missed exactly 1(!!!) chat due to it.

and something else:
do you really want to take decisions like these away from citizenry? at a time when many citizens leave because they think our administration has too much power?

Take the Constitution of the US as an example. The actual articles and amendments are purposely left vague so they can be interpreted in different ways as the needs of the nation change. The majority of the Bill of Rights is not interpreted today in anything vaguely like the original specific intent. It's all still working though because the founding fathers built in enough "wiggle room" to allow these reinterpretations while keeping the document itself intact.

well, dont always take us as example because many things there dont work at all (is the us really a democratic regime? ... many other things caused by vague rules).
shouldnt we be better? remember how old the us constitution is and why they changed it in all states they could later on dictate a constitution.

No, the US is not a Democracy in the Athenian sense. We're more properly categorized as a Representational Republic. A good chunk of the the problems in our laws stems from the attempt to give autonomy to the states and the friction this causes between differing state and federal legislatures. This is something that we don't have to worry about in our game.

Sure, we want to do better. I was just showing that that a little ambiguity in the highest level document is a good thing. It allows interpretation in the laws so different things can be tried without changing the Constitution.

Trivia Question: How many states are there in the United States of America? (hint - it's not 50)

so there you are right. for the document of "principles" all should be very vague.

we should maybe spawn this discussion to the apropriete thread (how can this work?) see above.

another idea for a regulations rule:
* turn chat schedules are announced in the government-subforum on the presidential thread by the president or the vice-president
* if a new schedule is not posted in time, the old schedule continues to be valid for the week.

Originally posted by Shaitan


Trivia Question: How many states are there in the United States of America? (hint - it's not 50)

Click to expand...

I guess that depends upon your definition of a state.

For example, Virginia is a Commonwealth, but it is a state as defined in the constitution (i.e. it gets voting representation in the Senate and House, rights to make it's own political districts, etc...)

Washington DC is not a state obviously, and it doesn't get a voting representative, though there is a representative for DC, as there is for PR, Virgin Islands, and Guam I believe.

Or maybe I am missing your whole point?

Bill
...in PDX

You got it Bill. By their own Constitutions, several "states" are not states at all.

Another regulation proposal:
There are three kinds of polls (these are defined in book of law), which are regulated this way:

Cabinet Poll:
* The single majority of the Cabinet-Members must accept
* Duration 1 week
* A minimum of 50% of the Cabinet-Members must have given a vote for the Poll being valid
* Abstain Option must be included
* Quorum Rules have to be met (Abstain count for quorum)
* ...

Majority Citizen Poll:
* Of the given votes for the Poll, 50% must be Yes to accept the poll.
* Abstain Option must be included
* Minimum Poll-Duration is 5 days
* Quorum Rules have to be met (Abstain count for quorum)

Normal Citizen Poll:
* Single Majority of votes needed
* Abstain Option must be included
* Minimum Poll-Duration is 2 days
* Quorum Rules have to be met (Abstain count for quorum)

Example for the 2 Citizen Polls:
Let the quorum for citizen polls be 15 (example).
a)
A Citizen Poll had 25 votes.
10 were yes, 5 were no, 15 were abstain.
This vote would be valid because quorum-rules were met (>15 votes)
This poll would result in an accept for normal citizen poll (10yes>5no), but would result in decline for majority citizen poll (10<12, where 12 is 50% of 25)

b)
A Citizen Poll had 13 votes.
10 were yes, 2 were no, 1 was abstain.
The vote would be invalid because the quorum was not met (<15 votes).

I know this sounds complicated, but think about it. It is easier than including the cabinet in every decision and gives us 3 levels of voting for our 3 books.

We've also got the option now of true popularity polls (inclusive instead of exclusive polling).