Don´t we need polls before changing our constitution?

I just noticed that our president Duck has made several changes in our constitution. As far as I know the president does not have mandate to do that. Instead he should post polls on every proposed constitutional change for the citizens to discuss and vote on. I urge Duck to follow our rules and post the needed polls in an orderly and democratic manner.

I have to agree with you on this. I am also having some difficulty understanding exactly what he expects of us. If anyone can explain in single-syllable words then I'd be most grateful.

Well you are both right on this ,though i took that initiatif due to the special circumstances our empire is in.If you really demand that i hold poll's for all that stuff i can do that ,but i would have just asked to trust me and let me do these reformation's on my own.

I think these reform's are vital for the future of the game ,in any way they will be incorparated in the CivIII game from the start.
I have no problem with refitting the reform's if anybody had some comment's to change some specific's they didn't liked ,but i didn't got a lot of Feedback on what the people thought of it.

If you still wan't to adapt the reform's ,please break down the point's in my "polls on demand" thread ,so that i can work from there.

Well, that would be a bit hard since I don´t completely understand the changes you propose. I just have a "sense of direction" but do not feel that I know the specifics. Perhaps it would be easier if you first did what Duke suggested and explained everything in a detalied yet simple way. When all details are clear it is time to vote

ok then ,i gona reply on a piece of text Duke wrote in the "poll's on demand" thread to clarify thing's.

So how many polls would we end up with? They'd be polls to hold polls to hold polls. think it'd be better if the polls were forced upon the governors by popular demand. If the governor puts up the province thread with new screenshots of every city and then adds what he/she intends to build there then somone can PM the governor in question and say that they would prefer it if the city built something else and demand that a poll be posted on the subject. For example: the governor of Deimos posts that he/she intends to build a caravan in Sixchan. Someone else notices this on the province thread and PMs the governor saying that we need another musketeer there as this person's feeling paranoid. The governor then posts a poll on the city and includes both options and all others possible and things proceed as normal (Kev and I hijack the poll and vote for caravans, caravans! ).
If however, the governor of Phobos decides that Cornmaster needs city walls and no-one PMs to dispute this then there is no need for another poll and the city walls can be built.

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And that's how it would work.But instead of pm'ing the leader i will start a thread named: "I request a poll for..." ,and in that thread anybody can request a poll for a specific matter (to make it easy).

I propose to begin with the Gouverner's department as test on how this system would work ,meaning that the other department's won't be reformed yet ,but only the gouvernor's department as test.

Originally posted by TheDuckOfFlanders
And that's how it would work.But instead of pm'ing the leader i will start a thread named: "I request a poll for..." ,and in that thread anybody can request a poll for a specific matter (to make it easy).

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I think would be simpler if the concerned citizen just start a thread to bring the issue to our attention. Judging by the response to that thread, the Prez or the relevant official can then decide whether we need to poll or what.

Besides I don't think there'll be many complaints about specifics. We citizens will probably be debating more on a general issue like to be a militaristic or a peaceful civ or shall we attk the Zulus today etc issues. Or building wonders.

So long as we got competent ppl in the govt, day-to-day running shld be fine.

We the citizens will act more like the US Senate, only asking for blood when Enron-proportion disasters happen.

I would suggest the ministers doing something similar to the newest threads by Kev, ie writing what he intends to to and then everybody can comment on it. If the minister notices that several people disagree there could be a poll in the way we used to.

I would not like a system where the ministers play the game and simply tells the rest of us "this is what I decided". I want to at least get a chance to speak my mind before the decision is made.

Originally posted by Mr Spice
I would suggest the ministers doing something similar to the newest threads by Kev, ie writing what he intends to to and then everybody can comment on it. If the minister notices that several people disagree there could be a poll in the way we used to.

I would not like a system where the ministers play the game and simply tells the rest of us "this is what I decided". I want to at least get a chance to speak my mind before the decision is made.

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Sounds good. Let's do it.

Thanks! We still need a poll first though...

No we don't...

I would not like a system where the ministers play the game and simply tells the rest of us "this is what I decided". I want to at least get a chance to speak my mind before the decision is made.

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It was never the intention to have the decission's to be made withought the people being informed of it.In the "poll's on demand" thread i have stated that the Leader's would have to make the decission's prior to playing the next few turn's ,so that the people would know what the decission's are and could comment on it when nessecary.

I dont see anything wrong our new president has done.

Originally posted by Mr Spice
I would suggest the ministers doing something similar to the newest threads by Kev, ie writing what he intends to to and then everybody can comment on it. If the minister notices that several people disagree there could be a poll in the way we used to.

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That is exactly what Ducks ideas meant. Instead of the ministers making a poll for every decision that needs to be made, they post their ideas. Then, if their ideas are agreed to (or no opposing ones made) then that's what they recommend to the Pres. If, however, there are differing ideas, then that is when a poll will be made by them to sort stuff out.

Ducks ideas sound like they will cut out a lot of the unnecessary polls and allow the ministers to make recommendations that can then be discussed. Otherwise, the old way was to post a poll about every issue and let the votes decide it. That made the ministers nothing more than poll monitors. This way they actually present their ideas and can have discussions about them. Polls will only be necessary if an agreement can't be reached.

I have to say that this newer idea has worked well with some of my MOI polls.

I was able to get up some ideas about rush-buying, wonder-building, rate changes, and settling new cities very quickly. Because several are actually tied to one-another, it allowed me to sort of combine them as well.

Under the old method, I'd have to have poll about each settler and what to do with them. I think we lose the big picture with the micro-analysis. Much the same way that each city poll seemed to be totally concerned with the city and not regard any national concern (like wonders).

Now, with the wonder-building, since there was concern about which wonder to build I was able to just poll for that aspect. It was nice, because the poll did NOT have to discuss the method built, the city, etc.

Very efficient work and anyone who wanted to have a say could easily do so.

Another thing that this can bring about is more seriousness and validity to the elections. It will now be important to judge a candidate on his/her ideas and style of play - not how well/how often they can put up polls. Campaigning can have a greater impact on voting as well - which could add some fun to the process.

See, this is something we may not have stumbled on to if we had ALL quit and gone off to start something else.

hey...
dosent duck have the power to close this thread

Pell, why would you want to close this? It is an important discussion. I felt that the changes were brought through to fast, without a thorough discussion and a proper vote. So I decided to hit the emergency break. That is not a crime, is it?

Now when the details are more clear to me I am prepared to support the changes. But even though the outcome is probably clear, we do need to vote about it. We should not let president change the rules on his own, after a short discussion with only a few participants. All citizens deserve a chance to have their say. It should not be possible for someone to accidently not notice one of many discussions and then find out that a drastic change in the rules has taken place. A poll is the proper way to go.

Unfortunately, I think Duck realized that this game was going to hell and something had to be done very quickly. It seemed to me that nobody knew who was doing what, or even who was still here. He made some changes that he hoped would improve the game and keep people here (and maybe even bring new people in).

Besides, he didn't state his changes as 'rule', just ideas. The fact that they make sense and were very easy to implement, along with the support of those who did actually respond, is what made them get used so quickly.

Following his ideas, if you have an idea contrary to it, then ask him to post a poll about them, otherwise, be gald for the good idea and play the game.

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
Besides, he didn't state his changes as 'rule', just ideas. The fact that they make sense and were very easy to implement, along with the support of those who did actually respond, is what made them get used so quickly.

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Yes, he did make them part of the new rules. To clarify: I don´t mind the new ideas, it could be interesting to try them. I don´t even mind the changes in our constitution Duck made to implement those ideas. What I object to is the way it was done. Anyway, I realize that I am totally alone on this and that nothing will be gained by me continuing to be the concerned citizen. So I will drop my request for polls. But I am not happy with the example we have set here. Now that this has been said I won´t bring it up again.

Don't worry about voicing your ideas or opinions, Spice; we are a democracy after all. We can always tolerate a little dissent. Hell, we even tolerate Pellaken.

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